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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Down here in passionate Hoosierland, Indiana basketball sparkled for decades as the jewel of the state's sports.

Notre Dame football, you say? Don't be confused. The Notre Dame operation is not located in Indiana anyway. It's more like D.C., you know, "national." It's like saying Chicago is part of Illinois when everyone knows better.

Think about it. Young Hoosiers don't grow up on their driveways dreaming of the Golden Dome. No, their imagination runs toward Oscar Robertson, Rick Mount or Steve Alford.

Until, that is, roughly the turn into the 21st century. It was in 2000 that Indiana made a dramatic coaching change and, with a sanctioned Indiana quintet taking a 1-10 Big Ten record against Illinois today, we find ourselves buffeted by a sea of change.

Purdue and Butler are left to wave the state's tattered basketball pennant ... almost alone in the roundball sport. Whereas Chicago and Detroit enjoyed NBA title runs, the floundering Pacers remain titleless and currently out of contention (last in the Central Division below the Bulls). The once-proud high school program that produced the movie "Hoosiers" (was that an Illinoisan, Gene Hackman, as coach?) has seen interest wane after being siphoned off into four divisions, just like Illinois.

There are divergent and confused emotions sweeping the state at all three levels: pro, college and high school.

Watering down the field

"High school basketball lost a lot of its charm with the move to divisions," said Bill Benner, longtime Indianapolis Star columnist and now director of communications for the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"The Colts have become an object of great attention with their NFL success, and that has filtered down to the high school level. Believe it or not, Friday night football has become the community event.

"The Bob Knight ouster (in 2000) created a division and it remains in the healing process. The high school system still delivers quality players but IU, in particular, has done a poor job in capitalizing on that talent, and that even goes back to the period before Knight left."

Hoosier fans can rattle off the recent list of in-staters who got away. Indiana was unable to attract huskies Sean May and Zach Randolph. Josh McRoberts and the Zeller brothers, Luke and Tyler, snubbed Indiana, as did Bloomington's Duany brothers. The state provided two of the nation's current backcourt stars, Jeff Teague at Wake Forest and Dominic James at Marquette. Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr. left Indianapolis for Ohio State and the NBA. Butler's A.J. Graves could certainly have starred for Indiana.

And just up the road, Purdue swept four of the state's top five all-staters in 2007 and has four more in-staters ready to enroll in the fall, while four of Indiana's six signees are again out-of-staters.

Nowhere close to home

Spot checks confirm this shocking story. After Luke Recker transferred to Iowa, Knight's last team in 2000 was led by Peoria's A.J. Guyton and Tennesseean Kirk Haston, and had only one Hoosier, Michael Lewis, among the top six. In 2005, when an unbeaten Illini team traveled to Bloomington, the Indiana starters hailed from Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Louisiana and Texas, and 10 of 14 on the roster were from out of state. And today, with Indianapolis product Eric Gordon leaving after one season (he nearly enrolled someplace else!!!) and last year's helter-skelter lineup wiped clean, the six Indiana squadmen with at least 100 points show only one from Indiana, Devan Dumes, and he has been on suspension.

These revelations overlook 2002 when a 12-loss Indiana team, coached by Mike Davis, made a surprising NCAA title-game run on the broad shoulders of two native Hoosiers, Noblesville's Tom Coverdale and Bloomington North's Jared Jeffries. That team stands as the exception to the rule and, at 11-5, got a piece of Indiana's only shared Big Ten title since 1993.

That's 16 years, and a lot has changed in the meantime. Indiana University is not the attraction for downstate Hoosier lads that it was throughout the Branch McCracken and Knight eras when, between 1940 and 1987, those two coaches won five national titles. Purdue is still searching for championship No. 1 but, with the upheaval at Indiana, the Boilermakers are dominating in-state recruiting to the point where some experts talk about the possibility of a future lineup featuring five Boilermakers from the Indianapolis area ... all preps a mere hour's drive from Indiana University.

Loren Tate writes for The News-Gazette. He can be reached at ltate@news-gazette.com.