In the Week We Lost Hackman, Hoosiers Come to Montlake

During a week in which iconic Hollywood film star Gene Hackman was revealed to have died, it seems only appropriate the University of Washington basketball team will play a team designated as the Hoosiers.

What a perfect farewell to a great one, to honor him in this corner of the country.

On Saturday, the Huskies will host Indiana's college version, rather than the fictional Hickory High Huskers coached by Norman Dale, Hackman's memorable character and filled with a roster of people known as Hoosiers for their geographic connection.

Either way, there's an underdog involved, in this case Danny Sprinkle's last-place Big Ten Conference entry (13-15 overall, 4-13 league) that will take on one of college basketball's still most storied programs.

With a 3 p.m. tipoff at Alaska Airlines Arena, the Huskies are down to just three games on the schedule before their season likely ends, through they're not mathematically eliminated just yet from the Big Ten Tournament.

The ninth-place Hoosiers (17-11, 8-9), if nothing else, will represent another high-profile opponent coming through Montlake that likely draw will another big crowd even with the Huskies bringing up the rear of the Big Ten in a difficult debut season.

This marks the fifth time these schools will have played on the basketball floor, and in paying homage to the departed Hackman, we'll replay the series tied to what Hackman was doing in his cinematic career at the time.

The first UW-Indiana basketball game was played in1966 at the Far West Classic in Portland -- and the Huskies surprisingly won 81-79.

These Lou Watson-coached Hoosiers couldn't handle the UW forward tandem of 6-foot-2 Dave Carr, who supplied a game-high 20 points and 16 rebounds, and 6-foot-6 Dave Hovde, who impressively backed him with 19 points and 15 rebounds.

Meantime, a 36-year-old Hackman appeared in his first film that year, in the role of Dr. John Whipple in the film "Hawaii" that had Julie Andrews, Richard Harris and Max von Sydow.

Gene Hackman portrays coach Norman Dale in the film "Hoosiers." | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Twelve years later, the Huskies and the Hoosiers played twice over the course of eight days at sites 2,200 miles apart

On Dec. 19, 1978, the UW lost to a Bobby Knight-coached Indiana team 73-56 in the Indiana Classic in Bloomington. Just over a week later, these two teams went at it again at the Far West Classic in Portland and the Huskies lost 71-57. No chairs were thrown either game.

Mike Woodson, currently the Hoosiers coach, emerged as the leading Hoosiers scorer in each game, with the guard coming up with 25 and 23 points, respectively. At the same time, Lorenzo Romar was a UW guard and future Huskies coach who scored 0 and 2 points in the two games, struggling some to find his way..

In the movie houses in 1978, Hackman, whose name similarly describes an overly aggressive basketball player, entertained audiences with his evil yet comedic portrayal of arch villain Lex Luther in the first "Superman" film.

The last time the UW and Indiana met on the basketball floor was in 2013, in the 2K Sports Classic in New York's Madison Square Garden, and the Hoosiers won 102-84.

By now, Romar was the Husky coach and Shawn Kemp Jr. was one of his pivotal players and, of course, the son of NBA great Shawn Kemp, a native of Elkhart, Indiana, some 200 miles north of Bloomington, making the latter a Hoosier.

At this time, Hackman was nine years into retirement. Seventeen years earlier, he had made the Hoosiers film and helped turn it into a big hit as that unforgettable coach Norman Dale, leading Hickory High to a storied state championship as a lovable underdog.

The Huskies will try to match that make-believe outcome with the real thing in a Saturday matinee.

If people really wanted to show the proper respect, they'd call for a moment of silence for Hackman at Alaska Airlines before tipoff.

They'd pause just for an instant to pay homage to the great Gene Hackman, a man equally as legendary in his trade as real-life coach Johnny Wooden was in his at UCLA, with the latter, of course, yet another Hoosier.

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