To this day, Victor Oladipo still has dreams about the Wat Shot. To this day, Cody Zeller still sheepishly tells people how he not only ran the wrong play on the game-winning possession but ran it incorrectly. Players on that 2011-12 Indiana team still laugh when they watch a replay of the game and see Tom Crean’s weirdly inappropriate facial expression after Christian Watford’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer gave the Hoosiers a program-changing 73-72 victory over No. 1 Kentucky.

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And did Watford, the then-junior whose shot from the left wing sent Assembly Hall into paroxysms of joy, know it was good the moment the ball left his hands?

“Not really,” Watford said.

For fans of IU basketball and maybe even a few crestfallen Kentucky fans, it was a “Where Were You When … ?” moment, an athletic touchstone that not only heralded the return of IU hoops but drove a motivated Wildcats team to a national championship (Kentucky beat IU in a Sweet 16 rematch in the NCAA Tournament).

Until that moment, IU, a program with a proud history of five NCAA titles, had fallen off the national map, languishing at the bottom of the Big Ten with Penn State and Northwestern. They had won six, 10 and 12 games in Tom Crean’s first three years of an abject rebuild after the Kelvin Sampson fiasco.

Slowly, though, he built, most notably securing the services of Zeller, an Indiana Mr. Basketball star from nearby Washington, Ind. And in time, the Hoosiers came along in that 2011-12 season, first winning at Evansville — just the second road win of the Crean era and first in nearly two years — then going to Raleigh and beating a good North Carolina State team.

Still, this was ancient rival Kentucky. This was a vintage John Calipari team, led by Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague, Doron Lamb and Darius Miller, a devastating lineup that would be selected Nos. 1, 2, 18, 29, 42 and 46 in the 2012 NBA Draft and make a combined $419 million (and counting) as pros. They were the No. 1 in the nation, and the only real question was whether they could advance through the season unscathed, something that hasn’t been done since the 1975-76 Hoosiers.

This is an oral history of a day, Dec. 10, 2011, that will never be forgotten in central Indiana, a day that Kentucky fans would just as soon have consigned to the dustbin of history, but for its motivational value to a predestined title team.

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Tom Crean, Indiana coach, 2008-17: The Evansville win surprised them (the players). The North Carolina State win galvanized them. That gave us belief. All through the week of practice before we played Kentucky, we weren’t just thinking about how we were going to win, we were thinking about how we would dominate. I don’t think you show up for that game just hoping to win.

Derek Elston, IU forward: Really, Evansville was the circle-the-calendar game for us before we got to Kentucky. That was Step 1. Then the further along we got, it was like, ‘Holy cow, this is a pretty good team.’ We went on to beat NC State and we’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, we’re winning.’ We practiced like we were going to beat Kentucky, but in the back of our minds, it was like the stage was so big and none of us had ever experienced anything like that. To walk around like we’re going to beat these guys, I don’t care who tells you they were thinking like that, that’s a lie.

Cody Zeller, IU center: It was like, ‘You want to see how good you are? OK. Test yourselves against the best.’ I mean, they had the top (two) picks in the NBA Draft. It was a massive game.

Crean: I wanted the mentality to be there. We’re going to prepare not only to win but win big. What I wanted to do on the weak side of the floor defensively was move their weak-side defenders. Then we wanted to beat them down the floor and force Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist to play both ends. Everybody was talking about Kentucky’s speed, well, we wanted to use our speed. We wanted to spread them out and turn them into one-on-one defenders. Those were all things we worked on before we ever got to the Kentucky game.

Elston: One thing (Crean) would do was put game plans on top of game plans and we wouldn’t even realize we were game planning for another team. But he always found a way for a game plan for the future to kind of correlate with the game we were playing that week. This was one of those games.

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By now, IU fans were starving for a winner, and finally, they had one. After averaging fewer than 10 wins over the previous three seasons, the state and campus were buzzing with anticipation. The Hoosiers weren’t just 8-0, but this was border-rival Kentucky. The game was on a Saturday afternoon, but fans – mostly students – began camping out on Tuesday. The athletic department eventually handed out vouchers, fearing the cold and rain would make for an uncomfortable and even dangerous experience. Ryan Huffman was one of those camped-out students.

