I Was Unfamiliar With Taylor University's "Silent Night" Tradition Until This Weekend And It's One Of The Coolest Things I've Ever Seen
Hand up, I was not wholly familiar with this event until this weekend.
Turns out Taylor University's 'Silent Night' Tradition looks like one of the coolest things I have ever seen in sports.
Friday Night was the 28th annual Indiana basketball celebration. The 10th-point party started in 1997. Before that, students attended the game (always on Friday before finals week) in pajamas.
The students/fans remain silent until Taylor scores their 10th point, then they rush the court. It's planned out, so no technical foul is given for the 10th-point celebration.
They also show up in costumes and sit in groups that visually make the crowd look like something out of a movie.
Love it. Taylor is not some big school - they play in the Crossroads League in the NAIA. Their home gym, Odle Arena, holds around 1,500 spectators. You can only have a wild event like this in a building that size—no chance you could pull this off, safely, at a bigger arena.
And that's actually a good thing - this is Taylor's event. It's cool that a small school like this has such a great tradition.
This year's Silent Night was helped by the 9th and 10th points coming on a dunk.
As cool as the storming he court is, the whole crowd singing Silent Night together at the end of the game is my favorite part.

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I'll be honest - goosebumps.
Taylor won their 2025 Silent Night game this weekend, 118-33 over Moody Bible. Their 118 points were a school record for the annual game.
The win moves them to 27-1 all-time on Silent Night…night. Congrats to the team - and their fans - for putting on a heck of a show.