Click here for Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day and a brief recap of tonight’s games
1976 – this year represented the bicentennial celebration for the United States of America. Philadelphia hosted a couple of major sporting events that year – the first was the Men’s Final Four; the other would be the 1976 MLB All-Star Game. This season would also feature 2 teams that would enter the City of Brotherly Love with a perfect record.
The first team that finished with a perfect record was the Indiana Hoosiers. This was the 2nd season in a row in which the Hoosiers would finish with a perfect regular season; however, with star player Scott May injured the year before, they lost to Kentucky in the regional final in one of Bob Knight’s most devastating losses in his career (if not the worst loss). 3 notable wins by Indiana included a pair of wins against Michigan (another Final Four team that will be discussed later) and a revenge win against a Kentucky team that would win the NIT title that season. In the Mideast Region, the Hoosiers beat St. John’s, Alabama and Marquette to claim the 1st Final Four berth. Another ironic twist of fate here – Indiana beat a Marquette team that was arguably better and more talented than their 1977 team that would go on to win the national title.
The second team that finished with a perfect record came in the form of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Led by a starting unit that included Phil Sellers, Mike Dabney, Hollis Copeland, James Bailey and Eddie Jordan (yes, that would also be current Rutgers head coach Eddie Jordan), Rutgers beat several eventual NCAA Tournament participants including St. John’s, Syracuse (the last season in which Roy Danforth was head coach), and Princeton. In the NCAA Tournament, the Scarlet Knights would again defeat Princeton, UConn and VMI to clinch a Final 4 spot out of the East regional.
In the Midwest Regional, the Michigan Wolverines would become the 3rd team to clinch a spot in the Final 4. With wins over Wichita State, Notre Dame and Missouri, the Wolverines also helped the Big 10 become the first conference to have multiple teams in the Final 4. The Wolverines were lead by future NBA star Rickey Green.
The final team to clinch a spot in the Final 4 would be the UCLA Bruins. This season was expected to represent a passing of the torch since John Wooden had retired last season after UCLA won what was then a record 10th NCAA title against Kentucky. This season, Gene Bartow (the future architect of UAB’s basketball program) would be head coach and his star players included Richard Washington and Marques Johnson. In the NCAA Tournament, UCLA would defeat San Diego State, Pepperdine and future conference foe Arizona (who was in the WAC at that time) to advance to Philadelphia.
In the Spectrum, Michigan would spoil Rutgers’ perfect season with an 86-70 victory; the Hoosiers (led by Kent Benson, Quinn Buckner, Scott May, Tom Abernethy and Jim Crews) would defeat UCLA 65-51 to ensure an all-Big Ten final. In the championship game, Indiana would put on a clinic and defeated Michigan 86-68 to clinch Indiana’s third national title as well as the first of 3 titles for Bob Knight. UCLA would also defeat Rutgers to clinch 3rd place overall in the NCAA Tournament. Even in victory, Bob Knight had said, “Should have been two” to Bob Hammel of the Bloomington Herald-Telephone (now the Bloomington Herald-Times newspaper).
Click here to view the video of the 1976 Final Four; you’ll want to jump ahead about 30 seconds if you want to avoid the color bars at the beginning of the video.