Hoosier Hysteria the state of Indiana. Indiana's passion for basketball was observed and written about by basketball's inventor, James Naismith. In 1925, Naismith visited an Indiana basketball state finals game along with 15,000 screaming fans and later wrote, that while it was invented in Massachusetts, "basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport." Hoosiers have a traditional love for basketball similar to that of Southerners or Ohioans for football, Pennsylvanians for wrestling, and Minnesotans for ice hockey. Indiana high schools boast a tradition of producing top caliber basketball players. Through the 2009-2010 NBA season, 152 Hoosier
James Naismith (chemist) James Naismith (chemist) James Henderson Naismith (born 26 July 1968) is Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford, Director of the Research Complex at Harwell and co-interim academic lead of the Rosalind Franklin Institute. He was formerly Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of St Andrews until May 2017. Naismith was educated at Hamilton Grammar School. He went on to study at the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a first class Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1989. He won a Carnegie Scholarship to work under the supervision of Bill Hunter, John