B-Town

By Lake The Posts on February 15, 2012

We all know that Northwestern battles Indiana tonight (5:30 pm ct, BTN) at fabled Assembly Hall. We’ve even got some good news complements of WildcatReport.com – JerShon Cobb is good to go as needed for tonight’s game and the home stretch. More on this after the game. Today’s post is about Bloomington and specifically Assembly Hall. It’s a venue that, like most in the Big Ten, has been historically unkind to Northwestern, until the past few years. As I was with our football trip to Nebraska, I’m putting my expectations in the beyond “managed” category. I’ll be rooting hard, but this one is expected to be a loss. The Hoosiers, much like Illinois, boast a dominating presence in the post with freshman beast, Cody Zeller.  Unlike Illinois, I don’t see the Hoosiers getting rattled by the 1-3-1 and going away from pounding it in the paint.  If we collapse on Zeller, Jordan Hulls will kill us from three.  While Indiana has regained a semblance of its illustrious past this season after weathering the most miserable stretch in the modern era of the program, this team is a year away from truly being back to Bob Knight era intimidation. That being said, a 20-point loss tonight would not shock me. Here’s why.

Last week I found myself in the stands for Indiana’s home game against Illinois. I happened to be in Bloomington for business and was fortunate enough to get a ticket for the game. Now, I’ve been to one game at Indiana, about eight or nine years ago and part of me never wanted to return. Much like when you travel to an NU football road game and witness a win at say, the Big House (which I’ve done twice – yes, I’m 2-0 watching NU in Ann Arbor!), you don’t want to return and risk tarnishing the memory. However, this trip actually further entrenched my admiration for Indiana fans and even tipped the scales heavily on to the fan envy side of the scale. Throughout Bloomington students were seen all day sporting the white T-shirts with “B-Town” in the signature crimson font. The collaquial tees are the unofficial gameday wear of students and fans alike. By 10 am, there was a healthy line in place at Assembly Hall for that EVENING’s game. “B-Town” was buzzing as the quintisential college town and epicenter of collegiate hoops feel screamed gameday. It’s funny that “B-town” sounds and reads so much better than the given “B-ton”, as the play on “B” evokes the mental image of basketball town. 

I entered Assembly Hall 30 minutes before tip-off. There were easily 10,000 fans already in their seats. Assembly Hall is one of what I’d consider one of the five remaining unique arenas in the Big Ten. Purdue’s Mackey, Minnesota’s Barn, Illinois’ Assembly (a brother of Mackey) and our very own Welsh-Ryan are the holdouts from the cookie-cutter NBA carbon copy arenas that exist in the rest of the league. I’m one of the very few who LOVES Welsh-Ryan as it gives us a true home court advantage and can be tough to play when its packed with our fans (I’ll happily admit the concourses and concessions are just woefully outdated), but that is an entirely different post.

When you walk through the Assembly Hall entrance you can see the tunnels that lead out to the seats the scoreboard – a newly minted jumbotron tacked on to what used to be a relic, Hoosiers movie like scoreboard, is almost eye level. I was in the cheap seats and climbed the ramp that led to my seats.  You walk in towards your seat and the first thing that strikes you is the vertical pitch to the entire arena. Instantly my mind flashed to Naked Gun movie excerpts where a wheelchair cascading down stairs and flipping over the railing came to mind. If you’re afraid of heights, this experience is not for you. However, the endzones are student section bleachers, holding a few hundred fans. The majority of the 17,000 go way up the sidelines and there is an even an upper deck that is rarely seen on TV that redefines “rafter seats”.  All of this description is to underscore the downright eerie and moving experience of seeing all 17,000+ rise as one in full-throated chants and clapping. The student section, which you think is only in the baseline, extends so far in to the one side of the stands it is hard to comprehend how large it is. Estimates ranged between 8,000 and 10,000 students, all clad in their home whites for what was a whiteout.  Imagine, an entirely full Welsh-Ryan Arena with students. Now double that capacity and the rest of Joe Q. Fan. You start to get a sense for what I’m talking about.

