Indiana Loses Game, Cuts Down Nets Anyway

Ferris12 years ago

Someone may want to tell Indiana that you’re only supposed to cut down the nets after a win.

After a tough 67-58 loss to Ohio State on Tuesday night, the Indiana Hoosiers remained in Assembly Hall until after midnight to break out the ladders and cut down the nets.

It’s not like they didn’t have a reason to be cutting down the nets, though. After Sunday, when Wisconsin and Michigan State both lost their games, the Hoosiers were at least guaranteed to tie for the league title regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s game. Unfortunately, the “at least” scenario is exactly what happened.

Following the net cutting, there was a presentation ceremony for the Big Ten championship trophy, along with championship hats for the players.

Had the Hoosiers managed to beat Ohio State, however, they would have won their first outright title for the Big Ten in 20 years. I don’t really know if it was just Ohio State being that much better than Indiana or if Indiana just stopped caring once they knew they’d win the title regardless, but that’s just a disappointing outcome for Indiana fans and fans of college basketball in general.

This is the side of sports that people don’t make movies about. No one wants to see a movie about a team that loses their final home game of the season, on Senior Night, but still wins the trophy anyway. We either want to see them lose outright and be looking forward to the next year (Bad News Bears, Friday Night Lights) or we want to see them actually win the important game (Rudy, The Replacements, Hoosiers).

And apparently this wasn’t lost on Indiana coach Tom Crean:

“This is the epitome of bittersweet,” coach Tom Crean said, when his press conference finally got underway at roughly 1:40 a.m. ET. “We’re trying to celebrate what these guys have earned, and at the same time we didn’t earn it tonight.”

Congrats on the title, Indiana, but until you guys show up at the NCAA tourney and prove you deserve to be there, the 1986 Gene Hackman film remains my favorite version of the Hoosiers.

[via Yahoo! Sports]