- Well, welcome to another program. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Carter. And as always, welcome
- to my beautiful wife, Paulette, and my cousins, and my brother over there to my right. I left some sheets
- of paper on all the tables with our upcoming attractions going all the way into September next year,
- I think. And keep in mind, these aren't all set in stone. We have changes sometimes. We've had cancellations
- before, and we just deal with them as they happen. We just finally work around it.
- Many thanks to the American Legion for allowing us to have these programs. We've been partners in presenting
- and preserving local history for over 12 years now. And thanks so much to their wait staff and kitchen
- staff who does such a great job. It's great we have two such people as Brooke and Amanda. Please be
- generous with them. I'd also of course like to thank CATS TV for recording our programs for
- 10 years now, about. Yeah. And I'd like to recognize the fellow who's been recording these guys the
- last few years, Dave Walter. Our expert cameraman. He does such a great job. It's an important service.
- It allows us to upload each program to YouTube for people who can't make it to the live programs.
- In addition, it allows us to preserve our local history for future generations to enjoy.
- to our local history enthusiasts who attend these programs. That's great. We really appreciate your
- support. And also the ones that watch these programs on YouTube are very much appreciated. It's great
- that all these transplanted Bloomingtonians can see this, these all over the country, because they contact
- me and tell me to keep doing it. They like it, to keep in touch with their old town. How many new attendees
- today? We got some new faces here?
- Not very many. Anybody that is new that has an email address they want to leave with us to be contacted
- by direct email, you can do that. We won't sell your information, honestly. No, we won't. So our next
- program, how many people have heard of Modesta, Indiana?
- I don't even know where the heck it is, but the guy's going to do a program on that next month. So I'm
- kind of curious where Modesto is. We'll find out. And we're taking December off, which we had the last
- two or three years. It's kind of difficult for them to have their staff completely controlled as we
- get into the holiday season. So we'll take December off, as usual, and then start in again in January.
- But right now, Daniel Slegel.
- Director of the History Center has a few remarks. Thank you, Michael. I just wanted to let everybody
- know that coming up on Friday, November 7th, so next Friday,
- And Saturday, November 8th, we are having our November garage sale extravaganza. That's the way that
- we raise a lot of funds. A little over 25% of our funding come from the two garage sales. These ladies
- work hard year round. So if you were looking to donate, you're going to have to wait till after the
- new year. But the sale is coming up on Friday and Saturday. So you don't know how many amazing finds
- you'll find out there. You say you don't need anything.
- I say that every year and every year I go out there, I find something else I can't live without. So
- make sure to come by and visit. There's a lot of great stuff. We also are very excited. Rod volunteers
- at the History Center and does a lot of great work for us. So we're excited about his presentation.
- But we also have an exhibit about this Hoosier team that's on display. It just opened.
- I think a week, maybe two weeks ago, so it's still a very, very new exhibit in addition to Hey Neighbor
- about the historic districts in downtown Bloomington. And then we have another exhibit about lantern
- slides. So the way we've had to explain it to some school groups or even college students is this was
- PowerPoint presentations before PowerPoint presentations.
- And then they get it, it clicks right away and they go, oh, there's slides. I get why these are called
- slides as you had to slide those.
- It's fun to see that light bulb click on for them. But make sure you come by and visit. That is a really
- neat exhibit about early 20th century Bloomington. So a lot of pictures from the very, very early 1900s.
- And it's fun to see how some of the areas looked and how they've developed since. So make sure to come
- by and see us at the History Center. And as usual, I brought a bunch of different items. Rod will even
- highlight some of the photographs we have for sale that he's used in his presentation.
- have some spooky fun Halloween-related stuff and some new books and things over there. So feel free
- to pop over and say hi or grab one of these little reminders of when the garage sale is next week so
- you can stop by and see us. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, Daniel. Now to today's business.
- So look, I know I use a football school. We all know that now.
- But try to imagine a time when it wasn't. We're going to talk about a time when football was not a big
- deal. Basketball wasn't. I think basketball will be again eventually. But the name of the program today
- is Picture Perfect, HT Photos of the 1975-76 IU Undefeated Basketball Season by Rod Spah. And we'd also
- like, and he'll probably tell you this, to hear from the attendees
- about their favorite stories and memories from that year as it goes along. Feel free to comment any
- time on what he's showing. So Rod? Oh, I'm going to take a few pictures. Then I'll turn the lights down,
- just a couple of minutes. Thank you very much. And again, during the presentation, if my voice lowers
- and you can't hear me, just wave, yell, whatever.
- My name is Rod Spaw, and I'm currently a retired journalist. I worked for the Herald Times for 15 years,
- starting in 2003. And before that, about for the time of this period, I was in Evansville, where, as
- you may know, there's one or two IU fans in Evansville. So we were all keyed in on what was happening
- in this season.
- started. Okay, and we're going to talk about 75-76. We may stray here and there as is relevant to talk
- about other teams in other years. But what do I mean by picture perfect? What does a perfect season
- look like? Well, it looks like 32-0. It looks like an NCAA championship.
- a Big Ten championship, a number one ranking every week of the season, having the national player of
- the year, having the coach of the year, and being named the all-time March Madness team by the NCAA
- in 2013. It'd be hard to improve on that unless you could win more than 32 games. And here's what we're
- going to breeze through today.
- We have to talk a little bit about this was kind of a redemption tour for IU. And we'll go through conference
- and non-conference highlights, the NCAA tournament, and how people in Bloomington reacted to this team.
