While the Golden State Warriors prepare for an MLK Day game against the Miami Heat, the Indiana Hoosiers are set to play in the biggest game in program history, facing off against the Miami Hurricanes in the college football National Championship game.
Though the two teams might not have a lot of connection at first glance, according to Nick Friedell of The Athletic, he reported Warriors news that shows two people within organization who have ties to the Hoosiers.
Chiefly, it is Golden State big man Trayce-Jackson Davis, who attended Indiana University before being drafted in 2023.
“It’s amazing to be able to call that my school,” he told Friedell.
Additionally, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has been following Curt Cignetti and the team amid their recent success.
Both the player and the coach’s connection with the program was detailed in Friedell’s piece on the ties between the Hoosiers and the NBA, which also, perhaps more importantly, includes the team’s biggest donor and former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban.
Trayce Jackson-Davis On Indiana Football
Jackson-Davis spent four years in Bloomington from 2019 to 2023, putting up a collective average of 17.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 2.2 assists on 56.5% shooting while starting in all 126 of the regular-season games he played.
But speaking about the school’s football team, the big man said the transformation from a couple of years ago to now has been massive.
“The stadium would be packed, and it would be mostly Ohio State fans or mostly Michigan fans,” he said. “And now we got the whole stadium rocking cream and crimson and kicking people’s (expletive).”
Like so many around the country, Jackson-Davis is also in awe of Indiana’s success, going from 3-9 two years ago to now on the brink of perhaps the most successful season in college football history.
“They’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “We had one good year when I was in school, and it was COVID. So being able to see this, I’m kind of mad that I’m not there seeing it in person, but it’s really cool to see from afar, and I’m cheering those guys on.”
Jackson-Davis continued to give praise to Cignetti for the program’s revival and national prominence throughout the historic run.
“What he’s done with Indiana football, what he’s done in the college football landscape is incredible,” he added. “Salute to him because this is crazy to watch.”
Jackson-Davis will be facing off against fellow Indiana attendee in Kel’el Ware as the Warriors play the Heat, while the national championship game closes out on Monday night.
Warriors HC Steve Kerr On Curt Cignetti And The Hoosiers
Kerr also said he’s been following the team ever since he heard Cignetti drop his now-famous ‘Google me‘ during his introductory press conference at Indiana.
“I remember laughing when I saw his press conference, when he said, ‘Google me, I win,’” Kerr said. “I remember laughing like, ‘Man, this guy’s got some you know what.’ And he was right.”
Kerr, the five-time champion as a player and four-time winner as a head coach with the Warriors, also revealed to Friedell that he has a daughter-in-law currently in school in Bloomington, so while he was already rooting for the Hoosiers, that makes the game a little more important for him.
Yet still, considering all the success he’s created and been a part of throughout his career, as Friedell wrote, Kerr ‘knows a good leader when he sees one.’
“I’m just blown away,” he added. “It’s one of the most remarkable coaching jobs of all time in any sport. To take a team that has been down for that long in football, a total afterthought in probably the best conference in the country, and to just flip ’em, like immediately.”
While the two members of the Warriors are pulling for Indiana, perhaps nobody more than Cuban is rooting harder for the Hoosiers across the NBA world. He has been the program’s biggest donor over the past few years, and, like his run with the Dallas Mavericks in 2011, is hoping to do what many thought was previously impossible.
Steve Kerr, Warriors Big Man ‘Blown Away’ By ‘Amazing’ Indiana Football Run