The Wildcats knew what they were walking into too. Well, at least the few veterans on that freshman-heavy roster did. Senior Darius Miller tried to warn his younger teammates.

Darius Miller, Kentucky forward (on the eve of the game): I had already talked to a few of the guys about how crazy it’s going to be. Probably one of the craziest environments we’re going to play in.

Huffman (the week of the game): It’s been a tough road to hoe the last few years, to say the least. But this season is the cornerstone for the future. People are starting to believe again. There’s been a buzz since before the season started, and everybody on campus has been talking about the Kentucky game. I wouldn’t have been willing to stand there for days in the cold if I didn’t think we could win. I wanted a front-row seat for this.

Crean: I was legitimately fearful people would burn out from staying out so long. I was also concerned about people freezing. Every once in a while, I’d open up Cook Hall (the practice facility) if it was raining or it was too cold. I didn’t ask for permission; I just did it. It was a buildup you hoped would come, but you didn’t know it would come, and then, all of a sudden, there it was.

Tom Leach, radio voice of Kentucky basketball: I remember when we got there, we were listening to the Cincinnati-Xavier game where they had the fight that broke out. We parked at Assembly Hall and got out with all our equipment and there was a huge, long line of students there and I guess they saw a UK logo on something and just started in on us, taunting us, saying all kinds of things. It wasn’t necessarily mean but it was pretty intense and that was probably almost three hours before tipoff. It was a signal that, boy, this is not going to be just a run-of-the-mill road atmosphere. This was noticeably different walking in. Edge, I think, is the right word. There was just an edge to the taunts. It felt a little more than good-natured. It was something a little more.

Don Fischer, radio voice of the Hoosiers: Well, it was Kentucky. What more do you need to say? We hadn’t had a game like this in a while. John Calipari had built something pretty special there and we knew it would be a difficult test, but we had this freshman everybody was so high on: Cody Zeller. I just remember walking into Assembly Hall and everybody had a smile on their face and you could sense the anticipation; you could see it and feel it. I walked by ushers and people I’d been walking by for years, and you could see it on their faces: This was going to be a special game.

Verdell Jones, IU guard: This was a team with a little more confidence, our talent was a little better. And we looked, from our big man all the way down to the guards, like a contending Big Ten team.

The student section filled quickly. The music blared, the building pulsed with energy. Inside the Hoosiers’ locker room, Crean reiterated all the points of emphasis he’d been pushing for weeks. 

Crean: Beat them up and down the floor in the speed game. The biggest thing, not allowing rim to rim drives or Davis catching over the top. We had to stop their lobs. We had to make them live on the outside with jump shots. We had to get Kidd-Gilchrist and Teague to shoot outside, control Lamb, control … the … lobs. Offensively we wanted to keep them moving on the weak side of the floor, attack the middle of the floor, don’t settle for jump shots, drive to the paint and get our 3s from that. We had to have a relentless spirit throughout the game.

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Zeller: We believed we could beat them. We watched a lot of film, even early in the season. We’d go out and beat a team by 40 and he (Crean) would be like, ‘OK now, that’s gonna be Anthony Davis in three weeks.’ He wanted us to prepare like that was Davis or Kidd-Gilchrist or Teague. Davis is obviously one of the top players in the league now, but back then, he was fairly limited. He got a lot of garbage baskets off rebounds, lots of lobs. We knew if we stayed connected, he wasn’t much of a threat shooting the ball. Teague, Kidd-Gilchrist, they were average shooters. We knew if we took away the rim, took away the paint, we’d give ourselves a chance.

