Undefeated '76 Hoosiers Still Friends 40 Years Later

By: Sam Beishuizen, IUHoosiers.com | Twitter

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - They—whoever "they" are—say a picture is worth 1,000 words. If it's true, describing Indiana's undefeated 1975-76 men's basketball season might require an album or two.

But there's one photo in particular that can help sum up the first national championship Bob Knight brought to Indiana. The now-iconic snapshot isn't that hard to find with an internet search of the championship team.

The black-and-white photo shows Scott May in the center holding the national championship trophy with an open-mouth smile and one of the nets draped his head. Quinn Buckner is to his left. He's got an even bigger smile and has the other net hanging from his neck.

But it's the third man in the photo that tells the story. It's a young Knight, sporting a plaid sports coat and off-center black tie—and he's smiling.

Bob Knight was actually smiling.

"The biggest part of that was seeing the smile on Coach Knight's face," Buckner said, drawing a few laughs from the crowd gathered at Cook Hall Tuesday night but hardly joking. "We didn't see that very often. So you know it's a memorable moment. It's a moment when you see that smile on his face."

Knight was a coach, teacher and oftentimes the last person in the world the Hoosiers wanted to upset at practice. His 1975-76 Indiana team—one of the greatest basketball teams in college basketball history—celebrated its 40th anniversary with ceremony at halftime of Indiana's win against Wisconsin Tuesday night.

"We were special, but we were special because of one man—Bob Knight," Buckner told the crowd during the halftime ceremony. "He's not here, but that doesn't matter. In spirit, he is here."

Knight was the leader of a group even four decades removed from its playing days laughed and joked with one another about their undefeated season and all that went into it like it had just happened last week.

There was Kent Benson emphatically reiterating that his controversial bucket to force overtime against Michigan at Assembly Hall on February 7, 1976 was indeed good.

"It was good," he said with open arms. "Does anybody still question it? It was good."

A little later, Scott Eells, then a freshman on the team, retold a short story of Buckner putting his arms around him on one of his early days on campus and passing along advice that freshmen should keep their mouths shut.

Wayne Radford had gone through freshman pains of his own the year before. He used to walk up to his teammates in practice and ask, "Is it always like this?"

"Man, these guys love you," he recalled Steve Green telling him.

"They have a hard way and a tough way of proving it," Radford chimed back.

"One of the things I really appreciated about Coach Knight is, when you can assemble a group of guys—a group of guys you meet the first day of school as a freshman—and now we look at it 40 years later and you're still good friends," Jim Crews said. "The people he put around you, from the coaches to the managers and friendships that last 40 years, that's incredibly cool."

And it spanned beyond basketball, Bobby Wilkerson said.

None of the lessons Knight taught or the adversity the team went through were just about basketball. The game only meant so much in the grand scheme of things.
"For me, one of the most important things we learned was there's nothing we can't do when you put your mind to it," Wilkerson said. "That speaks well to life. Anything you do, if you give it 110 percent, you can achieve it. There's going to be trials and tribulations along the way, but you have to get back up, and you have to keep going back after it."

During the halftime ceremony honoring the 1975-76 team, Indiana unveiled a new banner sporting the words, "NCAA's #1 ALL-TIME MARCH MADNESS TEAM" that will be hung among the newly-renovated south entrance of Assembly Hall in due time.

Additional plans were announced to construct a statue of the 1975-76 team's seniors and starters to be erected outside of the arena's south entrance.

There may never be another undefeated college basketball team. The parity across the country and the increased pressure from it has made every team that's gotten close crumble so far. But college basketball isn't about to stop any time soon and every year is a chance for more than 300 teams to try and match Indiana's undefeated national championship.

Not that the Hoosiers are concerned, Buckner said. Because as he recalled Knight telling them, their team won't soon be equaled.

"Take a look at this group," Knight said. "You'll never see another one like it."

Indiana University Athletics

Undefeated '76 Hoosiers Still Friends 40 Years Later

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