Few college basketball fans are going to confuse the Ball State Cardinals with one of the nation’s heavyweights. In fact, even compared to other MAC teams, finding cheap Ball State basketball tickets is relatively easy. But the Cardinals are a program that’s starting to make waves. The program has had some big moments, found coaching stability, and is slowly gaining a following in the basketball-crazy state of Indiana, leading to a high demand for last-minute Ball State basketball tickets.

It Took a While

Ball State played its first season of basketball in the 1920s. However, it took over a half-century until the Cardinals started to find success on the basketball court, not winning a conference title and reaching the NCAA Tournament until 1981. Fortunately, they were able to quickly make up for all of their lost time. In 1989, Hall of Fame coach Rick Majerus led Ball State to a 29-3 season, including a MAC championship and the program’s first win in the NCAA Tournament. After the season, he left the program, passing the torch to assistant Dick Hunsaker. In Hunsaker’s first season, the Cardinals repeated as MAC champions and proceeded to make the Sweet 16 as a no. 12 seed before losing to eventual champion UNLV by just two points.

Call of the Cardinal

After the turn of the century, Ball State basketball fell on some hard times. Despite a stunning run in the 2001 Maui Invitation in which the Cardinals beat top-5 teams on back-to-back days, the Cardinals were pushed to the basement of the MAC for many years. Alas, James Whitford has dug the Cardinals out of their deep hole. After winning just 12 games total in his first two seasons, he has since brought Ball State basketball back to the upper-echelon of the MAC. Starting in 2016, the Cardinals won the MAC West Division three times in five seasons, creating a sense of optimism that it’s only a matter of time until Ball State is back in the Big Dance.