- And if there's time at the end and you want to get into it, we can talk about how likely it would be
- to ever repeat as an undefeated NCAA champion.
- And particularly in the Bedlam and Bloomington section, please feel free to add your experiences of
- that time. And if you see yourself in any of these images, please let me know after the presentation,
- because it helps us document what we have.
- I'm going to start out with the credits, because I was a journalist for 40 years. And of course, I never
- thought that they got enough credit for their work. These are the HT photographers whose work you'll
- see in these images. Dave Mathers, Russ Cochran, Phil Whitlow, Larry Kruehl. Larry was a chief photographer
- for 30 years at the HT, and he did
- He became the principal IU photographer and did all three of Coach Knight's championships. He was at
- the 67 Rose Bowl. He was at the bowl trips with Bill Mallory's team. So he was the man when it came
- to IU sports. And then, of course, the man on the writing side was Bob Hamill.
- Now, unfortunately, as you know, he passed away this past summer. But he is here in spirit because I've
- read every piece that he wrote during the 76th season. And I also got to visit with Bob for a couple
- of hours last winter. So you'll see him quoted here. And most of the factual information has some origin
- in Bob Hamill's work.
- And of course, the Monroe County History Center, where I volunteered since I retired in 2018. And much
- of my work there, particularly with Hillary Fleck, the curator, is in processing the HD photo archives,
- which we picked up when Gannett closed the old building on South Walnut Street. And we picked up 8,000
- prints and nearly 50 years of negatives.
- And as you can imagine, we are still processing it. So it will take a long time. Now, I know that there's
- a certain danger in doing this kind of presentation in Bloomington. And anywhere where there's a bunch
- of Hoosier fans, for this reason, because we all know everything there is to know about the greatest
- game and the greatest team and the greatest game.
- You know, I remember them. I saw every game, talked about them, analyzed them with my friends.
- And so I know, as you all do, that all these players were 10 feet tall. They scored 100 points a game,
- and they were always kind to animals and small children. But in curating this, and it took me about a year,
- to go through, to find and then go through all the negatives particularly. There were some things, and
- talking to Bob of course, there were some things that I didn't remember, didn't remember correctly or
- never knew. And one of those, and then I also kind of wanted to reflect on the
- putting this achievement in perspective. And one of the first factoids I came across was this. This
- is from 2023 census figures that nearly over 72% of the population is not old enough to have seen this
- team play. They are 50 years and under.
- So think about that. So the next time you're talking to your grandkids and you mention Scott May and
- they go, huh? Well, that's why. And that's why it's important for places like the History Center to
- collect and celebrate these stories. And we consider IU part of our community and part of our story.
- So that's what we try to do.
- I also was thinking what's happened in sports since 1976. There have been 15 perfect games played in
- Major League Baseball. You know, that doesn't happen every day. We have four horses and win the Triple
- Crown. There have been 30 undefeated national football champions in the last
- And then according to Google AI, an estimated 275,000 college basketball games have been played since
- Indiana were crowned NCAA champions in March of 1976. So it's something, it's an achievement that kind
- of gets bigger every year that it's not duplicated.
- There have been close calls since 76. Six men's basketball teams have begun the tournament with perfect
- records. Two have reached the title game before losing. You know, I didn't remember Indiana State was
- one of those. 133 games that year. One more than the Hoosiers. But they had one more loss. And then
- Gonzaga was also 31-1. And I think other undefeated teams that got to the final four, I think,
- or got to the tournament, UNLV, Kentucky did, and the other two escaped me. But last year's champion,
- University of Florida, had a record of 35 and 4. And if you notice that,
- That's 39 games. It's several more than 32. And it's not been unusual since in the last 20 years for
- the champion to have played 39, 40 games in a season. That's because of all the new preseason tournaments
- that have cropped up and the conference tournaments and things like that. 76 was Indiana's third championship.
- And the first two were under Branch McCracken. These are photos from the 53 team. And here's another
- reason we should have never let UCLA in the Big Ten. Before UCLA, it just screws up all the records
- and the statistics in basketball because of their dominance in the early, in the 60s. But before UCLA,
- throw them out. IU and Michigan State are still the only of those original Big Ten schools that have
- more than one title. Michigan State has two. And these pictures are from the Arbitus, the yearbook of
- the 53 team. And I picked these two because it features the guy right here who is probably the main
- reason I'm an IU fan. Got anybody?
- Anybody recognize that person? Yeah. Bonus points to these two right here. But yeah. Dick Farley, pride
- of Pike County, Indiana in Winslow High School, which my mother attended about a decade before this
- guy. But I grew up in a household where basketball was measured against the achievements of the great
- Dick Farley.
- And if you drove down to Winslow after this meeting, you'll see his name is still on the town signs.
- 60 years after he died, proof again that in Indiana, the surest way to immortality is not baptism, but
- basketball. You're probably more familiar with some of these playing teammates.
- Bob Leonard and Dick Schlunt there. Then we have Fardley, Berkscott, and then Charlie, and all those
- guys were Hoosiers. Charlie Crack was from Illinois. Of course, the great Branch McCracken. And this
- was a pretty good two-year record. This was a starting five for two years, two outright Big Ten championships
- and NBA championships. 43-7 overall.
- So anybody would be pleased with that. But let's take a look at these are the seniors on the 76 team.
