Peace and love, peace and love, I bring good tidings and wishes for your holiday season. And I am warning you with peace and love but I have too much to do. And I am tired of dealing with silly, delusional, Hoosier fans.
You know, I really did not plan on doing a “What I hate About You” column for the Indiana game because I really did not see the point. It’s fun to do them on Louisville because at least Louisville is somewhat relevant nationally and they are consistently ranked in the top twenty. Sadly, I can’t say the same about Indiana and I really can’t remember the last time I spent much time thinking about the Indiana Hoosiers. If Louisville is our little brother, Indiana is that distant third cousin from the weird side of the family that no one really mentions until they show up for Thanksgiving dinner in their second hand RV, who went “all Hollywood” on the rest of the clan because they scored a gig as extras in “The Hills have Eyes III”. Awkward.
So I was going to let Indiana week pass without a column …. until Twitter happened. Unfortunately I have had to read the most nonsensical ramblings on my twitter feed this week so I simply had to respond. So here goes.
I have to admit, it was hard to find an image on google for “I hate Indiana” because when you type that into google images, you find a lot of red t-shirts saying “I hate Kentucky”. Are they really that obsessed with Kentucky? Yes. Yes they are. In the end, I like the image I chose because that little yippy dog is the typical Indiana fan. All Indiana fans do is yap yap yap on twitter and message boards all day long and then gather around the TV to watch their beloved Hoosiers get their teeth kicked in time and time again. Undeterred, they start the process over again on Monday, proclaiming that “this is the week we turn it around” and get the same result.
Don’t believe me? Check the facts. Over the past three seasons, Indiana has gone an amazingly horrid 46-72 in the two big sports of football and basketball. And I included this year’s remarkable 8-0 start in basketball in those numbers or it would be even worse. Indiana basketball has not been past the first round of the NCAA Tournament since 2007. And if Kentucky fans are pissed that the football team did not get to a bowl this year, just look at the football futility of our inbred cousins to the North.
This is a program that has not won a bowl since 1991 and they have been to just two bowls since 1993. The football Hoosiers have gone 41-89 since the year 2000 and only sniffed a winning season just once, in 2007. And face it, it’s not like the Big 10 is the SEC. The football Hoosiers mail it in faster than their beloved Indianapolis Colts after Peyton Manning went down to injury.
Let’s get back to basketball. You know what really chafes me about these Twitter loving Hoosiers? Their short term memory is almost non-existent. I don’t know whether that is due to the massive amounts of moonshine consumed or that they spend their winters siphoning gas for their four wheelers. But let me give these Hoosiers a brief history lesson. Especially the ones that have taken to tweeting #Beatthecheats in reference to Kentucky. Let me refresh your memory ….
YOU WERE ON PROBATION!!!
THREE YEARS AGO!!!!
THIS GENTLEMAN’S NAME IS KELVIN SAMPSON
GOOGLE HIM!!!
And then Indiana went and hired Tom Crean. It was a good hire by Indiana because Crean actually was public enemy #1 by Kentucky fans as he dashed a couple of our seasons with his Marquette teams. But then, like everything else good that comes to Bloomington, Crean’s magic went stale and the biggest problem he has given Kentucky fans is deciding whether he looks more like Tom Arnold and Dwight Schrute.
Crean is a good guy. I actually like him. But he has a problem of over-motivating his feeble fan base and making them think the impossible is possible. Like beating Kentucky. Last year, Crean’s Hoosiers rolled through their cupcake laden early schedule to the tune of a 7-1 record before facing Kentucky. Kentucky waxed the Hoosiers 81-62 and Indiana finished 5-19 the rest of the way. Kentucky has been the Grinch that stole Tom Crean’s season in his tenure at IU. Before the UK game, the Hoosiers have been 16-9 the last three seasons. After the Wildcats shocked them back to reality, the Hoosiers have gone 12-57.
Let’s not forget that Tom Crean is the one that introduced John Calipari to Twitter. Crean challenged Cal to see who could get more twitter followers. Calipari steamrolled Crean in about 48 hours to the tune of 1.1M to 45K. And that is just a harbinger of what to expect this weekend.
To his credit, Crean is a pretty good marketer and has his Hoosier faithful thinking they can pull off the big upset and has them tweeting silly slogans like #themovement. Unfortunately for the Hoosiers, the only movement the Hoosiers will have is the one Cody Zeller leaves in his candy striped warm ups when he sees how big and badass Anthony Davis is in person.
To be honest, I really don’t hate the Hoosiers. I have several good friends that live in Indiana and I wish I could say something inspirational to them after Kentucky crushes their spirits yet again this weekend. I wish I could point at the words of some great Indiana resident but I could think of none.
Unfortunately, Ron Swanson is a fictional character. Just like Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, and the compassionate, humanitarian, Bobby Knight.
See you on Twitter Saturday Night, Hoosier fans. Then we can talk about how Calipari is “Hoosier Daddy”. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love.