You may not remember this game from the very early stages of the latest college basketball season, but if you live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, you definitely do.
The Fort Wayne Mastadons (seriously) hosted then-No. 3 Indiana in Fort Wayne... and won. This is a bit like if Akron were to somehow bring Ohio State to their place and then knock off the Buckeyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9R-jAO0JG0
The win didn't propel Fort Wayne to a dream season, but it did put the school's name on the lips and minds of people the school would've never otherwise reached.
An internal study found that victory created 30,000 Facebook mentions and a reach surpassing 458 million across all traditional media platforms.
“It was the No. 1 trending topic that night,” Fort Wayne AD Kelley Hartley Hutton told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. “Is there another positive way that our institution can get that sort of attention on a national scope? That demonstrates what a good, successful athletics program can do for an institution.”
Like it or not, the only way for Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne to make the news is for something extraordinary to happen, either something really bad... or the Mastadons bringing down the Hoosiers.