Elston: One of the big things was staying low in the post. When guys would drive to the lane, people would step up, they’d throw the alley-oop and dunk it. So that was a huge point of emphasis. I remember running so many laps, if you left ‘Davis’ to step up and help on the guard, he (Crean) would immediately stop practice and we ran and ran and ran. That was my role in practice to guard quote-unquote Davis. I wanted so bad to step up and take a charge, but we had watched on film about 50 times, people stepping up and them lobbing it to him. He kept saying, “This is a man’s game. If you don’t believe we’re going to smoke them, don’t show up.” If you didn’t bring it, you ended up on the sideline or you ran. Crean had no doubt in his mind we would not only win the game but win by a lot. The other thing was getting out on the break. Run it down their throats. Crean had an ideal picture of what he was envisioning. In practices, you’d swear you were running as fast as you could and it just wasn’t fast enough. It was, ‘Get on the line, get on the line, do it again, do it again.’ It was so maniacal and detailed, and it paid off. He could see Cody getting easy dunks and you were like, Coach Crean knew what he was doing the entire time, but you’re 20 years old, you’re mad because you’re running sprints all day.

Zeller: I remember coming out to shoot and it felt like the whole crowd already had a buzz. The lower bowl was filled up, and this was hours before the game.

For 30 minutes, the Hoosiers executed the game plan with aplomb, and with 8:53 remaining, they led by 10 points. Crean’s vision was becoming reality. Zeller was getting run-out dunks. Victor Oladipo was establishing himself as one of the up-and-coming young players in the country. Jordan Hulls shot the lights out from 3-point range. And Watford, a player with enormous talent but, at times, a questionable motor, was handling his business, establishing him as the best player on the court, finishing the game with 20 points.

And then they almost blew it.

Zeller: We had a (10-point lead) and then we watched it start to slip away. I thought we played really well the whole first half and half of the second until around the 8-minute mark. Then, I don’t know, we started to relax, or tighten up … something. It was like we knew how big of a win it was going to be for the program and we felt the pressure a little bit. We had played the scouting report exactly the way we wanted to. I think about it now, if that shot doesn’t go in, how disappointed we would have been because the opportunity was there. We had them, and we started to let it slip away.

Crean: All of a sudden, we’re all going to win the game on our own and that’s not the way it works. We had a chance to blow it open and we didn’t do that. Quick shots, bad shots, then we didn’t get back and stop penetration. We allowed them to get back in the game and get their confidence back. We were just trying to hold on for dear life because we got away from the game plan.

Jones: That stretch of time was kind of how things had gone for us the previous three years.

A Miller basket then gave UK its first lead since 35-34, scoring to make it, 69-68. After a Watford basket, Teague scored on a drive to make it 71-70, at which point IU was forced to foul. They intentionally fouled Davis, a 53 percent free-throw shooter at the time, and he missed the front end. There was still hope.

Oladipo tried a spin move near the lane, got stripped, then watched hopelessly as Lamb was fouled and was sent to the line for two free throws with 5.6 seconds remaining. He missed the first, made the second, giving the Wildcats a 72-70 lead.

Oladipo: I still have dreams about that game – like, real-life dreams. The one thing I remember is the last sequence leading up to Christian’s shot because earlier, I turned the ball over. And I remember feeling terrible and Crean’s like, ‘Get to the line and box out.’ I’m thinking if he makes both these free throws, it’s a wrap. It’s over. We didn’t have time. We had to go the length of the court.

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Elston: I’m thinking, well, damn, here we go, we gave it a good shot. This is pretty much how everyone saw this going.

After the first free-throw miss, Crean called a timeout.

Crean: We had to get ourselves in a position to get fouled intentionally. They weren’t going to foul us twice. I said, ‘This is gonna be impossible.’ Of course, I didn’t tell the team that. But I knew a lot had to go right.

Surely, he figured, UK would intentionally foul with a foul to give. He called a play – Five. Meaning, this is what we want to do with 5 seconds remaining, needing to go the length of the floor while knowing UK would foul. Theoretically.

Watford inbounded the ball to Jones. Zeller then set a brush screen in the backcourt – this is when he says he not only ran the incorrect play but ran it incorrectly – but it got Jones free of his defender. Jones then brought the ball quickly up-court, only to be stopped by two defenders just to the left of the lane.

The noise was deafening. The game was on the line. Kentucky had failed to foul despite Calipari’s orders. And then, well, you know what happened.

