The uniforms had a Hoosiers feel to them, except the dominant color was yellow, and the print, red. “Metros,” it read across the chest of the Indiana University Indianapolis men’s basketball team on a throwback day. The mostly-full home crowd honored not only the school’s previous nickname and more than 40 alumni players, but also the 1985-86 team, specifically, for its district championship and appearance in the NAIA national tournament 40 years ago.
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and now IU Indy did not start calling themselves the Jaguars until they transitioned to Division I athletics during the 1998-99 season.
Two players that were on hand from that 85-86 team were Eric McKay and Troy Fitts. Both are Indianapolis natives, as Fitts was a sophomore that season who hailed from Broad Ripple High School, and Fitts a senior who had played his high school ball at John Marshall. Both former players had simply come to the game in response to a text invitation, and each of them claimed that this was the first time they’d returned to their alma mater for a game since their playing days in the 1980s.
“The only thing that’s changed about this gym,” Fitts said, “was that they put in seats. They used to have bleachers.” According to web communication from IU Indy’s athletic department, that change occurred in 2007.
Fitts also recalled that his former coach, IUPUI Hall of Famer Bob Lovell–who was at the commemorative game and calling color alongside ISC Sports Network’s Greg Rakestraw–was both “fiery” and “a great person.”
Lovell grew up in nearby Plainfield before attending Franklin College just south of Indianapolis. Franklin would also be the spot for Lovell’s first head coaching job, which he took on while teaching freshmen English at Center Grove High School. When Lovell took over for the Metros in 1982, they’d never had a winning season.
His team transcended that curse in his first year, and he would go on to coach the team for 12 seasons and serve as the university’s athletic director for 10. His teams would also go on to win a couple district championships, break school records for wins in a season, and advance as far as the final 16 in NAIA play.
“When I came here people said, ‘You can’t win. You’ll never do anything.’ And then, you know, we started winning games.”
Lovell hung up his coaching shoes at a now-unbelievably-young 43 years old but taught at IUPUI after he was done with sports until as recent as 3 years ago. He spends a good bit of his current professional energy doing his syndicated Indiana Sports Talk radio show. “I’ve never applied for a job in my life,” he joked while describing the arc of his resume, which includes 7 years of administrative leadership with the Horizon League.
I owe this institution,” he added about IU Indy. “More than I could ever repay them. My daughter is a graduate.”
Lovell, who was seen after the game surrounded by laughing former players, had this to say about them: “Those are incredibly important people to me and so I I vowed that anything that the university needs for me I’ll always be there and help them any way I can.”
It was Purdue Fort Wayne’s Jalen Jackson who played spoiler for the whole affair on behalf of the 3rd-place Mastodons. Scoring in a variety of ways, Jackson would finish with 38 points on 11 of 16 shooting from the field and 14 of 18 from the foul line to go along with 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals in 35 minutes of playing time.
“Whatever the plan was,” 1st-year IU Indy coach Paul Corsaro said about stopping the guy who came into the game averaging just under 20 points a game, “it didn’t work. He’s the player of the year in our conference, in my opinion.”
Corsaro also advocated for his team’s star guard, Paul Zilinskas, as having an all-conference type season. Zilinskas finished the game with 23 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists, as the Jags fell to 7-15 with the 91-80 defeat.