- All of these guys were recruited in Bob Knight's second year at IU. And these are all, I would never
- question Hamill on any of his statistics because that's what he was famous for. 108 games, four Big
- Ten championships.
- 37th Street Big Ten games. And here they're the seniors and we have Bobby Wilkerson, Tom Abernathy,
- Scott May, Jim Cruz, and Quinn Buckner. And those guys had a two-year record of 63-1. So I don't think
- there's any doubt of who's
- can come out on top there. And this is a photo of them with some of the hardware they won during their
- four years at IU. Absent from here, there is no, you know, the NCAA championship should go right there.
- But it's not there, which tells me that this was probably taken preseason before the 75-76 play began.
- Whoa. Now, I got to talk a little bit about that one blemish on the record. Over the years, friends
- have asked me, why do you dislike Purdue so much? Why can't you ever root for Purdue, even when they're
- not playing IU? And I always have one answer. They broke Scott Mazar. And this was from, this was at
- the locker room at West Lafayette, February 22nd.
- May broke his arm. IU went on to win that game by two points. They won the last three games of the regular
- season and the first two games of the NCAA tourney. And then the day that will live in infamy,
- March 22, 1975 in Dayton, Ohio, NCAA regional finals, and Kentucky of all people.
- beat IU by two points. Kentucky was a team IU had beaten by 24 points earlier in the year. And you can
- see there, May played, but his heavily wrapped arm, he was very ineffective. And Kentucky just played
- an inspired ball game, particularly in the second half, to pull it out.
- Coach Knight put up a sign in the locker room the next season that referenced this score and blamed
- bad defense for that game. Not poor officiating or anything else. He just said bad defense. Because
- this was way more, 92 was way more than they allowed any other person that entered the team that year.
- And 90 points.
- was more than they usually scored. And here is, oh, let me see. Look down that bench there. This was
- the look of somebody who's just shot their dog, all of them. And here is Steve Green, who was a starter
- on that team, who consoling Kent Benson, who had 33 points in that game. So he tried his best.
- And here is the next day, they return home to Bloomington. And there you have a nice crowd gathered.
- And this sign says, number one in our hearts, still the best. And here is Knight looking like he has
- not slept in days, and probably hasn't. But that loss gave them a mission.
- Now, Bob Hamill told me this, that on October 14th of every year, Knight would meet with his players
- before the start of official practices and go over his goals for the year. Bob said Knight's goal was
- always number one, win the Big Ten, except for this year.
- He got them together and said, you guys are not going to be satisfied just winning a Big Ten championship,
- just winning an NCAA championship. We can win every game, and that should be our goal. And I don't see
- anywhere that was ever publicized until after they won the championships.
- The first game, it really didn't count in the 32-0. It's a preseason exhibition game against the Soviets.
- But this was a tough match. This was the core of the Soviet team that had upset the USA in the 72 Olympics.
- They played together for more than a decade. And you could see they're huge. This is Mark Hamor. He's 6'8".
- And this is Vladimir Tichenko. I remember that name from 72, who is just a giant. And I included this
- picture of Knight because see what he's wearing here? This is the last time you'll see a solid sports
- coat on Bob Knight. He broke out the plaids right after that. But this was a tough game. Because the
- Soviets were so tough, four of his starters got in foul trouble the first game.
- So it fell to Haymore. And here's Wayne Radford, sophomore of that year. Here is Rich Valavicius. Everybody
- remember that name? Freshman from Hammond. And as you can see here, he showed a knack very early on.
- He didn't mind a little of the rough stuff. He was going to do OK in the Big Ten.
- And there was these three reserves that actually allowed IU to go into halftime, up six, and then the
- starters came back in the second half and pushed it out to almost 20 points. And it was played in Market
- Square Arena, brand new. They didn't build an easy schedule that year. Don't let anybody think they
- had a cakewalk by any means, because they didn't.
- Three of the first four opponents were ranked in the top 20. Three of the first four games were on the
- road. And the first regular season game that counted was the defending national champion in preseason
- number two, UCLA. And that was played in St. Louis. It was made for TV extravaganza.
- hyped as the championship game that should have been but wasn't from the previous NCAA tournament. And
- I love this photo. You see Benson here going up, getting ready to spike the ball. And did any of you
- see his daughter Ashley play volleyball for IU? Any of you? Well, I saw her
- quite a few her matches. And she assumed this pose many times. I can recognize the form and where she
- got it now. She was the only all-American volleyball player IU has had. And they won. It was just kind
- of pushed out the lead the whole game. And Quinn addressed the elephant in the room about
- We're not playing last year's game. We're playing every game the best as we can. And it was a good attitude
- because the next game was a home game against Notre Dame, and they nearly lost. They blew a 14-point
- lead in the second half to one point with a minute remaining. It was not pretty by any means. Both teams
- shot under 40%.
- and IU held on for a three-point win. And if that wasn't close enough, then they go to Kentucky and
- playing in Lexington. Oh, Louisville, excuse me. And this, you know, sometimes you just got to be lucky.
- Well, this was a lucky one.
- Kentucky led with under eight minutes left in regulation. And as time expired, there was a shot from
- IU that missed. And Benson had another volleyball move. He stuck out his big hand and just hit the ball,
- just going to tap it up. He wasn't actually taking a shot, but it went straight up and then straight
- down through the basket.
