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.