Game #119 of 362 33% complete

I start off the 2023-2024 season with a road trip to great state of Indiana to see Indiana, Butler and Indiana State on three consecutive nights.

Parking is sometimes a challenge with big schools. I was unclear whether I had to purchase a parking pass ahead of time. I received an email from the university concerning the purchase of parking tickets, traffic flow and other rules concerning pre game activities. I browsed the Indiana web site to purchase a parking ticket. I am not a naive techy who is baffled with web pages but I found no place to buy a parking pass other than some outrageously priced passes on Stub Hub. Based on past experiences, I learned that to find answers like this, one should drive to the university and find a person in the know. There sitting in a parking lot was a woman who played such a role. She said that I could park in Lot 9 or 10 and pay there with a credit card. Problem solved!

I have been to 118 arenas and this Indiana gym wins the prize for the steepest seats. The pre game introduction for Indiana was proceeded by a video on the main screen. There was a woman cleaning the floor of the arena and singing a song. Soon others started singing along. I am guessing this was the Indiana fight song. The sound quality was not great.

Army almost pulled off an upset for this game. They are currently at 325 on the KenPom rating. Indiana could never get break away into a commanding lead. Had Army hit their fouls shots, the Hoosiers would have suffered an embarrassing defeat. Kudos to Army guard Ryan Curry who scored 20 points mostly on 3 pointers. Curry was a star last year for the Army’s prep team and was on fire tonight.

Given Bobby Knight’s association with Indiana and Army as a coach for both, I was surprised that there was no mention or recognition of this before the game. I don’t know if the Hoosier fans celebrate Knight’s time there or do they want to forget about his troubling past?

Kudos to Indiana center Kel’El Ware the 7 foot transfer from Oregon. Indiana got wise in the second half by using their superior height advantage. Ware became unstoppable underneath leading the Hoosiers with 20 points. It was surprising that Army who was hitting three pointers all night long was terrible at the foul line.

Xavier Johnson was a spark plug for the Hoosiers tonight. Retuning from an injury filled season last year, he looked like a return to his old self. His penetration and energy on the court was a welcome sight for the Hoosier fans.

Credit to the many Hoosier fans wearing these red and white “pants”. I have never seen a fan base to date that wore matching pants to the warmups of the players.

I highly recommend Mama Bear’s Pizza in Bloomington. The small deep pan pizza is making my mouth water just by looking at it now.

No trip to Bloomington would be complete without a walking tour of the Indiana campus. The architecture as can be seen in the movie “Breaking Away” was stunning.

Day 1 in Indiana is complete.