SOMEWHERE IN INDIANA — Welcome to a most compelling college sports Saturday in the 19th state in the union. Wear comfortable shoes. This is going to take some hopping around.
Would you believe the No. 1 basketball team in the nation losing in the afternoon and, barely more than an hour down the road, the No. 1 football team losing at night? Or two blue-blooded basketball neighbors going at it, and the game starts 16-0? Or the team that plays at the fastest tempo in college basketball hitting the gas pedal in one of the hardest-to-find Division I home courts in America, and being held 35 points under its average? A broadcaster of more than half a century working a basketball game in the afternoon and then going down the street to do a football game at night, because he wouldn’t dream of missing either, so long as his 79-year-old voice holds up?
All that in 15 hours Saturday, and it won’t take five gallons of gas to see it all.
One extraordinary day in Indiana...
West Lafayette, 9 a.m.
This campus has already had a big week in college sports. Just across from Mackey Arena and the John Wooden statue, the women volleyballers hosted and won the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament to a packed house of 2,400 fans. The Boilermakers are working on three years of solid sellouts and the season ticket waiting list goes back more than four years — only two people cleared the waiting list for this season. Holloway Gymnasium is the Augusta National of women’s volleyball.
But volleyball’s work for the week is done (the Indiana women won their own second round match for the first time in 15 years) and now just across the sidewalk, hundreds of students are already standing in line three hours before tipoff in 30-degree temperatures, eager to watch the No. 1 men’s basketball team in the land. It’ll be top-ranked Purdue vs. No. 10 Iowa State in the first top-10 non-conference matchup in Mackey Arena in 16 years. Both programs are 8-0 and pretty adept at this non-conference business. Since the start of the 2021-22 season, they’re a combined 99-9 against non-league opponents. .
Iowa State hasn’t played here in 38 years, so do these Cyclones understand the hothouse they’re wandering into? When Mackey is juiced, the environment is like standing next to a runway listening to jumbo jets take off. The crowd roar has hit 124 decibels and the students are seated at both ends, so there is no escape for the visitors, no matter which basket they’re going for. That’s one of the reasons why Purdue is 66-2 in its last 68 non-conference home games. The last loss was 2019.
But there were disquieting signs early. Purdue has all that thunder on its side but can’t get more than five points ahead, giving Iowa State time to grow acclimated. During the first media timeout, NBA star Tyrese Haliburton is introduced on the video board, sitting courtside. With all he did to push the Indiana Pacers to the NBA Finals last June, he’s a state hero. But what’s that he’s wearing? An Iowa State jacket? Sure, he played there.
“I don’t know if they cheered for him or booed for him,” Iowa State guard Tamin Lipsey would say later.
Yeah, the fans seemed a little confused. As the game goes on, so does their basketball team.
Iowa State ends up destroying the Boilermakers 81-58, matching the worst loss ever for a No. 1 team on its own court. Purdue hadn’t trailed by 20 at home since February 2020 and this was the Boilermakers’ worst loss at home in nearly 13 years.
DOWN GOES NO. 1: Iowa State dismantles No. 1 Purdue in historic fashion
"It was kind of an avalanche," coach Matt Painter said, and had a several other descriptions of the carnage as well.
"I just thought they stole our spirit.”
“This is not an easy place to play and they came in here and took it to us.”
“It was a smorgasbord of you can’t put your finger on it, because it’s a lot of different things.”
Iowa State has done this before. Coach T.J. Otzelberger is now 3-1 against No. 1 opponents with the Cyclones and in 2024, they walloped top-ranked Houston by 28 points. What to think of this team after blowing away Purdue 46-27 in the second half? Milan Momcilovic, who scored 20 points, “you gotta be scared to play us,” said after the win.
Next? Just 75 minutes down the road takes us to...
Hinkle Fieldhouse at 2 p.m.
Butler’s home has been renowned for its charm since they opened the place in 1928, especially for day games with the sunlight coming through the windows in the roof. The banners at the end recall the remarkable runs of 2010 and ’11, the Bulldogs being the only team in the past 32 years to lose back-to-back national championship games.
But life in the Big East has been hard for Butler lately, and alum Thad Matta has spent four years trying to rekindle the good times in his second stint as coach. This school is in Matta's blood; both his wife and two daughters are Butler alums as well. The Bulldogs were 47-53 the past three years, but this team, full of new faces, has started 7-1 and beaten South Carolina and Virginia. Maybe this is where Matta gets second wind in a career that included taking two Ohio State teams to the Final Four.
CATCH UP: Live scores and stats for every basketball game
“We’re really hungry,” Jamie Kaiser said, one of the new faces. “We all have a chip on our shoulder and something to prove. They picked us 10th in the Big East.”
Boise State is in town seeing Hinkle for the first time. The arena is nearly full and Butler’s live bulldog mascot, Blue IV, is on the court as always for starting lineups, though he seems mostly interested in his bone. This would be a nice win for the Bulldogs, who are 87-5 in their past 92 non-conference home games.
But Boise State flips the script. Butler goes from 6:49 left to the final 13 seconds without scoring a point. That settles it, 77-68.
Barely five miles away, if you can find it, you’ll walk into
The Jungle, 2:45 p.m.
Yeah, this place is famous, all right. No, not the second-floor basketball gym which seats 1,200 and is hard for first-time visitors to find. But just across the hall is the IU Natatorium, a gleaming swimming facility that has hosted a bunch of Olympic trials. The Hall of Fame pictures on the wall in the hallway are not basketball players, but pool legends such as Mark Spitz and Lilly King.