The walk through the tunnel in to the arena might as well have a metal detector that warns “you’re about to enter 1957″.  The arena, candidly is a dump. Yet, much like Cameron and other halls of champions, it is positioned as “charming” or “unique”.  If the ‘Cats had gone to 20 straight NCAA Tournaments, media shapers would be saying the same thing about Welsh-Ryan. Take the winning tradition away and you become more objective. The seats are smooshed together and getting up to leave is a huge inconvenience for the entire row. Yet, not surprisingly, no one, and I mean no one, leaves their seats. The interior looks like a precursor to NU’s Pick-Staiger music hall with acoustic shells plastered all over the interior walls and ceiling. About 10 feet above my head was an overhang from the upper deck. Sound does not escape. Simply put, it is by far the loudest arena in the Big Ten taking all of the above in to account.

The thing that will stick with you though is the simplicity of the experience. No slap-stick gimmicks between timeouts, no M&M or Dunkin Donut races on the scoreboard, simply the band, the cheerleaders and the occasional basketball promotion on the scoreboard. They have tried to inject an NBA-like introduction by lowering the lights and using a spotlight, but the most memorable part of the pregame is the ENTIRE arena standing to sing the Indiana fight song set to an iconic old TV commercial for the Indiana Farmer’s Bureau with a woman sweeping the floors. It is basketball simplicity in a world of amuse-me-every-second oversaturation of promotion at basketball games. I loved it.

The Hoosier band sports an electric bass guitar which drones out the entire band and it will never leave your head. Every timeout it was all I could hear. It’s the Assembly Hall basketball anthem and it started to drive me crazy. However, the emotional lift the fans would give Indiana at those points in the game when they needed a stop, or the momentum was swinging their way was simply incredible. It was as if the fans were willing the ball in the basket and it seemed to work. It happened to be one of the worst officiated games I’ve ever seen as Illinois was just getting jobbed in the second half, and I truly didn’t care who won the game so I know I was being objective. The sheer volume of the crowd noise during Indiana runs had me frightened for tonight. Any modicum of momentum seemed to be jet-propelled by the fan base. Man, was I jealous. The experience hadn’t changed during the worst run in the history of the program over the past three years.  Every night the fans flocked to Assembly Hall knowing their team was going to lose. When you have a century of success buoying your fan base, it takes awhile for the bandwagon to become Teflon-y, to paraphrase Gary Barnett.

The highlight of my night, though, came when Meyers Leonard fouled out.  I’m not sure who is credited with the following chant as I know Alex Marcotullio was subjected to the Boilermaker fans “left, right, left right” jeers as he walked to the bench after his inexplicable fifth foul which was 70 feet from the basket. However when Leonard fouled out every person in the arena precisely chanted “left, right, left, right” in concert with each step he took towards the bench. Leonard obviously heard the chant and widened his stride and the fans didn’t miss a beat, slowing down their cadence.  There was a timeout on the floor, so they stopped as he stopped. My colleague turned to me and said “if they continue the chant after this very long timeout I will be so impressed”. Sure enough it carried on. Leonard, without Bruce Weber having a clue, was pacing up and down the bench, toying with the fans. He then started scuffling his feet to confuse the crowd yet they couldn’t be out done as they in unison, wailed “left,right,left,right” at rapid-fire speed. It might have been the most impressive crowd chant I’ve ever witnessed. Why was I not surprised?

The Hoosiers put the game away with about five minutes to go. Not a soul left their seats early. Just for kicks I stood in the main concourse to get a jump on meeting my colleagues who were in different seats.  I could see the clock and scoreboard. The Illini were down double-digits and fouling with a couple minutes to go. The hallways were empty sans a couple here or there or a dad with his young boy looking to get a jump on parking. The fans stayed until the clock read triple zeroes.  I was left to fantasize about NU and how unlikely it would be in my lifetime that I’d get to experience this for MY team.  I was left with thinking about Nebraska and how sweet it would be to be standing here to observe the shock of actually escaping this place with a “w”. Dare to dream.