Why was there so much fiction injected into the movie Hoosiers?

Hoosiers screenwriter Angelo Pizzo summed up the film's heavy dose of fictionalization by saying that the added drama was necessary, "because their lives were not dramatic enough... The guys were too nice, the team had no real conflict." Angelo Pizzo is a Bloomington, Indiana native and the college roommate of fellow Indianian and Hoosiers director David Anspaugh. The two had often talked about making a movie "about the meaning of basketball to people in Indiana."