- And then they went ahead 13 to 4 in the extra period to win. This was not a close game by any means,
- but it was an important one for Coach Knight. This one was also played in Indianapolis. And this was
- his 200th coaching victory. And a couple of people I want to point out here. Here is Tim Knight, Coach
- Knight's oldest son. And here, this is Tate Locke.
- coach at Army and he hired Knight to be his assistant and then later Locke went on to coach at places
- like Clemson and Indiana State. The rest of the non-conference schedule was pretty routine, only they
- had their regular Indiana classics and holiday tournaments where they cruised
- most of the time. And the only, the toughest one was they played in a holiday tournament at Madison
- Square Garden where they beat the St. John's Redmond 76-69 and there is Coach Knight with Luke Carneseca.
- This came from Bob saying, you know,
- Bob Knight started at IU in 1971, came from Army, but he had played at Ohio State, and he was an Ohio
- native, so he was very familiar with the Midwest. And he came in convinced that you could build a basketball
- team with nothing but kids from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. As Hamill said, he liked the idea that
- a player's parents
- could drive, could be within driving distance to see a game once in a while with their kids playing.
- And here are the, these are the seniors and Kent Benson who started, he was a junior in this year, Bobby
- Wilkerson. And look at their size, Quinn Butler,
- Scott May, Tom Abernathy. These weren't any little fellas. These were men. And if you remember, Buckner
- played his first two years. He played for the football team and was a starting linebacker, I think.
- Safety? Yeah.
- And of course, Benson was just a huge person. And here were the three. Well, Cruz had started several
- games in his four-year career. He only started one game in the championship year. He'd started the game
- when they played UCLA in the 73 semifinals.
- Cruz started that game. And then here we have sophomore Wayne Radford, sophomore Jim Wiseman, and then
- here's Valovich's freshman from Hammond. And those were the guys that got the lion's share of the minutes.
- These were the other guys on the team, because I didn't think it was fair to omit them entirely.
- But they didn't get a lot of playing time except in cleanup. And here was Knight's staff. And this was
- a nice photo of Knight talking to his players during a game that was taken by Larry Kruehl. I'm just
- going to show, we don't have photos of every game home and away. We have most of the home games.
- one or two of the way games. So I'm just going to show images from the games we have. And here is Knight
- getting some exercise during the Northwestern game. This is the first Michigan game. And IU had an eight
- point lead. I just added that this morning with 429 to go.
- And they ended up winning by six. They had five turnovers in the last five minutes. Many, some of you
- may remember, night, it was a much different game back then. There was no time clock. There was no three
- point line. You had a center jump to start each half. Oh, there was no dunking this year. Dunking had
- been outlawed.
- So it was a much different game. And part of the regular night strategy was if you were up a few points
- with three or four minutes to go, you just held the ball out. It wasn't the North Carolina four quarters
- as much. They would still run some motion. But you only took a shot if it was a layup or you got fouled.
- And this was a game.
- Michigan State in all three games they played that year were much quicker, particularly at the guard
- post than IU. And that strategy almost came back to bite him a couple times, and this was one of them.
- And Butler's on the bench, as he often was because of foul trouble. He had a really bad habit of preaching
- instead of guarding, so with his feet.
- I guess he thought he was still safety and was going through the player. This is one of the few way
- games we have. Illinois, no big deal. I put this up because these are the two main guys. And they averaged
- about 40 points a game and 20 rebounds a game. And if you've got those guys playing at that level in
- a game, IU was always going to be in good shape.
- Now, of course, you know, they had defenses that wanted to take one or the other out of the game, then
- the other guys had to pick up the slack. Like this, these two Purdue games. They used a zone, and basically
- it was a collapsing zone, and they wanted to force Benson out of the middle, which they did. And the Hoosiers
- were always in the lead, but not by very much. And IU also won the rematch in West Lafayette, which
- they used the same tactic. Here's a couple more. Scott May going up against a pretty good Purdue player,
- Wayne Walls. And Key Stats.
- May had 32 points in this one. Benson didn't score quite as much because of the zone. And then Wilkerson
- had eight assists and four steals. Now, this was always, you know, when I started, I said, oh, well,
- Buckner was the guy. He was the quarterback, and he did all the playmaking and stuff. Wilkerson had
- 40 more assists on the season than Buckner did. And
- Buckner had 30 more fouls than anybody else, which gave Wilkerson more of an opportunity to get an assist
- with Buckner out of the game. The airplane was constant here, and I didn't put the score on the front
- slide because I don't think you'd believe it. Here's Benson going in for a shot.
- They won by 53 points. Now, we haven't beaten Wisconsin a half a dozen times in the last 25 years. And
- maybe they're still getting even. But I put these three up, because those of you that are photographers
- will know.
- They were a 35 millimeter film. It's a little, narrow strip of film with images that are about an inch
- square. Well, these are, and during a game at Assembly Hall, the HD photographers, there were usually
- two. And between them, they would shoot 500 or 600 images. These are three. And as you can see, I put
- all the frames on a roll or number.
- So you can see at what point they occurred. And so all these three images are clearly one event. And
- here's Knight starting with L3. And then he follows this guy to the scores table and giving him some
- advice. And he's still going at him here just to make sure he understood.
- And I did look it up, and I got two technical fouls in this game. His team is ahead 30 points at halftime.
- They win the game by 53, and he still gets upset enough to get two technical fouls. Next, oh, this is
- the game I remember most from that year. Maybe some of you do too. This was the second Michigan game at home.
