iuhoopsburbs

IU Hoops and The 'Burbs
Clark Sheffield

My disappointment with Indiana Hoosiers basketball this year can best be likened to that of Art and Ray when they break into the Klopek’s home, only to find a souped-up furnace and a natural gas line. Like the Hoosiers, every indication was that big things were getting ready to happen in Hinkley Hills.
Like many other IU basketball fans, I experienced a great deal of disillusionment with this past season and I have searched for ways to cope with my anger and frustration. So I did what any semi-intelligent and well-adjusted man would do: I related it to a movie. A hoops flick just wouldn’t do the trick though. While contrasting Hoosiers to Above the Rim might seem to provide an apt comparison to the past season, I knew I had to search elsewhere.
As with any cinematic pondering, my attention immediately turned to Corey Feldman. Perhaps best know for his roles as Mouth and Corey Haim’s ambiguously gay sidekick in so many 80’s flicks, I think of him first as Ricky Butler, which conjures images of just one movie: The ‘Burbs.

As the season progressed, I was lifted to great heights and drug to sickening lows. One moment I was watching IU take on the persona of Hans Klopek as they dragged Purdue out to the curb like garbage bags and beat the hell out of them with a stick. In another, I was watching my team stumble out of Evanston like Ray Peterson from the towering inferno that was once Casa de Klopek.
Or then you have the Michigan State tilt, when IU came out like military-vet-turned-scary-militia-guy-neighbor Mark Rumsfield throwing a slide tackle at Hans Klopek. I could almost hear DJ White with his hand around Alan Anderson’s throat saying, “I was 18 months in the bush, sonny, and I could snap your neck in a heartbeat.”
Ah, but my elation was short-lived. The Wisconsin game conjured a completely different image. Despite every effort to throw the game away, IU was playing the Badgers dead even. But, just as when Rumsfield comes running to the aid of his bee-stung neighbors with hose in hand, the slack runs out and he is yanked flat on his ass.

I would listen to press conferences and sound bites, hearing Mike Davis refer to the UNC Charlotte game a a win. I heard him repeat ad nauseum that IU deserved a Tourney berth based on their standing as the 4 seed in the Big 10 tournament. I found myself chanting to drown out the noise: “I’m not going to listen to this, I’m not going to hear this now. I want to kill everyone. Davis is good, Davis is our pal.”

Like Carole Peterson, too many Hoosier fans are playing the role of enabler. They believe the rest of us are just overreacting and they think that we should all just take a vacation and head up to the lake. The oddities and abnormalities are surely just a product of our over-active imagination. Maybe if we’d take the time to sit down and look at things from Mike Davis’s point of view, we’d understand a little better.
Is it possible, though, to relate to a coach who is trying to translate Warren Moon’s run and shoot offense to the hardwood? Of course not, no more than it is possible to relate to a homocidal foreign neighbor whose nephew sports a red neck-beard that shames Bill Walton’s.
Then there is the inevitable argument that “Coach Davis took IU to the title game 3 years ago.” Ah yes, the Carol Petersons of the world carry this retort around in their back pockets for ready use. Davis’s early success, though, is just like when when the neighbors get together to visit the Klopeks for the first time. Hans greets them and Rumsfield questions him about the contents of a fallen picture frame. “Pretty girl. Friend of yours?” “No, it, it came with the frame.” Yes, Mike, it came with the frame.
I can’t say that I’m really looking forward to next year. Maybe with Killingsworth and Steijn (what is that, Slavic?), we’ve got a shot. Maybe someone will find a stash of human skeletal remains in Mike Davis’s trunk and perform a citizen’s arrest. Or maybe IU basketball will simply fade into relative obscurity like The ‘Burbs, to be remembered and cherished by a few true fans for its former and (fingers crossed) future brilliance.