College Sports Traditions by Stan Beck & Jack Wilkinson

Author:Stan Beck & Jack Wilkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780810891210
Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Most Midnight Madness schools will include a three-point shooting contest with a dunk-a-thon and long-range heaves. The Madness is now often a coed event, for both men’s and women’s teams, especially at colleges like UConn and Baylor, whose 6-foot-8 Brittany Greiner—the National Player of the Year in 2012 when Baylor went 40–0 and won the national title—can dunk with the big boys.

Midnight Madness, by any name, is also used as a recruiting tool. Scout.com estimated that in 2007, 160 of the top high school basketball recruits in the country attended Midnight Madness somewhere. That number has since increased exponentially. And now, in the twenty-first century, Midnight Madness has become even more lavish and extravagant, with celebrities included.

One year, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo rode onto the court at the Breslin Center astride a Harley-Davidson. Izzo was dressed like a hippy, as in Easy Rider. Then he posed with Sparty, the Spartans’ in-costume mascot.

That Michigan State team won the 2000 national championship. The following season for Midnight Madness, the Spartans—wearing boxing gloves and green satin robes—were introduced as they stepped through the ropes of a boxing ring. Izzo? He arrived in a white stretch limousine, dressed in a black tuxedo.

Another year, Billy Donovan, the two-time NCAA-winning Florida coach, rose up out of a coffin in the O-Dome during Midnight Madness. In 2012, Izzo made another grand entrance at the Breslin Center attired in an Iron Man costume while his wife and children were dressed as other Marvel Avengers. The IZZone student section went bananas.

In 1994, on the University of Cincinnati campus, a student named Cory Clouse brought down the house. Having already won the slam dunk and three-point shooting contests, Clouse launched a half-court shot in The Shoe, as the on-campus Shoemaker Center is still known. Clouse cleanly nailed the forty-seven-footer to earn a free year of college tuition, and more. Dick Vitale jumped into his arms. And more important, in the summer of 1995, Cory Clouse won an ESPY for his Midnight Madness moment.

At Indiana, it’s Hoosier Hysteria. Tubby’s Tipoff, they once called it at Minnesota. In Madison, it’s The Night of the Grateful Red at the University of Wisconsin.

At Missouri’s Midnight Madness in 2012, Keion Bell dunked over six people lined up in size-order from the foul line to the basket. Wagner’s Josh Thompson dunked over his parents, standing back-to-back, even if Dad got conked in the head. Brittney Griner nearly threw down a 360- degree dunk.

But nobody—and we mean nobody—does Midnight Madness like they do it in the Bluegrass at Kentucky.

In October of 1982, coach Joe B. Hall, recalling Lefty’s stroke of midnight genius, invited Kentucky fans to attend Midnight Special, the first practice of that season. More than 8,500 fans showed up in old 12,000-seat Memorial Coliseum. It shortly became Midnight Madness. And, by any name, it’s in a class all its own.

In 1986, a fire marshal ordered the doors of Memorial closed two hours before the Madness was scheduled to start. More than 12,500 Big Blue zealots were already inside, with hundreds more stuck outside.

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