Indiana Basketball: Indiana ties loom large in National Championship game

Though the Hoosiers aren’t playing on Monday night, the impact of the Indiana basketball program looms large.

It is now year 17 without an NCAA Tournament Championship appearance for the Indiana basketball program, but they still are playing a role in tonight’s National Championship game.

The state of Indiana has long been known for being the birthplace of basketball, known by their tagline, ‘in 49 states it’s just basketball, but this is Indiana’, and they continue to play a role on the biggest stage.

If you haven’t heard about Kyle Guy before their Final Four game against Auburn, you have now. He scored the final six points for Virginia, including the game-winning free throws to send the Cavaliers to the National Championship game, the first in program history. Beyond that though, Guy should’ve been wearing the candy stripes for his college career.

"“I grew up wanting to go to IU,” Guy said. “My grandparents had season tickets.”"

Guy, who was Indiana’s Mr. Basketball in 2016, just never clicked with Tom Crean throughout the recruitment.

"“I just didn’t really click with Crean…. I got respect for him, but it didn’t really click that he was going to be my father figure for four years.”"

Unfortunately for Indiana, Tony Bennett did.

Kyle Guy has haunted Indiana fans for the past few years, not in head-to-head matchups, but in the “what could have been” category if the junior guard stayed in-state. Averaging 15.2 points per game and shooting 42.5 percent from three this year, he has become a haunting memory to Indiana fans of the miss they had a couple of years ago.

Now look to the other sideline, for once again more Indiana ties.

Chris Beard has turned into one of the best coaches in the county and to no surprise to former Indiana coach Bob Knight.

Beard was not only a member of Knight’s staff at Texas Tech, he is one of his last great protégés from his coaching tree. Working as an assistant coach for 10 years under both Bob and Pat Knight, Beard got his big coaching break when Knight hired him from his previous coaching stint, at Seminole State junior college. What is even more interesting is he took the job offer without even signing a contract.

Pat Knight told the story of when Beard was hired on the Texas Tech staff on the College Basketball Talk on NBC Sports Podcast with Rob Dauster, saying it was ‘very unusual circumstances’ when Knight took the job at Texas Tech and although he could go out and recruit, he hadn’t had his official introductory press conference yet so he wasn’t allowed to tell recruits which school he was headed to, or even sign assistant coaches to official contracts until later in the summer. But yet Beard trusted the Knight’s and took Bob Knight for his word.

Flash forward 17 years later, and Beard coaches and has his players play just as Knight did back in his coaching days.

From the intense man-to-man defense, or the outgoing personality, Beard takes what he was taught by Knight and is bringing it back to a National Championship game that Bob Knight was so accustomed to.

On Monday night, we will get to see one of the two Indiana ties pay off.