Duke’s epic upset of undefeated UNLV in the Final Four and Mike Krzyzewski ultimately winning the first of his five rings is the lasting memory of the 1991 NCAA Tournament. But on the 25th anniversary of that tournament, there’s three other moments that went down. None were “for the ages”, but all were pretty big […]
The Atlantic Coast Conference has produced some great basketball over the years and that includes some great conference races. The 30th anniversary of one such race is this year. The 1986 ACC basketball season saw Duke, Georgia Tech and North Carolina produced an excellent battle for the conference championship and that race included some key […]
This year marks the 40th anniversary of one of the great unknown stories in college sports—the 1976 Rutgers Scarlet Knights became the only team in the modern era to have an undefeated regular season in both basketball and football. The basketball team is the better known of the two, although even they’re buried beneath the […]
It had been a tumultuous four years for Bob Knight and the Indiana basketball program since their unbeaten national title run of 1976. They missed the NCAA Tournament twice. In 1980, they won a Big Ten title, but lost to archrival Purdue in the NCAAs, then watched the Boilermakers and Iowa go to the Final […]
The 1979 Michigan State basketball team has become one for the history books. They won perhaps the most storied national championship game ever played, dominated the NCAA Tournament and sent Magic Johnson on to NBA greatness. But this Spartan team had its share of ups and downs along the way and it’s fair to wonder […]
Jud Heathcote’s career as Michigan State basketball coach didn’t start well. He inherited a program that had produced five straight winning seasons and promptly went 10-17 in 1977. But a big turnaround was coming—Heathcote brought in a recruit by the name of Earvin “Magic” Johnson. In Magic’s freshman year, he led the 1978 Michigan State […]
Bob Knight is one of the all-time greats of college basketball, a man who won consistently and did it without compromising recruiting ethics or his school’s academic standards. Knight produced several great teams over the years, including three national championship runs at Indiana. The 1993 Indiana Hoosiers were his last truly outstanding team, and if not for an untimely injury might have added another national title to the trophy case
Bill Frieder had put Michigan back on the map in basketball with a Big Ten championship in 1985. The 1986 Michigan basketball team validated that achievement with a second consecutive conference title before a surprise early NCAA Tournament loss to a familiar foe. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTSStart reading today. After the program had been in the […]
The 1976 Michigan basketball team is mostly remembered as the foil for Big Ten rival Indiana, as the Hoosiers ran to a historic undefeated season and finished it off by beating the Wolverines in the national championship game. But Michigan was more than just Robin to Indiana’s Batman. These Wolverines were a tough, physical group that used teamwork to trump individual stars on their way to the national final.
The 1984 Final Four brought together two of the greatest big men to ever play the game, when Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown beat Akeem Olajuwon (he didn’t become “Hakeem” until he was in the NBA) and Houston in the NCAA final. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS Start reading today. They were joined by two other high-profile college big […]
The 1983 Final Four is a watershed moment in the history of the NCAA Tournament, remembered most for N.C. State’s stunning national championship. There was another Cinderella story in Georgia, along with powerhouses Houston and Louisville playing an electric semifinal. It was a great showcase for college basketball on every level, and here we look […]
The first four days of the NCAA Tournament in 1981 were marked by a sequence of upsets and buzzer-beaters that was then unprecedented. But by the time the 1981 Final Four rolled around, the powers-that-be had emerged. Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia and LSU were all high seeds that won regionals. Let’s look back on the road all four teams took to Philadelphia.