Based on a true story

The film is not really based on the story of the 1954 Indiana state champions, Milan High School (pronounced /ˈmaɪlən/ MY-lun), but the term "inspired by a true story" may be more appropriate as there is little in the movie that coincides at all with Milan's 1953–54 season other than that both were small schools that won the State Championship in the 1950s. The game winning shot in the movie was based on Bobby Plump's last second shot to win the 1954 Indiana State Basketball Championship. In most US states, high school athletic teams are divided into different classes, usually based on the number of enrolled students, with separate state championship tournaments held for each classification. At the time, Indiana conducted a single state basketball championship for all of its high schools, and continued to do so until 1997. Today, only Kentucky, Delaware, and Hawaii continue to use the one-class system to determine the state high school basketball champion. Some elements of the film do match closely with those of Milan's real story. Like the movie's Hickory High School, Milan was a very small high school in a rural, southern Indiana town. Both schools had undersized teams. Both Hickory and Milan won the state finals by two points: Hickory won 42–40, and Milan won 32–30. The final seconds of the Hoosiers state final hold fairly closely to the details of Milan's 1954 final; the final shot in the movie was taken from virtually the same spot on the floor as Bobby Plump's actual game-winner. The movie's final game was even shot in the same building that hosted the 1954 Indiana final, Butler University's Hinkle Fieldhouse (called Butler Fieldhouse in 1954) in Indianapolis.