So I'm from Massachusetts, and one of the things that folks here are most proud of is the fact that Massachusetts is the birthplace of basketball.

And if you travel to Springfield, Massachusetts, there's a public sculpture honoring James Naismith, the inventor of basketball,

standing on the site where the first game was played.

Springfield is also home to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame,

a massive ball-shaped facility that might be the most comprehensive Sports Hall of Fame in America.

It doesn't just honor any specific type of athletes. The basketball Hall of Fame includes everyone,

international, amateur, and women's athletes.

Jordan, Shack, Magic, Yao Ming, Lisa Leslie,

all the greats are honored here for their contributions to the game.

But recently, I learned there's another basketball hall of fame, one that's devoted entirely to players from Indiana and Indiana's connection to the game of basketball.

And it's located in a small town called Newcastle.

It's, you know, big enough to have a Walmart you know about every fast food joint you need but small enough that you know for major shopping you go somewhere else

This is Matt Martin. He's

the executive director of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. I called Matt up

because honestly being from Massachusetts I was a bit skeptical that Indiana

needed its own basketball Hall of Fame.

But as I'd come to learn, there's one religion that unites everybody in Indiana's basketball. My name is Baudelaire and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and

and wondrous places.

Today we go to Newcastle, Indiana to see the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame

and hear why Indiana calls itself the center of the basketball world. More after this. I'm going to I've loved basketball for as long as I can remember. Everything about the game really,

like when Ellen Iverson willed the 76ers to beat the Lakers in game one of the NBA finals in 2001.

Just seeing this dude who's barely six feet tall, repeatedly get to their basket against

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