The Jungle is not quite so renowned, which is why a new arena is being built a couple of blocks away, across the street from the headquarters of the NCAA. But the arena has turned lively since Ben Howlett arrived this year from DII West Liberty to coach, bringing along four of his players and his style of offense, which is faintly akin to a fire drill. The Jaguars might be 3-7 to start the day, but boring? They ain’t. They have played at the fastest tempo in the DI universe — the fastest in seven years, for that matter — and are leading the nation with 74.8 shots and 21.6 assists per game. They’re also fifth in turnovers forced and 25th in scoring at 90.2. Four years ago, they were ranked 350th and last in the nation in scoring at 52.4. Now, they press, run, sometimes sub five at a time. There has been an IU Indy shot taken or opponent turnover forced every 25.8 seconds.
“We have guys that play really hard. That’s kind of the M.O. of our style of play and our system,” Howlett said, whose teams at West Liberty averaged 101 points a game. “Sometimes there doesn’t look like there’s a rhyme or reason out there but there is. We always say when the game gets sloppy and the game gets intense with more possessions we tend to get better."
“Who doesn’t like points? I’ve never had a recruit say they want to play slowdown basketball.”
With such an unconventional tone, it is no surprise that IU Indy might be the nation’s leader in left-handers with seven on the roster. But Youngstown State is thoroughly unfazed by all this. Taking control from the start, the Penguins shut down the IU Indy track meet to coast 78-55.
A mile or so east...
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Gainbridge Fieldhouse, 3:15 p.m.
It’s nearly halftime of the Indiana-Louisville game and the full house is tilted more toward the Hoosiers, but why do the customers seem a tad muted? The box score explains why. Louisville started the game with a 16-0 lead. The Cardinals would never be caught and finish off the Hoosiers 87-78.
Both these teams have made recent coaching changes in hopes of better days. Can it be possible that Indiana and Louisville, with eight national championships and 18 Final Fours between them, have won a combined three NCAA tournament games the past nine years? Yep. But here they came Saturday, each 7-1, both ranked and trying to atone for their first defeats this week.
Louisville is the one that does it, in a downtown flooded with fans headed for this game or the Big Ten football title contest, or both. Indiana red, Louisville red, Ohio State red. Red everywhere.
"This is an unbelievably exciting day in (Indianapolis),” Cardinals coach Pat Kelsey said, who in his first two years has taken Louisville from a two-season implosion of 12-52 to 27 wins last season and an 8-1 start and No. 6 ranking this one. “There was a buzz in the city and there was a buzz tonight.”
Feeling that buzz, too, is the guy upstairs on radio row, calling the game for Indiana. Don Fischer has done play-by-play for the Hoosiers for 53 years but has never had a day quite like this one, when Indiana is hoping to knock off a ranked basketball opponent in the afternoon and — a 15-minute walk away — win its first Big Ten football title in 58 years at night. He’s working both games at the age of 79. After decades of IU football futility, he’s not about to miss this chance.
Fischer’s voice shows no sign of fading, “and I hope it won’t by the time we get halfway through this football game."
“I was looking forward to this. I didn’t know if I was going to make it. You never know if you’re going to get a cold or something. I’ve been very healthy and I thank the good Lord for that because I’m a fool and an idiot in many respects in how I go about my business on a daily basis. I’m just having fun right now.”
Fischer said it still bothers him he has never been able to call an Indiana game in the Rose Bowl since the Hoosiers’ only appearance was 1967. So long ago it was even before his time. But should Indiana win this night, “there’s still a chance for me.”
With basketball over, an IU police escort is waiting to drive Fischer four blocks down the street to...
Lucas Oil Stadium, 7 p.m.
Santa Claus is bargaining outside with one of the ticket scalpers. No word if the man in the costume ended up getting a Kris Kringle discount, but it’s clear everyone wants to see this game.
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It’s No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana, a battle of college football’s last unbeatens, and so much is on the table. The Big Ten championship, top seed in the College Football Playoff, maybe the Heisman with both quarterbacks as top contenders. The Buckeyes are always hanging around moments like this, but Indiana? The Hoosiers have never been in the Big Ten title game before, haven’t won a bowl game since 1991 and haven’t beaten Ohio State since 1988, losing 30 meetings in a row. The last time the Buckeyes lost to the Hoosiers, gas was 96 cents a gallon, Ronald Reagan was in the White House and current Ohio State coach Ryan Day was in elementary school.
But now Indiana is on this field, with this chance. The power of coach Curt Cignetti and his transfer portal assembly line. “Totally surreal,” Fischer had put it.
It ends up even more surreal. The No. 2 and 12 scoring offenses in the country engage in a pitcher’s duel and Indiana ends three decades of Buckeyes' dominance with a 13-10 win for its first outright Big Ten title since 1945. Ohio State is bedeviled by red zone ruin, stopped on 4th-and-1 at the Indiana five-yard line in the third quarter and missing a 27-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. The quarterbacks who are presumed Heisman front-runners can produce but one touchdown each, though the Hoosiers’ Fernando Mendoza likely completes enough important passes to clinch his trophy.
Nobody with IU blood cares about the low score, anyway. The Hoosiers keep shocking the college football universe, that’s the main thing. Funny, though. The two teams leave the field understanding they might have to do this all over again next month.
So our tour ends here, with Purdue about to be voted out of the top spot in basketball, with Louisville’s hoop revival seemingly ahead of Indiana’s, with the four state schools we visited going 0-4. And with Indiana — neither Ohio State nor Georgia nor the other eternal powers — ranked No. 1 going into the College Football Playoff. “It only counts if you finish there,” Cignetti said, and adds to the crowd “you talk about changing the way people think (about Indiana) I’ve got three-and-a-half weeks to get this team humble and hungry for the playoffs.”
Don Fischer will probably be getting his Rose Bowl trip.
All this football magic during the 50th anniversary season of IU’s perfect-record national basketball champions. One day in Indiana ends with a sense of karma at work.
