Hoosiers have six Ws over No. 1

The holiday season has been a bit slow in terms of sports questions.
The only questions we have from readers this month regard football statistics and Indiana University men’s basketball.
So to start things off, I’m going to answer a question that I was asked at a game earlier this month.
How many times has the Jay County High School boys basketball team defeated Muncie Central?

Four.
The Patriots lost their first 19 meetings against Central, including twice in the 1978-79 and 1981-82 seasons.
They earned their first win over the Bearcats 51-47 in 1994, scoring the final 11 points of the game. Andy Mitchel led Jim Black-coached JCHS squad to the victory with 26 points.
The remaining three  wins have come under current Jay County coach Craig Teagle.
The Patriots defeated Central in Teagle’s first season, with Andrew Michael scoring a career-high 30 points. The team also shot 42-of-63 from the foul line in the win.
Jay County defeated the Bearcats in back-to-back seasons in 2007 and 2009. Its only win at Central came in December of ’07, when Billy Wellman scored 25 points. The next season, on Jan. 3 of ’09, the Patriots nailed 13-of-15 shots from the foul line in overtime and got 14 points from Adam Garringer in a 53-40 victory.
Why does the quarterback get to count all of the yardage and/or touchdowns that result because of yards after a catch following a completed pass?

This was a tough one. The quarterback does, in fact, get credit for yards/touchdowns that result from a receiver running after a catch, but there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer as to why that is the case.
The best answer I can give is that once a pass is thrown, everything following the pass is considered to have happened as a result of the pass until something else (a fumble, a lateral, etc.) occurs to change that.
On a side note, there is an interesting statistical difference between the NFL and college/high school football. In the pros, negative yards from sacks count against a quarterback’s passing yards. In college and high school, they count against his rushing yards.
For the record, the NFL pass-catchers with the most yards after the catch this year are Wes Welker (726), Darren Sproles (685), Ray Rice (684), Rob Gronkowski (644) and Arian Foster (641). It’s interesting that three of those players are running backs.
The top five quarterbacks in terms of yards after the catch this season are Tom Brady (2,485), Drew Brees (2,389), Matthew Stafford (2,211), Aaron Rodgers (2,163) and Phillip Rivers (2,033).
Given that the Indiana University men’s basketball team defeated top-ranked Kentucky earlier this month, I was wondering what the team’s record was in other years during which it defeated a No. 1 team?

Indiana has not played, let alone beaten, a No. 1 team since taking on Connecticut in 2006.
The Indiana University men’s basketball media guide indicates that the Hoosiers have defeated a No. 1-ranked team six times.
The first of those wins came during the 1984 NCAA Tournament when IU knocked off top-ranked North Carolina 72-68. That squad lost its next game — to a Ralph Sampson-led Virginia team — and finished 22-9.
The most recent Indiana win over a No. 1 team prior to this season also occurred in the tournament. The Hoosiers rallied from a 17-point deficit to beat Duke in the 2002 tournament on the way to the Final Four. They posted a 25-12 mark.
The 1986-87 IU national championship team went 30-4 and beat No. 1 UNLV in the national semifinal before knocking of Syracuse 74-73 in the national title game.
The Hoosiers also beat top-ranked Kentucky in 1993-94 on the way to a 21-9 record, and defeated No. 1 Michigan State in 2000-01 en route to a 21-13 mark.
Kentucky has been the most frequent of the No. 1-ranked opponent. IU has played a top-ranked Wildcat team seven times.
If you would like a chance to have your questions about local, college or pro sports answered, email them to [email protected] with “Ask Ray” in the subject line or post them on The Commercial Review’s Facebook page.[[In-content Ad]]