Can you believe those Hoosiers?

In my first two years as a student at IU, I watched the Hoosiers get battered by Pepperdine and outplayed by Kent State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Early this season, the Hoosiers' record was a miserable 7-5 after a loss to Butler, and conference season had not begun. It had been 10 years since the team had reached the Final Four, and with the direction the program seemed to be heading, the team wouldn't go back until players such as Tom Coverdale were being pushed around in wheel chairs.\nSure enough, Saturday night, because of severely spraining his chronically weak left ankle, Coverdale was wheeled around Rupp arena wearing a 2002 South regional championship T-shirt. \nMeanwhile, head coach Mike Davis climbed a 10-foot high aluminum ladder and cut down the net in celebration of his first ever Final Four appearance as a head coach.\nIn a state full of hunting enthusiasts, I am pleading them now not to shoot down the tall, well-dressed basketball coach with a large, genuine grin on his face. This week he might be floating up near the clouds all throughout the state.\nTwo years ago I watched the IU soccer team win its fifth College Cup championship. I was in my dorm room alone, and the guy down the hallway asked me what the College Cup was and said he had no idea IU was any good at soccer. Thursday, I watched Yogi's Grill and Bar on 10th Street build a line 10-people long out the door nearly two hours prior to tip-off of IU's Sweet Sixteen battle with top-seeded Duke.\nSimply by winning basketball games, this Hoosier team has unified an entire city. Smiles are exchanged and conversations are started between strangers with the universal ice breaking line, "Can you believe those Hoosiers?"\nThrough the common bond of disbelief, students, alumni and fans throughout the country are bonding via e-mail, telephone calls and ESPN.com message boards. Hoosier basketball has once again captured the hearts, minds and conversations of every person in the state.\nIU basketball has been to the Final Four seven times before, but this trip is remarkably unique. IU will enter the Georgia Dome as the lowest seed of the four teams and with the lowest seed of any IU team ever to make the tournament semifinals. Face it, IU is a Cinderella story, and it's an exciting change.\nI can recall early March when a likely upset pick was Utah defeating the tournament-weary Hoosiers. Then many said the Hoosiers had a free pass to the Sweet Sixteen when North Carolina-Wilmington upset USC. Against Duke, the Hoosiers were given as much a chance of survival as a postal worker in a cage full of Dobermans. IU went on to beat Kent State, the hottest team in the nation, with a spectacular shooting spree.\nThe Hoosiers are undoubtedly the worst team left in the Big Dance. Isn't it great? I listened to several radio analysts describe in graphic detail how IU has nobody capable of guarding Oklahoma point guard Hollis Price and then proceed to break down every reason why the Sooner defense will make Saturday a blood bath as they roll to the finals. Isn't that interesting?\nHey Hoosiers! Your team has inferior athletes, Bob Knight's not here to lead the way, Davis is too young, you're lucky to get this far and this team is nowhere near as powerful as IU teams of the past. Did I mention your point guard is crippled?\nOklahoma is going to walk into the championship game, just like Duke was going to do less than a week ago.\nJust like Duke was going to…"Can you believe those Hoosiers"