The fact IU basketball can fill up Assembly Hall by having a DJ, pyrotechnics and some skill competitions is all the proof you need to show how much Indiana loves its basketball.
Hoosier Hysteria is a show and a boring one at that. The event feeds off how crazed people in Indiana are for IU basketball. There is no reason most of the 17,222 seats in Assembly Hall should be filled for this type of event.
The most exciting part of the whole event are the player introductions, and IU wasn’t even able to get that part right Saturday.
During the most anticipated part of the event, the men’s basketball introductions, the crew in Assembly Hall got a little excited with the fire and smoke buttons and set off the fire alarm. Even with the alarms going off, most people remained in their seats because they weren’t going to miss any IU basketball — and because there was clearly no real danger.
I don’t know if it’s funny or sad, but the five minutes of confusion when the fire alarms were going off and the players were standing on the court not knowing what to do was the most memorable moment of the whole afternoon.
Sure, the competitions are mildly entertaining to watch, but even the players didn’t show any energy or do anything to create excitement. Sophomore Damezi Anderson looked like he was sleep-walking on the court during the three-point competition. I had to ask two people to remind me who won the skills competition — it was juniors Joey Brunk and Ali Patberg if you were wondering — and the only play that stood out in the scrimmage was a turnaround jumper from redshirt-freshman Jerome Hunter, who missed all of last year with a leg injury.
In two weeks, almost nobody will remember anything that happened at this year’s Hoosier Hysteria besides the fire alarm going off and maybe that freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis won the dunk contest.
It’s not like this was just a down year for Hoosier Hysteria. This was my third year going to the event, and it was probably the most exciting one I’ve been to. The DJ was actually a nice touch, having a giant video screen and pyrotechnics for the players to walk through was cool, but the whole event still fell flat.
Yet Assembly Hall is filled year after year just to see the spectacle that is IU basketball. I guess Hysteria is the right word.