- And it was a national game. You can see this is what TV cameras used to look like when they brought
- out the big guns for a national game. And you see here, I'm sure Knight didn't appreciate this. And
- here's Knight's son Tim again. He had a heck of a year. You see pictures of him on the team bus and at games.
- IU trail by 10 at halftime. It was the largest deficit at halftime since 1973. They just couldn't hit
- the side of a barn. Michigan showed off their quickness, got out in transition and got some easy buckets.
- And then Radford came in and keyed an IU rally with 16 points and five rebounds.
- But the Hoosiers were still down four with 30 seconds left. And this is what I remember. I'm watching
- the game with my folks at their house. And you know, IU didn't lead, hadn't led the entire game. They
- were having a heck of a time catching up. And I was a nervous wreck by 30 seconds left. I'm sure a lot
- of IU fans were.
- I just didn't see it, you know. And finally, my dad looked at me and says, boy, don't you know, the
- refs won't let them lose at home. Now, I can see you know where I'm going with this. Here's a great
- photo, six seconds left. There's still down two.
- Their best player has a ball, but he didn't get a shot off. Buckner got a shot off. He missed. It got
- batted up against the backboard, came off, and then somehow Benson tipped it in as time expired.
- But you know, there was no instant replay in those days, so the refs had to get together and make a
- decision of whether that last basket counted.
- And they decided it did. And then my dad suddenly became the smartest guy since old Scooter. Or he knew
- everything, even before it was going to happen. IU Michigan State, not much there. But Benson, he exploded
- for 38 points and 10 rebounds in that game.
- IU Illinois was closer than it should have been. It was another one of those Illinois I think was playing
- a zone and IU was trying to hold it out and that, and they needed some outside shooting from crews to
- secure the win. There are more shot. There's a, this is Validicious and Buckner.
- IU was pretty much in control of these games, although they did in both. That was the only Big Ten opponent
- to lead IU at halftime in both games that year. Prior to the first Minnesota game, the Hoosier did not
- trail at the half in two years. And across the whole season, there were six times where they trailed
- at halftime.
- And I also, there's Radford doing what he did. He was a battler, you know. If you needed somebody to
- go in and mix it up, you know, he wasn't the tallest guy on the floor, but he was one of the toughest.
- Look at it. Bobby Wilkerson, 6'7", and he regularly jumped center. He's jumping here against a guy named
- Michael Thompson.
- an all-American from Minnesota. And I want you to look at these reference points. Look at where the
- heel is. Look at the knee compared to his knee, the waist compared to that waist, and even where his
- wrist is compared to this guy. This guy had a crazy vertical jump. And of course, when he got the tip,
- he would tip it toward Benson, who was
- who was 6'11". So they got most of the center jumps. Next game was the season finale at Assembly Hall.
- And this was against Ohio State, and it was the last game of Fred Taylor's coaching career. Taylor had
- been Knight's coach at Ohio State when he won an NCAA championship there.
- And then Knight, I don't know if he'd done this before, but it was kind of his tradition when a Big
- Ten coach retired, when he came in for the last time, Knight would, you know, give him a gift. I think
- he was usually a rocking chair, and Fred got a rocking chair, and you see he's got a fishing pole here.
- The other tradition of the last game Knight started was senior day. And here are May and Buckner coming
- out of the game for the last time. And Buckner getting that patented Knight slap on the back of the
- head. They only reserved for people he really liked, like Buckner and Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall. Yeah.
- I don't, Hall didn't appreciate as much as Buckner did though. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And then
- there was that, he smacked him with a rolled up program one year or two that didn't go over real good.
- But anyway, here's Buckner waiting to get his chance to speak. And here are the five seniors taking there.
- waiting for their turn. And then as Knight said in the past four years, and I speak now as a fan, we've
- been privileged to sit in this building and watch five tremendous young men perform their skills. And
- fans broke out this sign on the last game. And of course, you know, the final four that year was going
- to be in Philadelphia. And of course, we were all
- knew we were going to be there. We were all looking forward to that. A couple quick things about the
- tournament started in 1939. It was just an 18 tourney. It was mainly major conference champions. They
- just got together and they played and expanded 16 teams in 51. So
- McCracken won an 18 tourney, and he won a 16-team tourney with his 53-team. The Bill Russell-led San
- Francisco Dons were the first undefeated national champion. University of North Carolina duplicated
- that the next year. And then, of course, John Wooden just messed up everybody's stats. Again, he went
- undefeated four times.
- in that period of time. And then the tourney expanded to 32 teams, I think it was in 75. And now we
- have 68 teams play, including a play-in of four teams. Indiana won five tournament games in 76. Nobody
- got a bye in a 32-team tourney.
- But now, a team that did not receive a first round bye would have to win six games. And I had to include
- the women, because I am a season ticket holder for the IU women's team. I was there last night for their
- first preseason game. There have been 10 undefeated women's champions in much fewer years.
- And University of Connecticut has taken over the UCLA role there with multiple. This is IU's Denise.
- I think this is from 83, which was the first year they became eligible for the tournament. And she is
- still IU's third leading scorer and still holds a rebounding record for career. The first tournament
- game for IU was in South Bend.