Zeller: We had two plays for those situations, Cowboy and Five. So on Cowboy, I was supposed to start on the elbow and screen across from the guard. On Five, I was supposed to start at the 10-second line away from the ball and break toward the ball in the backcourt. But I read it wrong. I was supposed to be on the opposite side and set a back screen. Instead, I started on the ball side and ended up setting the screen. So I’m laughing at myself later because I’m thinking, ‘Man, I’m glad I ran it wrong because it worked out.’ So two, three days later, I see an interview with Verdell and he said, ‘Yeah, the play was called Cowboy,’ so not only did I run the wrong play, but I ran the wrong play wrong. The other four are running Cowboy, I’m running Five, I’m running it wrong, but it was like the whole thing was destined to be.

So here’s where it gets a bit confusing: Crean said he’d called Five and all of his teammates insist the play was Five. So maybe Zeller ran the right play incorrectly. Maybe. Maybe?

Crean: I don’t even remember Cowboy as an option. But Cody might have a better memory than me. He had a 3.98 GPA, right? The fact Cody set the screen changed the whole play because it gave Verdell the freedom he needed and brought a defender to him, which left Christian wide open.

Watford: Yeah, Five, that was the name of the play just because it was 5 seconds left on the clock. Cody kind of didn’t set the screen but he kind of did set the screen. The play was supposed to be where Cody ran over and set the screen before the ball actually got inbounds to Verdell. He did get it wrong but it actually worked out because Verdell was able to free and catch the ball and he set it kind of while he was dribbling. We kind of knew they want to foul, so we wanted to catch Verdell on the run, but he was able to get free enough for Cody to set the screen. And then I was just in the trail spot. That’s an action we go through. We run that play during shootaround. We might have Five, Seven, Three, different stuff. I just remember sprinting down, screaming Verdell’s name and he found me.

Jones: In all of our end-of-game plays, we always left the option open for whoever was the trailer – in this case, C-Wat – to be open as a last-second option. Once the screen was set so high, it was kind of a free-for-all and I saw Jordan was being denied and Vic was being closely guarded, so I wanted sure where Christian was going to be. I just wanted to make a play. I have big shoulders and I was ready to take the blame whether it went in or I missed it. As time was running down, that was something I was planning on doing, making a little pull-up jumper, and then I heard Christian at the last second yelling my name – ‘Verdell! Verdell!’ – and I put all my faith and trust in him. If was crazy, as loud as Assembly Hall was that day, to be able to hear him over the chaos. It was just meant to be.

Watford: I knew people would kind of forget about me, just because it’s the trail spot and you kind of forget about it. (I’m the) inbounds guy. Everything is moving so fast. Luckily, he found me. I don’t even know how he found me. Probably just because it was so perfect, as far as the timing. We had done it so many times. I was able to go right into it, into a natural flow, and make it. Man, that was such an underrated pass he made, just to be able to hear me in that environment, as loud as it was. … I wasn’t inside the 3-point line I wasn’t stumbling. I was able to catch it right in motion, right in stride and knock it down.

Crean: I had an incredible line on it. It was picture perfect. All I remember is he got his hand through the ball. The biggest thing with Christian was finishing his follow-through, or sometimes he would fade on a jump shot.

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Watford: For sure, that was one of the things Coach Crean always emphasized, just staying in the shot. My footwork was right I may have jump-stopped into that one. Regardless, I stayed in the shot, didn’t fall out of it. Held it for sure.

Leach: We were almost right behind Watford when he released the ball. Because of our angle and that shot on the left wing, we were kind of right there. When he released the ball, it was one of those uh-oh moments. When he let it go, it was dead on line. … As soon as he released it, you go ‘Oh no.’

Oladipo: I was thinking, Verdell’s gonna shoot this but then I see Christian trailing. I’m under the basket, he shoots it in front of our bench, and if you watch the replay, I was the first one to him. I could see it was going in, so I’m thinking, ‘Let me get out of here and be the first to tackle him.’

