Bloomington, Indiana Is One of the Best College Basketball Destinations in the Country

Indiana basketball is a blue blood. Despite the struggles of the last few seasons, it is still true. The tradition and passion felt this week in Bloomington proved that the fan base lives and dies by this team as much as any fan base I've ever seen. The entire Barstool Bench Mob crew was fortunate enough to get an all-access tour of the IU basketball facilities and Assembly Hall yesterday ahead of the Hoosiers' game against St. John's. We started things off walking out onto the court:

It doesn't matter if you love Indiana, hate Indiana, or are neutral about Indiana, that is as special as it gets. The uniqueness of Assembly Hall is what stood out to me the most. It's one of the strangest, yet perfect shapes of a building that I've ever seen. We put some shots up on the floor (vlog coming soon), and our own Marty Mush did his best Bob Knight impersonation on the IU bench.

Full disclosure: we got approval from manager Adam (shoutout to him, as good of a VIP tour guide as it gets), but Hoosier fans were NOT happy with Marty, and I think that is putting it lightly.

Anyways, we continued on with our tour of the IU locker room and got a look at how big Indiana's star player, Trayce Jackson-Davis' shoes really are. There also was a ping pong table (inset eyeball emoji here):

It was then time for our live show at Nick's English Hut, one of the historic bars on campus in Bloomington. Rico Bosco had Pick'em oblos, but luckily, his flight was on time and he made it to the bar right before our show got started.

We each made our picks for the IU-SJU game, while Marty and I took the Hoosiers. As for Rico? Well, that was a bit of a sticky situation. He is a native New Yorker, after all...

So, did Rico really take the Hoosiers or the Red Storm? We may never know the true answer. OK, I lied, by the way he acted during the game, the answer is clear. But Indiana fans responded to Mr. Cat's video:

We ended the show with a ritual at Nick's: a game called "Sink The Biz," which resulted me in chugging a beer.

And for the haters saying it was a small glass, that's the one you put in that giant metal bucket. If you were to play that game correctly, there would be plenty of those chugs and we would have been there for hours. Speaking of haters, they have the right to go after me on this one. I walked right into it and it was a clean shot, tons of respect to this IU fan who got me good...

We then got to our seats for the game, which luckily, were the best in the house. No exaggeration. Super, super fortunate:

Rico is a lunatic part two:

And the game came down to the final seconds. The Hoosiers led 76-74, it was St. John's basketball on the final possession:

What a trip, what an experience. A HUGE shoutout to the entire Indiana basketball program for showing us an amazing time from the moment we arrived on campus. The fan base, students, and alumni were very welcoming, too. Can't wait to get back to Bloomington for another game soon. Stay tuned for our vlog from the entire trip coming soon. Subscribe to the Barstool Bench Mob YouTube Channel: