Zags get their latest basketball jones in Indy

The fascination with paying for a seat in one area code to watch a basketball game being played in another still eludes many of us, but then so do the concepts of “reality” television and $150 sneakers.

Don’t worry. This will not be a paean to the good old days of manual typewriters and Pong.

Besides, nobody can stay within their friendly confines anymore. Football has been scaled down for hockey rinks, hockey is moving outdoors into football stadiums, major league baseball is actually being played in Tampa. If competitive sports ever return to Seattle, we’ll know that all the rules have been broken.

This has been a preamble to the news that the Gonzaga Bulldogs will be back on the gridiron Saturday for the first time since 1941.

They’ll carve out a sliver of history by playing in the first basketball game at the new Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, home of the Colts. The good news for the Zags is that they won’t be running into anyone as hot and/or lucky as Peyton Manning’s outfit.

They get Indiana, all burned out from Kelvin Sampson’s scorched-earth departure.

The occasion is The Hartford Hall of Fame Showcase – a doubleheader that will serve as the first shakedown cruise for the venue’s hosting of the Final Four in 2010.

Apparently, this is the place to be this weekend.

Tom Crean, who IU fitted for a hazmat suit to clean up after Sampson, declared it “a great honor” to christen the new joint.

“It wouldn’t seem right if Indiana wasn’t in the first game,” the Hoosiers’ new coach said.

Then Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, whose Irish meet Ohio State in the second game, noted how vigorously he recruits the state and how many Indiana players are on his roster.

“We need to play in that thing and be in that building,” he insisted. “Plus, there’s (an NCAA) regional in there this year and that’s a nice piece of motivation for our guys to think about and dream about coming back and playing in something like that.”

In the meantime, some about 25,000 tickets have been sold – meaning Hoosier fans don’t mind that their heroes have been crushed by 38, 26 and 25 points in the last week and were nearly Chaminaded, and that Irish fans need something to distract them from the news that Charlie Weis is still coaching the football team.

It’s basketball. It’s the state of Indiana. What else do you need to know?

As for the Zags’ participation, well, coach Mark Few has his reasons, too.

This is the third time in as many years that the Bulldogs have signed on with the Hall of Fame benefit, and it’s been a lucky charm. Two years ago they downed Texas in the inaugural event in Phoenix; last year they knocked off Connecticut in Boston. You get the feeling that if the HOF and the event’s owner, Brooks Collegiate Sports, wanted to stage it next year on an aircraft carrier in the North Sea, Gonzaga would agree – provided it was televised on BBCU or something.

But the venue attracted Few, too.

“We’ve been blessed to play in Madison Square Garden a couple of times, but we’ve never played in one of these big football stadiums,” he said. “I thought it would be a neat experience for our guys. I think it’s going to be a great event and something our guys will remember.”

Which got us to thinking about crowds and capacities and yet one more gauge of how far this program has come.

Not until 1980 did Gonzaga play in front of an audience bigger than 10,000 – a 74-56 loss to DePaul witnessed by 11,370 at what was then known as the Rosemont Horizon. There would be just seven more gates like that over the next 17 seasons.

In the last 10 seasons, there have been 69.

Now a crowd of 11,370 elicits a shrug. The Zags have played in front of 18,000 or more fans nine different times, and 15,000 on 29 occasions. They are 12-17 in those games – not too terrible, considering that all of five of them were played within 300 miles of campus, and 15 of them were against Top 25 teams.

The Zags are not getting the full mega-arena treatment this weekend – Lucas will be configured for at least twice as many seats for the 2010 Final Four, as will Ford Field this year in Detroit – and may not even play in front of their largest assembly, that being the 26,873 that watched Michigan State dismantle GU in the 2001 Sweet 16 at the Georgia Dome. But it’ll still be a big crowd – and a big deal.

“They have the most loyal fans in the world there, and with all the great experiences our guys have been able to accrue, it’s something they haven’t done,” Few said. “And we’re kind of running out of those things.”

Of course, the Zags could shorten that Bucket List further. But not in December.