The 1987 Indiana basketball team was looking to redeem themselves. 1986 had ended with March disappointment—they’d been upset by Cleveland State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament—but they were also looking to avoid a dubious historical distinction. The senior class, led by sharpshooter Steve Alford, had never won a Big Ten championship and no team in the Bob Knight era had ever graduated without winning at least one conference title.
Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of sports history articles aimed at preserving the best moments of the modern sports era, from 1976 to the present. The focus is team sports—college & pro basketball and football, major league baseball and hockey. This article offers a snapshot of 1987 sports, a year that saw Bob Knight, Wayne Gretzky and Magic Johnson all return to championship form.
The place to be as a sports fan in 1987 is the same place it was in 1976, but for different reasons. In ’76 it was Indiana, with college basketball and going to the nearest baseball team. The college basketball reason holds true in 1987—this is after all, the state of Indiana and Bob Knight was at his peak at Indiana University. But now the state had an NFL team, as the Colts had snuck out of Baltimore in the dead of night four years earlier and ’87 was the year they made the playoffs for the first time in their new city. Finally, Indiana football provided some excitement, producing its best team since the Rose Bowl year of 1967