Hoosier hysteria

Hoosier hysteria is the state of excitement surrounding basketball in Indiana or, more specifically, the Indiana high school basketball tournament. The most famous example occurred in 1954, when Milan (enrollment 161) defeated Muncie Central (enrollment over 1,600) to win the state title.

Indiana's passion for basketball was observed and written about by basketball's inventor, James Naismith. In 1925, Naismith visited an Indiana basketball state finals game along with 15,000 screaming fans. He later wrote that while it was invented in Massachusetts, "basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport." Hoosiers have a traditional love for basketball similar to that of Southerners or Ohioans for football, New Yorkers and New Englanders for baseball, Pennsylvanians and Iowans for wrestling, Michiganders and Minnesotans for ice hockey, and Washingtonians and Oregonians for soccer

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.