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‘Hoosiers’ Spirit Strong as Ever : Prep basketball: The final game of 82nd Indiana state high school tournament draws 33,522.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The newspapers for sale outside the Hoosier Dome on Saturday seemed either a week early, or a year late.

“Final Four Extra!” a hawker called outside the arena where the NCAA title was decided last year. “Final Four teams are searching for immortality,” a headline in the Indianapolis News said.

Inside the Hoosier Dome, 33,522 fans--at least half of them dressed in red--gathered for the Final Four of the grandest high school boys’ tournament in the land, Indiana’s one-division, everyone-plays state championship.

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The game of basketball celebrated its centennial in 1991; Indiana crowned its 82nd champion Saturday night after Richmond’s 77-73 overtime victory over Lafayette Jefferson left one team standing from a field of 384.

The history is storied. John Wooden led Martinsville to the 1927 title. Two years earlier, James Naismith was a spectator. Oscar Robertson led Indianapolis Crispus Attucks to the title in 1955 and 1956.

In 1982, Scott Skiles won the title for Plymouth in a double-overtime game, scoring 39 points and making the shot that sent the game to overtime. Jay Edwards helped Marion win three consecutive titles ending in 1987; Eric Montross’ Lawrence North team won in 1989.

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No game is more famous, though, than the triumph of 161-student Milan High in 1954, the inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers.” Bobby Plump, whose one-handed shot with four seconds left won the title 38 years ago, was in Indianapolis on Saturday, and flyers distributed outside the arena advertised his appearance.

In 1990, the first year Indiana’s Final Four was held in the Hoosier Dome, 41,406 turned out to watch Damon Bailey lead Bedford North to the title.

This year, between the Saturday morning semifinals and the evening championship, many of the fans found downtown bars to watch Bailey take Indiana University against UCLA. Alan Henderson, his Hoosier teammate, was a member of the Brebeuf team that lost in last year’s final.

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Richmond played Jeffersonville in one semifinal Saturday. Richmond trailed by six points with 1:13 remaining, but Dedric Thompson and Robert Sanders made back-to-back three-pointers to send the game into overtime as Richmond won, 94-92, partly because a Jeffersonville basket was disallowed on a charging call with 25 seconds to play. It was only the second time in the history of the tournament final four that both teams scored in the 90s.

In the second game, Lafayette Jefferson outclassed Warsaw, 71-58. In Lafayette, where the local radio station replayed the tape of the school’s last championship game in 1964, officials at the Mideast Regional of the women’s NCAA tournament in West Lafayette knew their hopes of a good draw for their championship Saturday night were crushed.

Most eyes and ears were turning an hour south on Interstate 65 to the fortunes of Coach Jim Hammel and a team led by his son, Richie Hammel, who will play at the Air Force Academy.

Richmond, which had never won a title, was the last of 383 other teams that stood in the way.

“You can’t ask for anything more in basketball,” Richmond’s Thompson said. “Especially high school.”

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