Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Big Ten Network airing IU's 1981 NCAA title win vs. UNC at 8pm

South Beach Hoosier trivia: the entire time I was at IU, I never wore an IU cap.
Ever.

Instead, if I wore one at all, it was a Dolphins cap, which was a great conversation starter walking thru campus, as far as finding and meeting other IU students on campus or in town from South Florida.


For those of you in South Florida who can't recall ever talking to me when I wasn't wearing the cap
above, it's probably hard to imagine.
But then there's really no need to wear a cap when it's overcast and one degree above zero, as it was late last night in Bloomington.






The north side of Branch McCracken Court, Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington


Because of the last episode of Prison Break -part of which was set in Miami- I missed watching the Northeastern at IU ballgame Monday night on The Big Ten Network -thinking the game was Tuesday night.



When I went to the network website to see when the replay was scheduled, 3-5 pm Tuesday afternoon, I also saw they'll be replaying the 1981 IU-North Carolina NCAA title game at 8 pm as part of their Big Ten's Greatest Games Series.




The Sports Illustrated cover that said it all: The Champs!




For more info on that great team of 1980-'81, see the Bloomington Herald-Times' great website, Hoosier Historia: http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/sports/hh/1981/




As far as I'm concerned, perhaps because I watched so many college games in that era and have a great memory of so many of those teams, I think the series has really been sort of hit or miss,

since there seem to be far fewer of the really great games from the late '70's and early '80's, you'd expect to have seen televised by now.


Proof of that is that early this coming Sunday morning, the network will be airing IU's games from this past February at Illinois and versus Wisconsin, at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. respectively, as part of that series. Great?

Hardly!



IU All-American and Olympian Steve Alford on the cover of the 1987 IU Basketball media guide.

The guide was sent to me just a few months before we beat Syracuse for the 1987 NCAA title by IU Varsity Athletics' one-man Renaissance team (and Assembly Hall announcer) Chuck Crabb, when I was living in Evanston.


Preceding Tuesday's IU-North Carolina replay is a 6 p.m. airing of the December 18, 1990 U.K. at IU ballgame.


The encore showings of the IU-UNC game on Channel are as follows:
Wednesday 12/24 4-6 a.m.
Thursday -Christmas Day- 4-6 a.m. and 9-11 a.m.
http://www.bigtennetwork.com/schedule/



By the way, if anyone out there in cyberspace knows the answer to this, why does IU not have any campus programming on the network of any kind like so many of the other conference schools do, namely, Penn State and Northwestern, who seem to have more than any one else?


Also, for what seems like the 1,001st time, The Big Ten Network will also show the U-M-Ohio State BCS title football game from almost six year ago.




You know, the one that was stolen by the refs on that phantom defensive holding penalty?






That's still painful to watch, just like last week's replay on the NFL Network of the 1974 Dolphins at Raiders divisional game,


The invaluable lesson learned by watching Benny Malone scoring too early for the Dolphins before the end of the game was over, thus giving Ken Stabler enough time to mount an epic comeback, has never been lost on me at any game I've ever played in or watched since then.

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