Jones: In all honesty, his release looked so good. A lot of times when you have a last-second shot, guys are rushing it or off-balance, but the way he was able to catch it right in his pocket and get a good shot off, I knew it had a chance. It might have been a one-second journey for the ball but for me and the other players, it seemed like two or three minutes. The arc was good, the rotation looked beautiful and as soon as it went in, man, it was a release of all kinds of emotions. Once that shot went in, it was a relief, like a big wind of fresh air is coming into your lungs. The previous three years, we came so close to making upsets, so close to beating highly ranked teams and big-name teams. For it to finally happen at that moment, and the way it did, it was magical.

Watford: I just had a good look and I had it going in the second half. When I stepped into it, it felt good, but they kind of late-contested the shot, so I really didn’t see the ball in the air. Once they came out of my vision, I just saw the net kind of snap a little bit and I knew it went in. It felt good, but trust me, not all the ones that feel good go down.

Fischer: For a second there, I thought it wasn’t going in. I thought, ‘Left.’ And then it looked like it almost turned in mid-air and went right. I might have been dreaming at that point, but it went right, and then it was pure unadulterated mayhem. Back then, we had Royce Waltman as the color analyst on our broadcasts, and he was so shocked, he didn’t say anything. As a broadcaster you want the crowd reaction to be a big part of it; you don’t want to jump in too soon, but you can’t go too long, you’ve got to start talking at some point. I finally said to Royce, ‘What do you think?’ All he says is ‘Man, that was something.’ That’s all he said. He was as stunned as anybody in the building.

Watford: Victor was the first one (to jump on me) but he didn’t knock me over. When Victor jumped in my lap, I was able to hold him. But it was a split-second later when everybody was jumping on me. That’s when I kind of fell, and it got kind of scary at the bottom of that pile, that’s for sure. I didn’t see (the crowd storming the court) because Victor jumped on me and the rest of my teammates jumped on me. Some people out of the first level were kind of jumping on the pile. So I had to tell one of my teammates to get them off me because I felt so much pressure. … I felt like my ribs were going to break. So I told Tom Pritchard, ‘Get them off me.’ Tom started snatching them off me and then by the time I came up out of the pile, the floor was filled.

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As fans streamed onto the court and began backing up into the aisles, longtime UK basketball academic adviser Michael Stone – a large man with a famously intense scowl – turned into a lead blocker for Teague, who’s an Indiana native.

Stone: I’ve never seen one (a court storming) like it. I always brought kids out to do the postgame radio stuff, and just trying to navigate them through that sea of people was like swimming upstream. We had state troopers from Indiana trying to help us, but it didn’t do much good. That place was alive. That was as excited as I’ve ever seen a crowd. People obviously yelled things – some rough stuff – and Marquis just kept his face forward and never said a word. The crowd had some choice words to say, but our kids handled it right – and they didn’t forget. God, remember Darius Miller? He got swallowed up in that thing. Thankfully, he got back to his feet quickly, but it happened so fast that it was just like a tidal wave.

Hulls: I’m sprinting over to C-Wat and I’m a claustrophobic person, trying to get guys up so we wouldn’t get trampled on. I remember when I was a kid, we’d play football and I’d be at the bottom of the dogpile. Maybe it’s from when my older brother would put me under the blanket.

Buck Reising, now a sports journalist in Nashville, was an IU freshman that year and wore a friend’s banana suit to the game – “much to the chagrin of my parents, I’m sure,” he said. He was sitting 10 rows behind the basket near the Kentucky bench and was hammered, having joined some dorm buddies in some pregame revelries with grape Karkov Vodka. “Seven bucks a handle,” he said. “To a 19-year-old, that’s the nectar of the gods.” When the shot went in, Reising wanted to join the fray, but …

Reising: If you watch the YouTube clip, the whole arena erupts and there’s this one dude in yellow with his head down who does not move. I was that incapacitated on grape Karkov. Everybody’s moving and I’m just standing there. I’m literally slumped over on my roommate while people are rushing the court. Finally, after a couple of minutes, I made it down there, but it took a while.

