Indiana Hoosiers at Western Dolphins Men's Basketball Game



The Indiana Hoosiers at Western Dolphins Men's Basketball Game is a significant moment in the Blue Chips Universe. It was depicted in Blue Chips in 1994.

Background
Pete Bell is the head coach of the Western University Dolphins Men's Basketball team in Los Angeles. He has led his team to multiple NCSA National Championships, the most recent in 1989. The Dolphins had also won numerous Far West Conference titles. By the end of the 1992 season however, the program was falling on hard times as Coach Bell found himself being undercut in recruiting by other programs willing to risk cheating against NCSA rules in order to get the top players out of high school. The Dolphins' 1992 campaign ended with 14 wins and 15 losses, his first losing season as head coach of the program.

Feeling a sense of desperation to compete or lose his job, Pete gives in to Happy Kuykendahl and his "friends of the program." Happy is the successful head coach of Western's football program. Western instantly lands three high school seniors who had yet to commit to a college. They consist of Ricky Roe whose parents are in need of a new tractor, Butch McRae whose mother wants to live in a nice house that is in a nicer neighborhood, and Neon Boudeaux who asks for nothing, but the opportunity to play college basketball. Neon winds up with money and a Porsche, courtesy of the friends of the program.

With all three on campus, Coach Bell finally has a team that could contend for the National Championship for the first time since that 1989 title. Their 1993 season opener is at home against the #1 ranked team according to the press, the Indiana Hoosiers, led by their longtime head coach, Bob Knight.

The Game
On December 1, 1992, the regular season began for Western as they hosted Indiana at the Western University Memorial Arena in front of a sellout crowd. The game would be nationally televised with Dick Vitale on hand for coverage. Though IU led for most of the game, WU would stay competitive with the three top freshman newcomers leading the charge. With a timeout called in the closing seconds of regulation, Coach Bell draws up an alley oop play for McRae to Boudeaux. The game ends with the alley oop play successful as Boudeaux dunks the ball as time expires. The Dolphins get a big win and what should be a momentum boost to start the season while the Hoosiers get the road loss in a tough environment.

Postgame
Overcome with guilt as to how he came about getting the players necessary to win, Coach Bell announces the scandal to the press in a postgame press conference. He also implicates Coach Kuykendahl and his football program as part of the cheating culture at Western University, leading to Happy angrily confronting Pete in front of the press corps before being escorted out by WU staff.

Having confessed to his part in the scandal, Pete Bell abruptly quits his job as head coach of Western University Men's Basketball.

Epilogue
Pete Bell would continue his coaching career at the high school level while Western's men's basketball program would be hit by the NCSA with a three year ban from postseason play.

Butch and Neon would soon leave the school, declaring for the NBA Draft to which they would be selected.

Ricky's career ended with an injury, returning to work on the family farm back in Indiana.

Danaverse Connection
A closer look at this universe by members of the Council of the Multiverse would reveal that the football team would be hit with severe penalties as well, with Happy Kuykendahl being banned from any activity with NCSA institutions and the program being banned from postseason play for five years. Happy dies in 1998, having been viewed as a pariah in the college athletics world.

Butch McRae and Neon Boudeaux would luck out, both winding up with the Orlando Magic after the 1993 NBA Draft and deals made by the team to land both players.

The Indiana Hoosiers would recover from their now vacated loss to Western and make it to the NCSA Quarterfinals, losing to the Kansas Jayhawks.

Members of Indiana's team would go on to be drafted in 1993 as well. Calbert Cheaney would be drafted by the Washington Bullets, Bob Hurley would be drafted by the Sacramento Kings, Greg Graham would be drafted by the Charlotte Hornets, and Geert Hammink would join Butch and Neon in Orlando.

Information
Western University's team colors and location were based on the UCLA Bruins, itself holding a proud men's basketball tradition of NCAA National Championships.

Nick Nolte, who portrays Pete Bell shadowed Bob Knight during the 1992 Indiana Men's Basketball season of which Knight was the head coach.

Members of Indiana's team for the movie included actual players who had been on the team, including Calbert Cheaney, Greg Graham, and Keith Smart. Keith is best remembered in our reality for scoring the game winning points in the 1987 NCAA Division I Men's National Championship game against the Syracuse Orangemen.

Matt Nover, who portrays Ricky Roe for Western played for Coach Knight at Indiana.

While Bob Hurley aka Bobby Hurley did not play at Indiana during the actual 1993 season, he did play at Duke University and helped the Blue Devils' men's basketball team win the 1991 and 1992 NCAA Division I National Championships.

While the game was depicted as happening in Los Angeles, the actual arena was in Frankfort, Indiana and its Frankfort High School's Case Arena.