"I want the ball, coach"

Sweet 16.

The Bulldogs have been here before.  They've seen the bright lights of March Madness in its finest over the course of Brad Stevens' short time there, but this is normally their exit.  They're a solid one or two win team in everyone's bracket, but they couldn't beat Syracuse, right?

I'm not so sure about that.  The smart money says the number one seed should handily win this game.  The smart money says that Syracuse's size and skill advantage will put the tiny Bulldogs in peril early.

Then again, the smart money also picked Kansas to win it all, and they'll be watching tonight from the comfort of their own living room.  The smart money has proven extremely unreliable this March, and if ever there were a team poised for a run in a March filled with upsets, it's this Bulldogs team.

Who better to win the tournament of the upset than the team from the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse?  Who better to march into Indianapolis than the team from Indianapolis?  Who better to represent Hoosier nation than the team hailing from the site of the game that inspired the movie Hoosiers?

It's farfetched.  It's unlikely these Bulldogs will win tonight against the powerhouse Orange, but if I were Brad Stevens, this is what I'd say tonight...


We've hit our wall.  This is where we are supposed to bow out, leave.  Our clock just struck midnight.  Millions have filled out brackets this year, and not even your mothers expected you to make an Elite Eight run against a number one seed.  The Orange are favored by 7.5 points tonight.  No one is betting on us tonight.  Gordon, Matt, you two are moth Horizon League Players of the Year.  You're our backbone, but you have to realize that this game isn't about you.

You will play in Hinkle Fieldhouse again, in front of some of the greatest fans in the nation, but there are players on this team who won't.  Tonight, we play for our seniors.  We play to bring them back to Indianapolis.  We're three wins from playing the championship game in Lucas Oil Stadium, at home.  We are 2-0 versus teams in the Sweet Sixteen.  No one left in this tournament has beaten us, including this Syracuse team.  We are the most lethal team here.  Everyone is afraid of us.  We are a coiled spring ready to jump, and when we do, these teams will take notice.  Fifty-six years ago, a high school team from Milan came into Butler Fieldhouse, our house, and a boy named Bobby Plump hit the shot heard around the world.  That shot, however, would never have been possible if they didn't, two games earlier, defeat Crispus Attucks, featuring Hall of Fame guard Oscar "The Big O" Robertson.  Tonight is our semi-state.  Tonight, we face our Crispus Attucks.  Tonight, we will shut down our Oscar Robertson.  Tonight, we continue the dream and the fight, because maybe, just maybe, if we can beat the Orange, we can bring the same banner that these fifteen other teams are fighting for back to the home of the greatest upset in American history.

So let's go out there, and make Bobby Plump proud.  And who knows, maybe someday 56 years from now, a young coach will tell his "outmatched" basketball team about the greatest Cinderella story in the history of the NCAA basketball tournament.

I just checked my watch, right now the time is ten o'clock.  In two hours, it will be midnight for someone.  Let's make sure it's not us.