The ball went through the basket, but Crean’s expression, how do you describe it? He looked like he’d just ingested some bad sushi. There was no joy on his face. Maybe it was relief, disbelief, something, but to this day, Crean doesn’t really know what he was thinking. He just knows it was an odd reaction to a game-winning buzzer-beater.

I still can’t believe I had that expression. What was I thinking 😂 https://t.co/GD1YoRSypc

— Tom Crean (@TomCrean) December 11, 2020

Crean: Disbelief and shock. I was in combat mode still. At that last timeout, I couldn’t allow anger and frustration to get in the way because I didn’t know that we’d get a shot off. Coaching at the end knowing we’re on the verge of giving that thing away when I really believed we could win big. I think it was disbelief at that point.

Elston: We had a film session the next day, we thought it’s gonna be a great film session and it was probably the worst one I’ve been a part of since I was at IU. Now fast forward, after the film session, somebody – maybe our video guys – put together a video montage of different people making fun of Coach Crean’s expression. We laughed and laughed, and he (Crean) was laughing too. It’s like every clip had a voice-over. We felt connected at that point.

At the midcourt announcer’s spot, Dick Vitale was losing his mind, first because of the buzzer-beater, but then he was expressing his fear as fans, mostly students, cascaded down from the stands. “Are we safe?” he asked on the broadcast to his partner Dan Shulman. “I’m nervous … I’m really worried here, Dan.”

Crean: I’ve never seen anything like that. It was incredible. My son was on the bench and to this day I regret not going back to find him. Fortunately (trainer) Tim Garl and the security people got a hold of him. I just remember standing back off and watching. That’s something I’ve always wanted to be, not to be in the middle of a court storming but to be able to watch it. I just went to a corner and watched the whole scene.

Elston: It took about 20 minutes to get everybody back to the locker room because we wanted to bask in it. Why wouldn’t we, right? We didn’t realize what we had just done. We’d just beat the No. 1 team in the country, so why wouldn’t we jump on the scorer’s table and soak it all in? For the first time in our careers, we felt like, ‘Hey, all this hard work is going toward something. It’s not running just to run.’ So we just celebrated. People are ripping jersey off players, we’re on the scorers’ table with our hands in the hair, like, I don’t know, ‘We’re here, we’ve arrived.’

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Oladipo: So I remember jumping on C-Wat and I could feel the weight of all my teammates jumping on us, so I got off quick. My best memory of the whole night was turning around and seeing 20,000 people in a full sprint, coming right at us. First I’m thinking ‘Wow,’ and then you’re thinking, ‘Oh, this could be dangerous.’ I remember getting on the scorer’s table and then climbing the steps to find my mom to hug her. It was one of those nights you dream about. And to have my roomie, my best friend, hit that shot, it was like heaven on earth.

After the team finally returned to the locker room, they witnessed something they hope never to witness again. While everybody was squirting water in celebration, Crean danced a little dance. Or something akin to a dance.

Jones: If you want to call it that. He needs to definitely work on it a little bit He doesn’t have the most rhythm…He chewed us out a little bit, too. He was a coach to the end, about letting our guard down at the end of the game.

Elston: Oh, man, that guy can’t dance …

For Kentucky, the loss was little more than a speedbump – they lost one more game the entire season on their way to a national championship. But it had an undeniable impact. At the time, ESPN was rolling out its WatchESPN app and they used the Wat Shot as its promo. It played over and over and over again. UK coaches and players noticed. And they were inspired. They saw IU again in the Sweet 16 in Atlanta; it was a great, high-scoring game, a 102-90 UK victory.

Stone: So they won that game, but they also won us a national title that day. I really believe that. The ball didn’t bounce our way in Bloomington, but it made that night in New Orleans happen. Every time you turned on ESPN, the shot was on. Every time you turned it on. And let me tell you something: My guys saw that every single day. If that’s not a motivating factor, nothing will be. People don’t understand the human spirit. It was just a constant reminder, an in-your-face reminder of what can happen. That was the spark, that was the catalyst that I think helped make it happen.

