The view of Assembly Hall from our seat in media row.
Behind the Scenes – Assembly Hall
Hello everyone and welcome into the second edition of our Travel Journal series! In these write-ups, we take you behind the scenes of our travels, documenting what the experience is like covering the team on the road. This time, we head to Bloomington, Indiana!
This sprouted as somewhat of a “spur-of-the-moment” trip as I got ahold of Barstool ‘Skers, seeing if he’d want to make a trip out of this game. The Huskers were ranked, undefeated and heading into a historic venue – why not?! He obliged and we booked flights/hotels/rental cars a few weeks prior to the game. The catch – this was going to be a 24 hour trip. No time to waste!
It was go time on Friday, January 9th. Our flight was pretty late, not touching ground in Indianapolis until around 7:30pm. I swung over to his place, picked him up, and we headed to the airport.
Barstool ‘Skers and I board the plane to Indianapolis!
We landed in Indy and headed straight to the rental car area. I had booked us a one-day Jeep Wrangler for this trip, and was super excited to drive something I never have before. The excitement faded fast as the rental car service told us they didn’t have one available for that night – but they had a different option.
They offered to give us a Lincoln Navigator, something I’d never experienced before. Being in a bit of a rush, we accepted without thinking much about it.
Our souped up Lincoln Navigator rental car – not exactly what we were expecting!
Needless to say, we were a little shocked – this was WAY more room than two guys and two backpacks could’ve ever needed, but it was a fun (yet extremely stressful) drive. The interior navigation system was nothing like I’d ever seen before – an entire LED display with weather, directions, music, and miscellaneous other info ran across the entire dash!
It was already around 8:00pm and we still had an hour drive to Bloomington. The College Football Playoffs were going on, and we were able to watch a portion of the Miami/Ole Miss game on our trek. We pulled into our hotel at around 9:15pm, got situated, and immediately headed out on the town to watch the Indiana/Oregon semifinal playoff game.
Our hotel room setup in downtown Bloomington.
We quickly searched different sports bars that we could hit for the game, knowing it was going to be a mission to get a table. We walked around the area and ended up settling on Yogi’s. The place was PACKED. We found some seats along the outside to watch the game with the locals.
The bar we watched the Indiana/Oregon Semifinal game at – Yogis!
We weren’t sure if this was Indiana’s version of Barry’s, but the setup and vibe of it all felt very similar. It ended up working out great, the place was awesome. And man – what a cool experience we lucked into given the scheduling of everything. Being able to root for a playoff team in its college town it a great story to tell. If Nebraska ever made a playoff game…oh man. A guy can dream.
After the game ended, we scoured the downtown area for some local eats. After walking around a block or two, we stumbled into a homemade pizza shop called “Rockit’s” that embodied everything a college pizza joint should. A huge part of traveling is taking in the local cuisine…so we went for it.
Rockit’s Pizza in downtown Bloomington – can’t beat those prices!
Without digging too deep into it, this had to be the best deal in town. $3.50 pizza in this economy? We sat at one of the worn down booths surrounded by writing on the walls and chowed down. It was spectacular.
After eating, we headed back to the hotel for the night. The game was set to tip at 11:00am the next day, so we wanted to maximize the amount of sleep we could realistically get. Between landing at 8:00pm, watching a playoff game at a local bar, hitting a hole-in-the-wall pizza shop and getting to bed before midnight – we considered it mission accomplished.
Downtown Bloomington after the Hoosiers semifinal playoff game.
We woke up at the hotel ready to roll. The nervous energy was kicking in as we knew Nebraska could likely lose their first game of the season. We hopped in the ridiculously oversized Navigator and made our way over to Assembly Hall.
We pulled into the assigned media parking, waiting to get confirmation that we weren’t going to get towed…but nobody ever showed up. We were no more than a half-block away from the arena, pulled into a great parking spot, with nobody checking parking credentials. We were shocked – and honestly, a little bit scared.
We waived caution to the wind and headed into the arena, roughly 75 minutes before tip-off. We found our seats, got settled, and went exploring through the historic hallways of Assembly Hall.
An old scoreboard and clock in the concourse of the arena, along with the Hoosiers trophy case.
The Indiana media room, pregame.
I’ve been to a couple neat places, and Assembly Hall was right on par with Allen Fieldhouse in regards to “feeling the history”. The arena has this aura to it where you just understand how important the program is to the fabric of college basketball. At that point, it really settled in that we were blessed to be able to cover Nebraska at a venue like this.
After taking a lap of the arena, we headed down to the courtside area, bumping into Robin Washut and Justin Frommer – both of whom were taking in pre-game warmups. I took a seat next to them and watched Nebraska get prepped for Indiana up close.
Pregame warmups at Assembly Hall.
Jared Garcia warming up pregame.
I headed over to the concessions stand to get a Pepsi before getting settled into my seat. I got everything ready and situated a few minutes before tip-off. It was another pinch-me moment – covering a Nebraska game at Assembly Hall. Wowza.
Pregame shot of Assembly Hall, 15 minutes before tip-off.
And finally, the main course – the game!
Nebraska started hot before falling into a huge hole, down 16 points early in the second half. The Huskers powered through on a ridiculous run to get back into the game, finding a late lead that was never relinquished. I’ll never forget the moment when Braden Frager hit the step-back three to build Nebraska’s lead to nine with under four minutes to go. To me – that was his “Hello, world” moment.
The final buzzer sounded and the immediate rush to get to the media room commenced. Thankfully, I had done some scouting pre-game to figure out where we were supposed to go – otherwise I may not have gotten there at all. It was in an auxiliary room in a hallway that you’d never think to go in. There were five of us that took our seats and waited for players and coaches.
Fred came in for the media session. He’s generally very stoic in postgames, win or loss – but you could sense some underlying excitement for what this game meant, especially given the game script.
Jamarques Lawrence had went for a career high in scoring, so I asked Fred how Lawrence has developed since he last played for him two years ago. He had a great answer, saying he learned a lot during his year at Rhode Island and has been a perfect re-addition to this team.
Players came in and answered questions afterwards. All were excited about the win, but Fred Hoiberg’s mentality had clearly been matched by his players – all they cared about was what’s next. Lawrence thanked everyone for coming and told us all “See you in Lincoln” while fist-bumping some of us on the way out.
And that was that! We had a tight schedule to catch our flight back to Omaha, so I soaked in one final moment at the now-empty Assembly Hall before we started booking it back to Indianapolis.
An empty Assembly Hall following Nebraska’s 83-77 comeback victory.
As always, I want to thank all of you for following and supporting us here at the Scarlet Shootaround. We say it all the time, but for our little side project to turn into what it has, is nothing short of unbelievable. If you would have told us two years ago (when we started this) that we’d be covering a Nebraska-Indiana game at Assembly Hall, I’d have said you’re nuts. We’ll forever be thankful to all of you for turning our dreams into reality.
Thanks as always for reading along – we’ll see you in the next one! 🫡