"I'm an intramural champion and all I got was this stupid T-shirt"

Inside Assembly Hall on Tuesday night, the announcer of the intramural basketball finals attempted to recreate the atmosphere of an IU men's basketball game. \n"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time for the American Eagle Live Your Life Fan Cam!" he shouted during a timeout of the men's division I final.\nNo one was fooled.\nThe lighting was low. Instead of thousands of screaming fans, about 200 sat on the west side of the stadium. Without a fraternity competing in this year's final, attendance wasn't as high as in previous years. No expensive warm-up suits or uniforms graced the backs of players -- just a few screen-printed pennies and T-shirts with markered numbers on the back.\nThe atmosphere and players in the stadium might have been different, but the play on the court was anything but.\nU Mad and the Family, the two teams that made the men's Division I final, traversed their way through a field of 94 teams to make it to Branch McCracken Court. You don't just back into the finals of a 94-team tournament -- these teams can play.\nU Mad, a student team consisting entirely of Bloomington natives, (props for not calling yourself the Cutters) was hot from beyond the arc early and led by as much as 17 in the first half. At the half, it held a 36-22 advantage over the Family.\n"They were knocking down all their shots in the first half," said the Family's Matt Lacy of U Mad's shooters. "They hit basically every shot they took. We knew they'd be missing in the second half, so we had to just keep playing our game, getting the defensive rebounds and playing better help-side defense. We knew our offense would come around, we just needed to play better defense." \nThe plan seemed to work. After the Family worked its way back to within a point of U Mad, Lacy swiped the ball from a U Mad player at the top of the key and scored on a breakaway layup to put the Family up 56-55 with 6:20 to go. After Lacy's layup, the teams switched leads three times before the Family went on a 6-0 run to go up 66-60 to all but seal the deal. It held on to win the title 74-72.\nIn the women's division I final, the Eyeballers, led by the inside post moves of first-year grad student Shannon Szuba, broke away from a tightly defended, close game late in the second half to take the crown 37-29 against Alpha Omicron Pi.\n"We were just catching the ball and standing there," Szuba said of her team's play during the beginning of the second half. "Their defense is good so we had to pick it up on offense and move the ball faster." \nFor the Eyeballers and the Family, there were no trophies or plaques to hoist above their heads or basketball nets to wear around their necks when the final buzzer sounded. Just a green T-shirt reading 'Everyone loves an intramural champion.' Not the most glamorous reward, but no one complained. \nHeck, it sure beats the drink the second place teams got.