On The Eve Of The Tournaments, Some Basketball Trivia & Tibits
It’s been over a century since that first state high school basketball tournament, and the Hoosier State does not appear to be slowing down.
-Sectionals of the 103rd Annual Boys State Tournament tips off this week at schools throughout the state.
-Having recently wrapped up Semi-States, the 38th Annual Girls Basketball State Tournament awaits the finals on March 2nd in Terre Haute.
-College basketball’s regular season is entering its final two weeks before conference tournaments begin.
So to get ready for Hoosier Hysteria and March Madness, here are some basketball-related tidbits about our state:
- Coach John Wooden
Successful Hoosiers at All Levels
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Perhaps the most famous coach in all of basketball – Martinsville, Indiana’s own John Wooden – played and coached in the Indiana state basketball tournament. His Martinsville high school team appeared in three state championship games, winning in 1927. After a brief coaching stint in Dayton, Kentucky, Wooden coached South Bend Central High School for nine years. His high school coaching record? A staggering 218-42.
- Bedford North Lawrence and Indiana University star Damon Bailey appears twice in the top 15 season scoring leaders. He followed up his 872-point effort in 1987-88 with a 972-point state championship season in 1989-90.
- Steve Alford has had March Madness success throughout his career. In 1982-83, he scored 1,078 points for his New Castle team – one shy of the all-time record. In 1986-87, he helped his Indiana University team to its fifth national championship. And as a coach, he’s taken three different schools to the NCAA tournament: Southwest Missouri State, Iowa, and New Mexico.
High School Tournament Trivia
- The first organized state basketball tournament was held in 1911, a mere 20 years after the sport’s invention by Dr. James A. Naismith.
- Muncie Central, the school that opposed Milan High School in the famed 1954 state championship game that inspired the movie Hoosiers, has the most all-time state championships, with 8 – all of which came in the single-class tournament.
- Of schools that have won multiple state championships, Bloomington South holds the record for the longest span of time in between titles: 90 years (1919-2009).
- 13 of the 15 largest high school gymnasiums in the country are located in Indiana. Most would be sufficiently sized for a college basketball team.
Indiana College Trivia
-There are 10 Division 1 college basketball teams in Indiana – 6 public and 4 private.
-Indiana University leads all colleges in the state with 36 tournament appearances, capped off by 5 national championships.
-IPFW has never been to the NCAA tournament. It has only played Division 1 sports since 2001.