The most dramatic game of the Big Ten tournament ended with two former Indiana high school stars in an emotional embrace on the court, with one of them in tears.

However, there was just one corner of the packed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis that contained fans that cheered for the triumphs of the former hometown heroes, and they were wearing the black and gold of Iowa. Indiana hoped with all their might that former Iowa coach Steve Alford and guard Luke Recker, both former Hoosiers, would not such joy in their home state.

However, that just made victory even sweeter when Recker's second buzzer-beating game winner in two days caught nothing but net with no time remaining on the clock and ended Indiana's Big Ten tournament with a 62-60 Iowa win. The feeling wouldn't last forever.

The Hawkeyes would fall the next dayto Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship 81-64 despite 21 points for Recker. However the moment is immortal. There was a lifetime of depth behind it, so much that Recker went into instant elation. He ran to center court and pointed towards the Indiana fans that had spent the game booing him while his teammates swarmed around him. When he escaped them he made his way over to that black and gold corner, and jumped up on a table in front of him with his arms raised.

"It's just a euphoric feeling," Recker said. "I didn't know what to do, so I just jumped up and looked for my mom, my family and looked for my fiance, saw them, and just threw my arms up in the air."

In his last game against Indiana in this state, he was confounded by the Hoosiers defense and downtrodden by the Assembly Hall fans treatment toward him. He shot just 3-for-10 as his Hawkeyes were pummeled 79-51.

This time, he faced a similar task with the sea of red clad Hoosier fans booing him every time he got the ball in his hands. He struggled early, but took over late in the game. He scored 10 of the team's last 15 points leading them back from an eight-point deficit with a game-tying three-pointer with 58 seconds to go.

He even set up his own heroic moment on the defensive end on Indiana's possession, grabbing a rebound and calling a timeout as he went out of bounds with 13.2 seconds on the clock. He did all of that just a day after doing the same thing to No. 1 seed Wisconsin, hitting a jumper with 1.4 seconds left on the clock to give the Hawkeyes a 58-56 win in a 28-point performance.

Recker answered all the questions he was asked after the game as though he was reading from some secret handbook for talking around controversy. He said that he at no time held any hard feelings toward his former head coach Bobby Knight, Indiana University or the fans of Indiana, the school from which he transferred after his sophomore season.

"Coach Knight's a great coach," Recker said. "I wish him nothing but the best, but I didn't want it to be about Coach Knight, I wanted it to be about me so I put the blame on me and it ended up backfiring. I still won't blame coach Knight. It was just about me not being happy and wanting to move on."

He talked about his love for the state, and of the glorious position basketball holds in it, especially the high school game, but Recker could not make anyone believe that the win didn't mean the world to him.

"I can't describe to you what this feels like," he said after the game. "Obviously I struggled early on, and I struggled in Assembly Hall this year. Going through what I went through, I think it would be tough for any kid to play in front of 17,500 people booing you everytime you get the ball."

There were so many reasons why the shot was so meaningful. After all, Recker's 23 years on Earth have been more eventful and have played out in a larger spotlight than those of almost any other college athlete. Recker was the state's golden boy after winning Mr. Basketball honors McDonald's All-American status at DeKalb High School in Auburn, Ind., and enrolling at Indiana, but when he transferred to Arizona, he became a villain to the state's basketball fans.

Along the way he also had his brush with mortality, nearly losing his life in a 1999 car crash that claimed the life of the driver and paralyzed his then-girlfriend Kelly Craig. Once he recovered, Recker wanted to move back closer to home to be near Craig, and found a near-perfect situation in Iowa which got better when Alford, a former Mr. Basketball himself, and a superstar at Indiana where he won a National Championship in 1987.

Alford knew what Recker had been through and knew how to relate to him.

"We have a lot in common of just growing up in this state and understanding what basketball is in this state," Alford said. "We kind of know what it was like growing up and learning and competing in this state."

During all of that, he continued to receive criticism by Hoosier fans who felt betrayed when Recker left. They deemed him a traitor, and sent hateful letters and e-mails.

At Assembly Hall in February, those fans released all the loathing they had on Recker in his first return trip to Bloomington. He heard boos every time he touched the ball, and chants of "Recker Sucks". As much as he tried to block it out, he couldn't hide the pain he felt.

"It was tough in Bloomington," he said after beating Wisconsin. "It was a horrible experience. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Some people displayed a lack of class, but that's their prerogative."

Recker says he has no animosity towards anyone now at Indiana, and they say the same thing about him.

"I'm happy for the young man because he's been through so much," Indiana coach Mike Davis said.

However, Saturday's game winner allowed him to put an intense part of his career behind him. He got to have the last laugh, sending his critics out the doors of the Conseco Fieldhouse in slackjawed disbelief.

His career goes on from this. It might be a career of CBA ball or life in Europe, but he gets to take that moment with him forever.

"They got us a couple times, we got them a couple times," he said. "Luckily I got them the last time, and this feels pretty good."