- And again, they duplicated their win over even one by a little bit more. You can see, you know, all
- the tournament games get a little rougher even than the Big Ten a lot of times. And this one was. And
- keep the points. Here we have May and Benson combining for 20 rebounds and 53 points. Next up was
- The regional semifinal and final both played in Baton Rouge, Alabama, led with 328 to go and then IU
- shut them down. And then they won with three free throws. And here you can see Benson got in foul trouble
- trying to guard this guy named Leon Douglas. He was an All-American.
- So they, so Benson wasn't an effective against him. We see May got 25. Then Wilkerson and Buckner picked
- up the slack on the scoring. And you see Wilkerson had 12 rebounds. So, you know, if you can out jump
- a 6'11 guy at the center jump, you ought to be able to get a rebound or two. And he could.
- This is Marquette, which was the number two ranked team in the country when they played in the regional finals.
- McGuire got a technical with 25 seconds to go. IU was ahead, and then he got the technical on a foul
- call against his team. So IU got two free throws. They got the technical. They got the ball out of bounds,
- and that accounted for the final margin. But don't feel too sorry for Al McGuire. He won the championship
- the next year.
- and there was his star, Bo Ellis. This, you would think this might be for after the Final Four,
- but it wasn't. This was the scene at Monroe Airport when the plane, team plane came back from the regional.
- You know, IU was going to the Final Four and you can see who came out to
- congratulate them. If you remember that 75 photo at the airport, there was all the fans there could
- fit under one of these wings. And here, they're out on the tarmac. Was anybody here that was in this
- scene? Did you go? You were? You know you could never get out on the tarmac again. They would be calling
- Homeland Security if you tried this.
- And here's the, I'm curious, what drew so many people there? Were you just so happy? Ma'am? Uh-huh.
- OK. Nobody hears it. And if anybody knows who these people are, tell me later.
- But you see, it was a cold day that day, right? You remember? Because these guys are really bundled
- up. And here's Scott May looks as scared as he was the whole season trying to get through this crowd.
- The Final Four was played in Philadelphia at the Spectrum. And that might sound familiar, because that's
- also where IU won the 81 championship.
- Reagan. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. But you went ahead to the game, right? Oh, absolutely. Oh, OK. Yeah. I took
- a picture of the scoreboard with North Carolina and IU up there was zero. And something happened. The
- final score, I took a picture of it.
- and the final score is imposed over the 0-0 scoreboard. I don't know how it happened. Not intentional.
- Well, in photography, some accidents are very fortunate. This was the semifinal game against UCLA. And
- Benson again found himself in foul trouble trying to guard this all-American, Richard Washington. So
- they switched and put Abernathy on him and really clamped down on him. And here we go, Wilkerson. Benson's
- on the bench. Wilkerson picks it up. 19 rebounds in that game.
- And this is a setup for the, oh, and here is one of the photographs that we have that Daniel has over
- on the table. If you'd like to, we don't have many copies, but we have some. And about the photos that
- Daniel has, they are not ones that Daniel made on his office printer. These are extra, a duplicate,
- HD prints that they would print out for, they had several publishing projects concerning IU basketball
- and what we have are duplicates from all that. And we have been given permission by the Gannett Corporation
- that we can sell the duplicates and then we'll use those proceeds to, you know, there are costs involved
- in maintaining and working with these images.
- And it won't cover it. You know, it's very, very little. And the key stat. Oh, you might remember this.
- It just started in an awful. Because three minutes in, Bobby Wilkerson, you just saw he got 19 rebounds
- the previous game. And he just literally knocked out.
- And it probably contributed to this fact that they trailed at halftime. Knight tried a couple people
- in Wilkerson's plays, but Jim Wiseman, the sophomore, had the steadiest play, played most of the second
- half. And Knight credited him with saving their bacon there in the second half by just keeping things
- steady, getting a ball where it was supposed to go.
- And here, of course, we have Knight with the Buckner, May, and the trophy, and the iconic one. And that's
- another one Daniel has with the score and that. Now, you weren't at the 76 game. I was. You were? Yes.
- Well, tell me about it. How was it? Wild. Wild?
- left to go. No tickets or anything. But when we got there, the scalpers were out there with their tickets.
- Did you leave from Boomington? Yes. I got my ticket from the final game. Do you remember what it cost
- you from the scalper? Six dollars. I got my tickets. It was about $13.75 I think for original tickets.
- Oh, well, they've gone out some there. The lower section is the seventh row in the first seat, right
- underneath the basket. Well, that was some good shots there. Was that where he got the nets down? Did
- you see them? We couldn't see that. They were jumping up in front of us, and I couldn't find my box.
- And here is Benson celebrating. And I've heard on the panel discussions talking to these guys. I think
- good ones you can find on YouTube from the 40th anniversary. And Buckner's saying that what he remembered
- most vividly was Knight smiling. He had never seen him smile so much in four years.
- Bedlam and Bloomington. Now, you all, I want you all to look for yourselves in these crowds and tell
- me what was happening. Kirkwood, you know, 1030,000 people. This is looking, most of the ones I have
- are looking North Walnut back toward Kirkwood. And you can see here, this one is at, this is at 7th
- and Walnut where this guy got up for,
- See it. Barzo's Blitz. Anybody remember that? Is that where Brothers is now? Brothers Nightclub,
- Brothers Bar, next to the Vid? Yeah. Well, here are a couple fans getting a lift.
- And of course, there's small to the department store. Mike's Tavern. That was before my day.
- And this truck, I figured out, is in front of the Bluebird.
