Bobby Knight took the Indiana job in 1971 at the tender age of 31, as the UCLA dynasty was beginning to wind down. He got immediate results. In his first season, Indiana went to the NIT, which, at that point, was still a big deal.
In 1974, when NC State broke the Wooden dynasty, Indiana won the Collegiate Commissioners Association Tournament and then in 1974-75, Indiana finished 31-1, largely because Scott May broke his arm. In 1975-76, IU ran the table, finishing 32-0, including this win over Michigan in the national championship game.
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Among the stars for Indiana was 6-11 Kent Benson, who was an outstanding college player. Watching from a distance: former assistant Mike Krzyzewski, who was in his first season at Army.
And in a historical footnote, this team might have had one of the all-time greats in Larry Bird, who signed with Indiana and enrolled in 1974.
He left about a month later, overwhelmed by the size of the school and by the hostility of Benson, who at one point took a ball away from him and told him that freshmen “didn’t need balls.”
Imagine if Bird had played at Indiana from 1974-75 to 1977-78. There’s a reasonable argument that the Hoosiers would have won four straight national championships. IU nearly won two straight in what would have been his freshman and sophomore seasons. In a junior year in Bloomington, he would have been emerging into greatness and in 1977-78, no one could have stopped him.
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He would have also most likely gone #1 in that year’s draft, one that saw Boston’s Red Auerbach take him at #6 as a draft-eligible junior, which would have seen him start his NBA career as a Portland Trail Blazer, possibly teaming him up with Bill Walton, who later joined him as a Celtic.
Less than a decade later, Portland would miss a chance to draft Michael Jordan too. The basketball gods have been cruel to that franchise.
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