Sports

IU basketball fans might still be reeling from recent setbacks to the team’s hopes of winning an outright Big Ten title this season. But if it’s any consolation, they can spend a few moments today reveling in past glory.

Just two short weeks ago, Indiana was even with the likes of Duke, Miami, and Kansas on the list of teams most likely to win this year’s NCAA title. Not anymore.

Bob Knight’s version of book promotion hit The New York Times Magazine today in an interview, “Coach Bob Knight on Why He’s So Unpleasant.” The headline riffs on the name of Knight’s new book, The Power of Negative Thinking, co-written with his longtime collaborator in Bloomington, retired sportswriter Bob Hammel. Related: Hammel on why Knight makes a good author.

See our list of the best IU bars around the nation. It’s our roundup of the top spots to make new fellow-alum chums and take in Hoosiers action wherever you are.

IM: How did this book come to be? What were its roots?

Another week, another court-storming. In what has become the only predictable result in NCAA men’s basketball, last night students cheering on their home team (Minnesota) wildly flooded the court after upsetting a higher-ranked team (Indiana). The (over)reaction has become so ubiquitous, you’d think the NCAA had started awarding banners for it.

Well, Hoosier fans, how does it feel to get slapped around a little bit? Last night’s game was not for the fainthearted. Just ask Cody Zeller, who spent a good portion of the game picking himself up off the floor.

Less than 3 percent of all Division I football players are invited to the NFL’s annual scouting camp, hosted in Indy since 1987.

Editor’s Note, Feb. 21, 2013: Ahead of the 2002 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis—and before his New Orleans Saints bested the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV—IM asked former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees to give some advice to outgoing IU QB Antwaan Randle El. Brees’s responses (below) originally appeared in the February 2002 issue. Randle El was selected in the second round of the 2002 draft and went on to play eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins. The 2013 combine officially commences this Saturday in Indianapolis.

Editor’s Note, Feb. 19, 2013: This past Sunday at Daytona International Speedway, driver Danica Patrick became the first woman ever to qualify in the top spot for a NASCAR Cup race. She will start in the pole position of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 24. The following profile, noted in The Best American Sports Writing series, originally appeared in the May 2006 issue of IM, a year after Patrick’s fourth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500.

You might see a familiar face in Assembly Hall during today’s rivalry matchup with Purdue (2 p.m., ESPN): former North Central High School phenom and IU star Eric Gordon.

Former Lance Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu tells IM that Dr. Larry Einhorn, esteemed oncologist with the IU School of Medicine and Lance Armstrong Foundation, was not present in the Indianapolis hospital room where Armstrong allegedly admitted to doping in 1996. But he wants to know the identities of the people who were.

Editor’s Note, Feb. 15, 2013: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will announce the finalists for its Class of 2013 inductees today, and Pacers broadcaster Bobby “Slick” Leonard is one of the contenders. The following originally appeared among IM’s “23 Reasons to Love the Pacers—Again!” in the November 2012 print edition.

IU is up for a notable social media award—and it would only further bolster the school’s penchant for No. 1 finishes lately.

If you’re still scratching your head over how Indiana lost a big game and sole lead of the Big Ten in under one second—less time than you’ve already spent reading this post—then check out Buzzfeed’s frame-by-frame analysis of that final, unforgivable play, and trust that Cody Zeller will never let that happen again.