Scroll down the middle section about the Terre Haute Jammers. This sounds familiar.
Brad Miley, who played forward at Indiana State with Bird, had started the Jammers a few years before. "It was primarily for my kids," he says, and the program drew its players from the 20 or so miles around Terre Haute. The team didn't enjoy a Nike or Adidas sponsorship -- unlike some other AAU teams, they didn't travel extensively or wear slick warm-up suits. Indeed, for most of the roster the notion of "jamming" was itself aspirational. "We had no Division I scholarships on our team," says Lucas Eitel, another ex-Jammer who walked on at Indiana State and is now a key shooter off the bench.
Still, the Jammers went on a stunning two-year run, regularly beating teams that boasted eight or nine future D-I players -- guys like Garrick Sherman (Michigan State), Evan Gordon (Arizona State), and DeShaun Thomas (Ohio State). "We played ‘Indiana-style basketball,'" Odum says (and those are his scare quotes). Most AAU teams play a fast-and-loose style that makes even NBA offenses seem elegant and unselfish. But the Jammers opted for a more structured, team-based approach, passing the ball, cutting constantly, chirping on defense.
It worked. "I don't think most of our opponents knew what hit them," Miley says. The Jammers' motives were never entirely pure. "If we play individually we don't beat them," Odum explains. "And then we're definitely not getting any looks from college coaches."
In 2008, Miley decided to take his team on the road. The Jammers scraped together enough cash to attend the Nike Main Event, a sprawling, four-division tournament in Las Vegas. To save money, the Jammers flew in on a brutal red-eye out of Indianapolis and played their first game that same day. "You could tell they were tired," Miley says, and the Jammers lost to a team from Oregon. Then they won their next eight straight, beating Dallas Showtyme and capturing the Gold Division title.
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