- Maybe it was a band truck, you know, you always see those out there. And these are also from the Herald
- Times, all the on the spot reporting, Drunks on Cars, Bacchanalia. And that's a pretty fancy word for
- a journalist, you know, Bacchanalia.
- And then we have a street sign going down here as a souvenir. And here is, this is a little bit further
- up on North Walnut where you see the town cinema playing a naughty movie at the time. And there's the
- princess there to orient you. Anybody seen themselves yet?
- No? Oh. More, there's more up close. And here are some conscientious citizens picking up all the beer
- cans and bottles. And the stat from the Herald Times was that,
- Altogether about a half dozen celebrants ended up under arrest for public intoxication. Another 27 were
- treated at Bloomington Hospital for everything from traffic injuries to, quote, acute alcoholism, unquote.
- So was it the party of the year there before? Crazy?
- OK, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I got a picture. That's coming up. That was the next day. Yeah. And then I don't
- have any pictures of Showalter Fountain, but that was quite a scene. And it was one of the occasions
- where one of the fish got removed from its moorings. Yeah.
- And this was probably at the height of about 4,000 people. And North Walnut traffic was stopped all
- the way back to Kirkwood, between Kirkwood and 7th Street. And it was 1 a.m. police reported before
- traffic could move freely through North Walnut. Here we go. Here's your welcome home.
- These are all the people that stayed sober the night before, because they're out there the next morning.
- Yeah. And night did not. Oh, here we go. That's part of the crowd. You see they're not all students.
- There's a good range of people there. And then this must be the trucks you were talking about.
- Yeah, yeah. I think somewhere between here and the airport, they moved from the team bus on to this.
- Because I've got another one. You can blow it up here. Yeah, you see here. Oh, OK. OK. Well, that's
- what's happening here. They're getting up there so that everybody can see them.
- Yeah, and Bob told me that, you know, riding back from the airport, you know, there were people standing
- by the side of the road to see him and wave, and they were hanging off the overpasses, and it was kind
- of like a holiday. Yeah. Yeah, no, night wasn't with them.
- Because he had stayed to visit Bobby Wilkerson in the hospital. They kept him overnight for observation.
- And the night was also going to an All-Star game down in Washington, D.C., before he flew home. This
- is a big rally. I'm sure some of you probably were here at Assembly Hall the next day. Well over 10,000.
- It was televised.
- Channel 4. Huge crowd filled the floor and the lower bowl. I assume there are probably some people on
- the balcony too. And then here are Nye, May, and Buckner. And I think there's an assistant coach here.
- Some more scenes from that rally.
- Anybody know who this woman and the baby is? If it looks familiar, let me know later. Because nobody
- that I've spoken to with IU ties can tell me who that is. And then, of course, they had the chair leaders
- waiting for them. And this is my favorite photo from that. Or if anybody knows,
- Is this one of you? One of you here? If not, or if you know who it is, let me know. This picture is
- not in the exhibit downtown, at least yet. I'm still working on Hillary to get that included. So I have
- a few, particularly of the celebrations that she doesn't, so to get
- To see all the images, you have to go both places. You have to be here, and you have to go downtown
- and see what we have up in the, it's on the second floor in what's called the Monroe County Sports Room.
- This is a month later. Bloomington is still celebrating. 3,200 people at Gladstone Field House at the
- time. It was the largest crowd they'd ever gotten for one of these things.
- Here you have Doc Bowen and Bob Knight. And Bowen giving a nice tribute to the team. And there is our
- Bob Hamill right there. And there is Nancy Knight, which is a coach, first wife. John Ryan with a trophy.
- Here's another one I love. Adolph Rupp came up from Kentucky to give this trophy to Scott May. And doesn't
- he look happy to be there? And here are the IU's five seniors taking a final bow.
- Yeah, I mean, they all broke out the plaids there. And of course, you got Bobby Wilkerson styling there.
- He looked cool. I remarked to Hillary, if some of you know Hillary, with his hair and the sideburns.
- He reminded me of Sly Stone from Sly and the Family Stone. And I said that.
- I mentioned after Hillary and she gave me that blank look like, I don't know what you're talking about,
- but I don't want to admit it. But, you know, she had no idea who I was talking about. And this is,
- I'll give, we'll give the last word to Bob Hamill, because how could you not? This is from his memoir.
- Those teams' deeds seem Arthurian. A college of basketball camel walk that didn't last long.
- But don't let it be forgot to back-to-back unbeaten regular seasons, one ending in tears, the other
- in triumph, unmatched to this day. And still unmatched going into our 50th season. And here's from the...
- Now, I'm just going to ask a question here. You know, when these were first commissioned for the lobby
- of Assembly Hall,
- Coach Knight declined to be included. He didn't want his statue there. But now, if his family had no
- objections, is it time to put the coach in with his players? All right. Well, relay that to anybody
- you know at IU. Maybe we'll get that done this year. And of course, here is
- And let's see if I can remember. This is Abernathy, Cruz, Buckner, May, Benson, and Bobby Wilkerson.
- And that's all I got, unless you have questions or more memories. And please come down to the, yeah,
- just a minute.
- Please come down to the History Center and see the exhibit we have. We have 103 images up there of this
- season. And I always put in a plug for the Canopy of Lights open house we have the day after Thanksgiving.
- That's a fun time, refreshments. You know, especially if it's a cold, wet night, take a break and come
- down to the History Center.
- All right, thank you. Oh, ma'am? I'm sorry, you were watching. I was watching the Oscars. Oh, yeah.
