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1976 NCAA Tournament

The Road To The 1976 Final Four

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The 1976 Final Four is best remembered for when Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers capped off a perfect season with a national championship. But there were three other stories there too, from UCLA in the post-Wooden era to an upstart from the East to a conference runner-up for the first time. Here’s a look back on the teams of the 1976 Final Four–Indiana, UCLA, Rutgers and Michigan and their roads to Philadelphia.

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INDIANA

Indiana had three great players, starting with national Player of the Year Scott May, who averaged nearly 24 ppg. Kent Benson, a future #1 overall pick in the NBA draft scored 17 ppg and held down the middle. Quinn Buckner, who had a long pro career ahead of him, ran the floor.

After rolling to a second straight undefeated regular season and Big Ten title, Knight’s Hoosiers blasted St. John’s to open the 1976 NCAA Tournament, with 33 points from May keying the 90-70 rout. These were the days of just 32 teams in the field, so the victory put Indiana into the Sweet 16.

The road went to Baton Rouge for what was then called the Mideast Regional. It was a stacked bracket. The tournament was not formally seeded, with geographic considerations being paramount. The result was four of the teams in the final regular season Top 10 were all in Louisiana. That included second-ranked Marquette.

Indiana first had to deal with SEC champ Alabama, coached by Knight’s friend and future Olympic assistant C.M. Newton. The Tide gave the Hoosiers the scare of their life, leading by five points late in the game. May, who finished with 25 points/16 rebounds, hit a big jumper and Indiana was able to survive 74-69.

Marquette, coached by the legendary Al McGuire, had gotten past Western Michigan 62-57 in spite of being badly outrebounded. The regional final between the nation’s 1-2 teams was close for a half, and IU led by a point at the break. But McGuire got two technical fouls, and Benson delivered an 18 points/9 rebound effort. May kicked in 15 and the Hoosiers won 65-56.

Benson was named the regional’s Outstanding Player, something I have to take exception with. If you want to give him Player of the Game for the regional final, I get that. But May wasn’t far behind Benson in that game, and May was vastly superior in the Alabama game.

Moreover, it was May’s clutch play in the round of 16 that saved Indiana’s perfect season. If the award is really for the regional weekend as a whole, which its name implies, then Scott May should have gotten the trophy.

MICHIGAN

The idea of opening the NCAA Tournament up to multiple teams from the same conference was only two years old and Michigan became the first beneficiary, not needing to beat out Indiana in the Big Ten race.

Michigan was coached by Johnny Orr, who had won a Big Ten crown here in 1974, and had an offense that combined both explosiveness and balance. Rickey Green led the way with 20 ppg. Phil Hubbard and John Robinson controlled the interior and scored a combined 29 ppg. Wayman Britt and Steve Grote were also double-digit scorers.

The Wolverines were sent to the Midwest Regional where they barely survived Wichita State, escaping 74-73, as Green struggled to a 4-for-17 shooting game. But they were on their way to Louisville, where Notre Dame, Missouri and Texas Tech would join them.

Michigan and Notre Dame hadn’t yet renewed their football rivalry yet–that would be two years later. So this Sweet 16 game would have to do, and it was a good one. The Irish got 31 from All-American and future NBA scoring machine Adrian Dantley. But Michigan got 20 from Green, with the rest of the starting lineup all in double figures and they won 80-76.

Missouri’s Willie Smith electrified the other regional semi, dropping 30 on Texas Tech to key an 86-75 win. And Smith didn’t stop in the final, pouring in 43 points on the Wolverines. Michigan again answered with balance–Green had 23, Robinson hit 21 and Hubbard scored 20. Smith took home the region’s Outstanding Player award, but with a 95-88 win, the Wolverines took home a Final Four trip.

UCLA

Gene Bartow had the unenviable task of replacing John Wooden, who had retired after his 10th national championship in 12 years in 1975. The Bruins were carried by All-American Richard Washington and his 21 ppg, along with prolific scorer Marques Johnson, who had 17 ppg. But there wasn’t any depth in scoring to back them up. Andre McCarter was a nice floor leader, but UCLA didn’t look unstoppable as they won the Pac-8.

