After falling to .500 in the Big Ten, the Indiana men’s basketball team has been declared an official choking hazard by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

Gary Schenkel, spokesperson for the FDA, issued the official hazard warning late last night, after the No. 16 Hoosiers were defeated on the road by the Wisconsin Badgers.

“We really should have seen this coming,” said Schenkel. “We could almost smell the sweat-laden enthusiasm from Washington. After IU beat Kentucky, all those hillbillies began consuming massive doses of Indiana hyperbole. It was just a matter of time before they started choking on it.”

Head coach Tom Crean issued a formal apology to fans via twitter:

“I deeply apologize to the countless former Butler fans and Notre Dame football fans who really thought they had a winner in IU basketball this year. It was not my intention to choke this season away. We fully expected to choke next year—after we overhyped our incoming recruits. This year, we didn’t really expect to be competitive at all. For that early competitiveness, I am sorry.”

Other problems remain. Earlier, the Hoosiers reached as high as No. 7 in the AP poll. That, in turn, prompted an excessive amount of hot air to be spewed from the mouths of bandwagon fans. The massive quantities of gas over the state began slowly depleting the ozone, thus prompting an inquiry from the Environmental Protection Agency. Although still investigating, the EPA appears to have accurately identified the problem.

Tim Archibold, a spokesperson for the agency, explained. “It was definitely the hot air from all those bandwagon fans,” Archibold stated. “It appears now, however, we have a dumping problem. Every road I travel in this state is littered with cast away IU memorabilia.”

Manny L. Scoreboard