- And Elliot Gould came out to make a presentation for an award. And before he even did that, he said
- Indiana one and he did the score. And it was quite a reception at the Oscars.
- Well, how come you were watching the Oscars, not the game? Okay, anybody else? Yes, sir. This
- is a sports-related topic, so I have a sports-related, not basketball, but baseball. Last night, or
- this morning, I stayed awake till 3 o'clock to watch the World Series game. There were 18 innings.
- The reason I stayed so late, I was going to leave about the 13th inning, but I noticed that in the Dodger
- bullpen, there's only one pitcher left, a guy named Will Klein. And I had to watch him pitch, because
- he used to play at North. He's from Bloomington. The guy that was the winner of that game last night
- or this morning was from Bloomington. And his grandfather, who some of you may know, was Mickey Klein,
- who did a lot of
- All right. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yeah.
- Do you want to give him the microphone so we can hear? Oh, Abernathy did a great job guarding
- Richard Washington, and the Philadelphia paper said that he should be on the Philadelphia Flyers hockey
- team, because he was so rugged. And didn't he hurt his ankle in that, or knee or something in that game,
- and didn't know if he could get back? Yeah. But yeah, after Benson got in foul trouble. OK, anybody else?
- Oh, yes, ma'am. OK, you had a picture of Nancy Knight. She sat two rows in front of us for all that
- season. And I have never met such a religious woman in my life. She would carry in with her,
- I could you not, something like, I don't know, close to 20 stuffed animals for good luck. Oh, yes. And
- she was, and they sat in the seat beside her. She had piled them up. And usually she had the younger.
- son with her and not the older one. But she, I mean, every game she swept that out and prayed. I've
- never seen anybody so religious at a basketball game. I'm not kidding you. And we would watch her and
- the ushers were really good. They would wait on her. You know, they would help carry her animals and
- all these things down there. But I do believe she had one stuff per thing for each player, you know,
- not voodoo doll, but
- But she was so nervous, and I thought, I'd hate to go home to that. It could be really hard if they
- didn't win and didn't play. But she, I mean, every game we would watch her. And she was, she loved every
- one of those boys. And I think without her support, Bobby would not have been the Bobby he was. She
- really totally let him
- back up and take over in her home life. That was a whole different thing. But to see those boys win,
- she's never been as happy as she was then. It was wonderful. Yeah. I'm surprised there was never any
- picture taken of all those animals. I'll have to look again through the negatives and see if I can find some. OK.
- So this isn't the same year, but I'd like to know. Was anybody actually at the game where Bobby threw
- the chair? I was. Yeah, several people. We had really good seats. It was my boss's seat, so on the floor,
- catacorded from where Bobby was across the court. And I remember I looked up. There was a foul that
- happened. For some reason, I looked at the band just for a second. And my sister-in-law, who was sitting
- next to me, said, oh my god.
- And I turned around, and there was a chair floating on it. And Bobby said he wanted to give his seat
- to an older lady there, I think, something like that. But anyway, oh, and I also remember the crowd
- went totally silent at the moment he threw it, just for a second, and then just exploded. I mean, it
- was the loudest noise. Let me get this guy, and then I'll come back. On top of what Mike was saying, I've
- I've always thought that that game that he threw the chair to the lady, that was the first game that
- he came out not wearing a sport coat. He was wearing the red sweater. And it was my opinion that he
- intentionally wanted to get thrown out of that game. He had some reason he didn't want to coach that
- day for something. Yeah.
- And it was against Purdue. And that's why he was going to get thrown out. He just had the opportunity
- to come over. And he threw that chair in. And she was standing over there. And he wanted to give her
- a chair to sit down. So I don't know. But that was the first game that came out with the red sweater.
- That was in 83. Yeah. I talked to the HD photographer that was working that game. His name, John Terhune,
- later went
- was a photographer at Lafayette. But I was going through his negatives and I tracked him down and talked
- to him and said, hey, I could see by your negatives, you were right in line with Knight. What happened
- with the chair? And there was kind of a silence on the line there for a second. And he said he had it
- all lined up. And when he pushed the shutter, he was out of film.
- For that ball game, my seats were straight across from the team. And I was sitting on row one. And when
- that chair stopped, it was about 15 feet from where my seat was. So I had a prime view of what was taking
- place. Also wanted to say, when I went to Philadelphia that year, my friend and I, my wife fixed a baked
- pie for us. He made ham sandwiches. And we took our Volkswagen.
- My ticket was free. And so I was the driver and a retired banker. And so we were driving down one of
- the streets before the ball game. And I saw a $20 bill flowing across the street. So that paid for our
- gas back home. Anybody else? Something to share? Let me get over here.
- Yes, sir. I purchased the chair at a surplus auction at IU. Do you still have it? Oh, very good. Do
- you sit in it? Oh, god, though. OK, anything else? Oh, someday you might consider a donation to the
- History Center.
- is it the game that they won in New Orleans when they won the final four? But the actual game, the first
- game, was better than the second game. You know how they play? No, they play to see who gets, no, to
- see who's going to be in the final game. The semifinal, thank you. The semifinal was a much better game,
- but boy, that was a fun night in New Orleans.
- I don't see how you could get much funner than a shot at the buzzer win. Anybody else? Okay. Well, thank
- you very much. And we have a lot of, we have even more photos of the 81 and 87 championships. So just,
- you know, you can look forward to that. We'll be back.