The geographic emphasis of the regional brackets meant that UCLA had, as they always did in the Wooden years, a distinct advantage given the weakness of basketball in the west. The Bruins got 25 from Washington and 19 from Johnson in dispatching San Diego State 74-64 to reach a regional round that would be at home for them in Los Angeles.

UCLA churned out an efficient 70-61 win over Pepperdine in the round of 16. Basketball fans were eyeing a potential changing-of-the-guard battle with third-ranked UNLV in the regional final. Jerry Tarkanian had the Rebel program on the move upward and they looked ready to challenge the Bruins.

But UNLV didn’t get that chance. An electrifying game with Arizona went to overtime and it was the Wildcats who got a 114-109 win. Six players overall scored 20-plus points and two more had 18. Herm Harris led everyone with 31.

Arizona didn’t have much left for UCLA–this was a non-conference game then, with Arizona and Arizona State not having joined up with the Pac-8 yet. Richard Washington again had an excellent game, a 22/10 line, as he locked up Outstanding Player in an 82-66 win.

RUTGERS

The historic legacy of Indiana’s 1976 season leads us to forget that Rutgers also came into the Final Four undefeated. Phil Sellers, a second-team All-American, averaged 19 ppg, as did Mike Dabney. Eddie Jordan and Hollis Copeland were each double-digit scorers.

Rutgers had to survive against Princeton in the opening round, shooting just 38 percent. Jordan saved them with 16 points and the Scarlet Knights escaped 54-53. The East regional would be in Greensboro, and it would be the softest of the four–none of VMI, DePaul or UConn were ranked among the 16 best teams in the country in the final regular season poll.

The Scarlet Knights played defense against UConn in the Sweet 16, holding the Huskies to 41 percent shooting and all five starters scoring from 14-19 points. Rutgers won 93-79, while VMI nipped DePaul in overtime by forcing Blue Demon center and future pro Dave Corzine into a 6-for-15 shooting night.

Dabney and Jordan took over the regional final, each scoring 23 points. VMI’s Will Bynum, fresh off his 34-point game against DePaul, came up with 22 more here, but he didn’t have help, while Rutgers had plenty. They won 91-75 and punched their ticket to nearby Philly, with Jordan bringing home MOP honors.

THE 1976 FINAL FOUR

Phil Sellers didn’t have a vintage NCAA Tournament and it continued in the national semifinal against Michigan. The Wolverines forced Sellers into a 5-for-13 game, and Rutgers shot 39 percent as a team. Hubbard and Robinson controlled the boards for Michigan and they won 86-70.

The showcase game was Indiana-UCLA, although “showcase” wasn’t defined quite as clearly as it is today, when CBS picks which Saturday game they want to show in the 8:47 PM ET slot. The changing-of-the-guard moment wasn’t all that dramatic–Bobby Wilkerson hauled in 19 rebounds for Indiana and they won comfortably, 65-51.

For the first time ever, we had two conference rivals playing for the national championship. The final score shows Indiana’s 86-68 win, and it might be easy to look at that, along with the perfect season and assume the result was a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t–Wilkerson went out with a concussion and Michigan led 35-29 at the half.

But the Wolverines couldn’t get Hubbard and Robinson unleashed down low, while May and Benson took over. May went for 26/8, while Benson added a 25/9 night. Buckner, not normally a scorer, popped in 16 points and grabbed eight more rebounds, and Indiana pulled away into history.

The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers: The Last Perfect Team

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The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, led by fiery head coach Bob Knight, were hungry for a championship that the bad luck of sports had denied them one year earlier. The 1975 team, one Knight always believed was the best he’d ever coached had rolled through the regular season undefeated, but All-American power forward Scott May broke his arm late in the season and Indiana lost a 92-90 heartbreaker to Kentucky in the regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.