Kentucky’s players had quietly stewed about seeing that shot on ESPN every day for months, and they finally admitted as much after clinching a perfect SEC record and 30-1 regular season with a runaway win at Florida the first weekend in March.

Calipari, Kentucky coach, on March 4, 2012: I want to thank ESPN. They’ve done one of the greatest services for my program by having that advertisement that keeps showing Indiana beating us. Every time my team watches TV and on ESPN, they see it. They just shake their head. Makes ‘em mad. Thank you, ESPN.

Davis, that same day: Everybody was mad, everybody for the whole week because we lost. Every team wants to go undefeated. It would have been a perfect season. But I still think that was a good loss for us. It kind of motivated us and pushed us to never have that feeling again.

Terrence Jones, that same day: I turn the TV off every time I see that commercial. I almost sold my iPhone, my iPad. I turn the TV off. I don’t watch it.

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Verdell Jones: A lot of people don’t understand what happens behind the scenes. Our class went through a lot. There were many opportunities for me and some of my teammates to transfer and go away to a better situation. But we believed in the rebuilding process and we stuck it out through a lot of bad times. A lot of us came from winning programs in high school to winning six games in our first year at IU. To get over that hump our senior year and experience something special like that, was truly a blessing.

Crean: It made it cool to talk about Indiana at the top of the sentence, the top of the broadcast.

Zeller: It’s fun even all these years later when it’s on ESPN Classic or the Big Ten Network. I still get nervous watching it. Even the play before Christian’s shot, we had a good play set up where Vic was supposed to drive and I messed up that play, too. I was in the corner but I left too early and I ended up taking my defender right to Vic. When the shot went through, it was such a relief. I would have put so much blame on myself for not executing. I was still a dumb freshman doing dumb freshman things. I still kick myself.

After the locker room celebration, most of the players went to dinner with friends and family, then everybody made their way down to Kirkwood Avenue to witness the madness they had wrought. A few of the over-21 players hit the bars, specifically Kilroy’s. The younger guys just walked the streets and soaked in the adulation.

Watford: Everything was on the house that night. I think everybody benefitted from the Wat Shot that night. … They actually had a shot called the Wat Shot. I don’t know if they still have it, but they did.

Zeller: Around 9 or 10, we went out to Kirkwood. I just wanted to soak it in. I was still 18 so I couldn’t get into Kilroy’s although I think they may have made an exception for me that night.

Hulls: I’m not the most outgoing person, but we all went to Kirkwood to see how crazy it was. There were people everywhere. I was thinking, ‘Wow, we’re part of history.’

Watford: Man, it’s crazy. I love it, don’t get it twisted, but the only downside is it overshadows the rest of my four-year career at IU. Not to true fans, but to certain young people then who didn’t realize the body of work. All they really see is the Wat Shot, which is fine. That happens with anything as time goes on. That’s just the way it is. That’s the only thing that could be bad about it, but that’s not even a bad thing. Nothing compares with that moment besides the birth of my daughter (7-month old Macee). That’s the only thing that can give you that kind of excitement, that kind of rush, that kind of feeling. It was incredible.

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The Wat Shot game turned out to be the last regular-season meeting between the two schools as the commitment to the rivalry died that day. Crean and the Hoosiers wanted to play home-and-home games while Calipari and the Wildcats preferred neutral-site meetings, likely in Indianapolis. But neither school has budged. 

Crean: I don’t think it had anything to do with how the crowd was. He (Calipari) had already decided to go neutral (site games). I think eventually the two of us would have gotten it worked out. I’m not sure but I think that. But then too many people jumped into it and had too many comments and that started to bother John, and then he dug his heels in. Again, as much as I didn’t like losing the rivalry, I had to respect the fact other coaches are running their programs too. The only thing I didn’t like at the time is it was being looked at as a reflection of our fan base. I think the decision had already been made. I can’t fault him or us for our thought process.

Kyle Tucker of The Athletic contributed to this story.

(Top photo of Will Sheehey, Verdell Jones, Christian Watford and Victor Oladipo. (Darron Cummings / The Associated Press)

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