The 'Dark Years'                         Handsome Pete
	When I arrived at Indiana University in the fall of 1994, I thought that the Hurryin' Hoosiers would compete for the National Title for a decade to come.  Why shouldn't I have thought that?  Prior to my arrival, they had one of their most outstanding teams of all time.  The early 90's teams went to the Final Four, won several Big Ten titles and held the longest home winning streak in the country.  With a great new recruiting class consisting of Andrae Patterson, Neil Reed and Charlie Miller, my expectations were confirmed.  Right?  Wrong. The years from 1994 to 2001 will be remembered as the "Dark Years" of Indiana basketball.  Why?  No Big Ten titles, multiple first-round exits from the Dance, embarrassing losses to Southern Illinois and Pepperdine, the General gets fired amidst a cloud of contraversy, Jason Collier leaves, Luke Recker leaves, Malcom Simms leaves, and IU basically falls off the proverbial map.  What more could possibly go wrong within a seven-and-a-half year span.  Not much really.  They could have decided to make Miles Brand the head coach and demoted the team to "intramural status."  The ironic aspect?  I was in school, at IU, for ALL of it! Those who entered IU from 1994 through 1997 know the pain of the "Dark Years."  But only those brave fans who stayed in B-Town an additional two-and-a-half years truly know the extent of my misery.  Five years of college and almost three years of graduate school kept me wallowing in the giagantic shadow of despair that was Indiana basketball...until last spring. On that magical run, the stars realigned and the ever-present clouds started to disperse.  Fighting and clawing their way through the Dance, the Hoosiers brought a ray of hope to a program trapped in perpetual darkness.  Those who sat through the years of torment (listening to Dickie V and company rant about Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, Arizona and the rest of the Axis of Evil) would finally feel the warm glow of success and the excitement of a Final Four. This shoud have included me, right?  I mean, my graduation was slated for May 12, 2002.  Guess again.  Sensing another heart-breaking ending to another mediocre season, I decided to spend my last semester of academia abroad; fifteen semesters in Bloomington...one outside of it.  Another brilliant maneuver on my behalf.  Furthermore, I choose a country to visit which prefers soccer over basketball.  Translation: I couldn't even watch the games!!!  To sum up, I went to IU from 1994 until 2002, sat through seven awful seasons with no Big Ten titles, early tournament losses to Pepperdine and Kent State and watched Bobby's name get dragged through the mud prior to his eventual departure.  Then I traveled overseas for the Spring of 2002, never to see one game of what some consider the greatest run in Hoosier Hoops History.  No Duke game.  No Kent State redemption.  No Oklahoma game.  No Maryland.  Coincidence?   I like to think so.