Alumni return for championship fun

Many alumni made their way back to Bloomington to be a part of Hoosier hysteria once again on the eve of IU's first NCAA championship game since 1987. By early afternoon yesterday, a crowd was already beginning to gather on Kirkwood Avenue with several alumni among the excited fans. \nSteve Brown, an '89 graduate, was in town from Michigan with friends and family. He said he had spent the day visiting some of the local hot spots and planned on trekking up to Assembly Hall to watch the game.\nKen Buddenbaum, '91 graduate, jokingly eyed a nearby lamp post as he said he planned to come back to Kirkwood with Brown and the rest of their group after the game.\nFred Rose, a '94 graduate, lives in town and has noticed a difference in the post-game celebrations.\n"'87 was a lot more destructive," Rose said. "They were turning over cars."\nHe said the response to the championship game could be as big or bigger than those of the past.\n"This year there is a broader range of enthusiasm, and it's building," he said. "Generally, it's a lot more good-natured and everyone is getting into it."\nWhen IU won the national championship in 1987, they finished with a record of 30-4 and had been expected to do well in the tournament. This year the Hoosiers were not expected to make any noise.\n"The last time we pretty much expected to win it all. There was a much stronger regular season and we had a feeling that we were going to do it all," Greg Beckley said. Beckley came from Indianapolis to be a part of the hoopla surrounding the game on the campus of his alma mater. \nDavid Cox, an adjunct professor for SPEA, brought his family three hours from their home in Illinois to Bloomington.\n"We thought since we couldn't go to Atlanta, it would be nice to be on campus when we win it," he said. Cox agreed that the circumstances of this year's successes made a big difference in the atmosphere surrounding the game.\n "In '87 we were expected to go pretty far, so going to the Final Four was not a big surprise for anybody," he said. "This year, at the beginning of the season, I don't think anybody anticipated that we would be a top ten team, and here we are peaking at the right time."\nFor current students, the excitement of having a successful team in the NCAA tournament is a new feeling they might not get to experience again while they are in college. Cox said he remembers the festivities that took place following the Hoosiers' defeat of Syracuse in the 1987 final game. IU also took home a piece of the regular season Big Ten title that year.\n"It's been so many years since we've been to the Final Four or been to the title game," Cox said. "There's a whole new generation of students and people that don't remember what it was like running up and down Kirkwood in '87."\nHe said he had seen some of last week's celebrations on the news and it seemed like there were fewer people in the past. In 1987 he was part of the parade of fans that walked from the courthouse to Showalter Fountain. He said the main concentration was along Kirkwood, but the closing off of several blocks last weekend was evidence the celebration is expanding.