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Indiana wasn’t as dominant in the season that got rolling in earnest in December of 1975. They held off Notre Dame in a three-point win and went to overtime for a win over Kentucky. The Irish would be a Top 10 team, but the Wildcats were starting a season that would result in them missing the NCAA Tournament, so that narrow escape was a sign that Knight’s team would be beatable. St. John’s, coached by a future Hall of Famer in Lou Carnesecca took the Hoosiers to the wire. Most alarming was the Big Ten opener against a terrible Ohio State team when IU had to pull out a 66-64 win.

The next game would come in Ann Arbor, where Michigan was a national power and the pre-eminent challenger to Indiana in the Big Ten. Indeed, the Wolverines were just a year away from a team that would conclude the regular season ranked #1 in the country. Indiana had to play its best game and they did, with Kent Benson scoring 33 points to lead the way to a six-point win.

Benson was one of four first-round draft picks in the Indiana starting lineup. Three of them—May, point guard Quinn Buckner and swingman Bobby Wilkerson were seniors and chose in the top 11 of the ensuing spring’s NBA draft. Benson was a junior and one year later would be the first overall pick of the Milwaukee Bucks, re-uniting him with Buckner at the pro level.

Those four, along with forward Tom Abernathy, comprised a lineup that was big, as Buckner led a quartet that was all 6’6” or taller. It was also a team with a weak bench, and these five had to carry the load.

Indiana’s brushes with danger continued, as they fell behind Michigan by ten points in the Wolverines’ return trip before rallying to win in overtime. And as IU sewed up the Big Ten crown down the stretch, they trailed at halftime against Illinois, Purdue and Minnesota before rallying to win. They closed the regular season undefeated and ranked #1, but there was nothing suggesting that a national title was a foregone conclusion as the tournament opened.

The NCAA Tournament was a 32-team affair so Indiana had only one game to win in the first segment of the bracket and that was a rematch with St. John’s in Dayton. This one ended decisively, 90-70 for Knight’s team and they headed to Baton Rouge for the Sweet 16.

There were few coaches that Knight respected more than Alabama’s C.M Newton, so much so that the Tide mentor was Knight’s choice to be his #1 assistant on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team that was the greatest amateur team ever assembled. So there was no way Indiana would be overlooking Alabama in their regional semi-final.  May, the National Player of the Year, played his best game of the tournament with 25 points and 16 rebounds to key a five-point win.

Next up was Marquette, coached by its own legend in Al McGuire. In a few short years this matchup would not be allowed to happen at this point in the bracket. Marquette was ranked second nationally, but in 1976 the emphasis was still on geographic cohesion, so Midwestern teams went to the Midwest regional. Hard to argue with the logic, but it’s certainly better for the fans to have the field more appropriately seeded today.

Indiana’s defense came out tough and held Marquette to 37 percent shooting and was able to open up a tight game in the second half and win 65-56. Indiana was going to the Final Four for the second time in Knight’s tenure—the first had been 1973—and now they couldn’t settle for anything less than cutting down the nets.

Indiana was joined at the Philadelphia Spectrum by UCLA, Rutgers and Michigan, all with a story of their own. UCLA was in its first year of the post-John Wooden era. Rutgers was undefeated themselves. Michigan was a beneficiary of the fact that the NCAA was just starting to open its field up to at-large teams—no longer was it just one bid per conference.

The Hoosiers officially called an end to the era of UCLA dominance in the Saturday semi-finals with a 65-51 win keyed by Wilkerson’s 19 rebounds. Michigan ended Rutgers dream season and set up an all-Big Ten title game on Monday night.

It wouldn’t have been the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers if they coasted home. Michigan led at the half 35-29, but it was all Indiana in the second half, as they hung 57 points on the board after intermission. Knight’s biggest stars played like it, as May and Benson combined for 51 points and the final was 86-68.

When you hear about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers it can seem as though their perfect season was almost a fait accompli, coming off the disappointment in 1975. The record shows the reality as quite different. This was a team that was beatable and in repeated situations where they might have lost, right up to the bitter end.

But being beatable and being beaten are two different things and Knight’s ’76 Hoosiers never were. They’re the last Division I college basketball team to be able to say that on the final Monday of the season.