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1987 Purdue Basketball: Great Season; Hard Ending

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Gene Keady was on a roll at Purdue. The head coach had made the NCAA Tournament for four straight years coming into the 1986-87 college basketball season. That run included a share of the Big Ten title in 1984. It was time to take the next step—win an outright conference championship and get past the first weekend of March Madness. The 1987 Purdue basketball team went right to the end of the regular season positioned to do just that before a hard fall left them starting over again.

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Purdue was still a reasonably young team in 1987 with Doug Lee as the only notable senior. Lee was a wingman who knocked down 10ppg. The heart of the team was its trio of juniors, Troy Lewis and Everette Stephens in the backcourt and Todd Mitchell at the power forward spot.

Lewis averaged 19ppg. Stephens added 12 a night and was one of the top passers in the conference from the point guard position. Mitchell was good for 16 points/7 rebounds per night. To this group was added a talented sophomore forward in Melvin McCants, who went for 12/6.

The lack of a good senior class in an era when players mostly finished their four-year run, even at top programs, was a downside. But that didn’t temper expectations in West Lafayette where Purdue was ranked #4 in the preseason polls. And these Boilermakers would show the optimism was justified.

They went 7-1 through the December non-conference schedule. It included a 77-61 win over NCAA Tournament-bound Wichita State. The only loss, a 94-81 defeat to North Carolina was no shame. It happened on a neutral floor and this was a vintage Tar Heel team that would end up a #1 seed in March.

It was time to start Big Ten play and even by the conference’s traditionally lofty standards, 1987 was a stacked year. Indiana had sharpshooting guard Steve Alford and had supplemented the lineup with junior college transfers in Keith Smart for the backcourt and Dean Garrett up front. Illinois had an excellent combo of point guard Tony Wysinger and post man Ken Norman. Iowa, under the coaching of Dr. Tom Davis, was transforming the conference with its up-tempo style.

These four teams would form the heart of the conference race, but they certainly weren’t the whole story. Michigan and Ohio State each went to the NCAA Tournament themselves. The Wolverines were the two-time defending conference champs and with Gary Grant and Glen Rice, they had electric talent. The Buckeyes were coached by Gary Williams and led by the outstanding Dennis Hopson, who merely poured in 29ppg, won league MVP honors and became an NBA lottery pick.

In short, there was little room for error. Even mediocre Michigan State, who came to West Lafayette to start Big Ten play, had a point guard in Darryl Johnston who exploded for 20-plus per game. The Boilermakers were still able to get an 87-72 win. They followed it up with an 89-77 victory over Michigan and the league schedule was off and running.

The soft part of the schedule was the trio of Northwestern, Minnesota and Wisconsin and Purdue ripped through all three for wins. That set up a date with Louisville, the defending national champs, but having a rough go of it in ‘87. On the January Sunday when most of America was focused on the NFC & AFC Championship Games, the Boilermakers delivered an 88-73 win.

ESPN’s weeknight telecasts were just coming into vogue and the showcase was Big Monday. The Big Ten was a part of this, typically playing the second game of the nationally televised doubleheader. Iowa’s visit to Mackey Arena was the showcase on January 19. And it would be Purdue’s first conference loss, a tough 70-67 defeat.

There was no time to lick wounds, not with Illinois coming into town next. Purdue pulled out an 87-86 thriller. They went to Ohio State and won another hair-raising finish, 75-73. It set up another showdown game, this one at Indiana. Purdue lost 88-77.

After home wins over Wisconsin and Northwestern, the Boilermakers stood at 9-2 in the conference. They were a game back of 10-1 Indiana, but still had the Hoosiers coming to Mackey later in February. Iowa was at 8-2, while Illinois gave chase at 9-3.

A brutal stretch of three road games awaited. It would begin at Iowa and end with a visit to Illinois. That was tough enough, but it also made a visit to Minnesota in-between a potential trap spot. Purdue’s season had reached a crucial test.

The Boilermakers passed the test with flying colors. They got an 80-73 win in Iowa City, then avoided the letdown with an eight-point win over the Gophers. Another one-point win over the Illini, this one 76-75, kept them within a game of Indiana and narrowed the conference race to the two rivals.

February 26, a Thursday night, saw Bob Knight bring his Hoosiers to West Lafayette. They were fresh off a win over Iowa and were looking to put a stranglehold on the league. Instead, Purdue answered with a solid 75-64 win. The weekend got even better. Purdue took care of its home floor with a 14-point win over Ohio State while Indiana lost by a bucket in Champaign.

We were going into the final week of the season and Purdue had sole possession of first place. They were ranked #3 in the country. It was all right there for them—the outright conference championship and a virtually certain #1 seed in the Midwest Regional, which would just as surely have placed them in Indianapolis for the first weekend.

It would have to be done on the road though and Purdue met the first challenge in East Lansing with a 69-59 win that locked up a share of the Big Ten crown.

But with everything in their grasp, the season took an improbable turn. Purdue went into Ann Arbor and played what was probably its worst game of Gene Keady’s entire coaching tenure (at least when compared to expectations). They were pounded 104-68.

Indiana was able to get a piece of the league title and the Selection Committee handed the Hoosiers the Midwest’s top line and the spot in Indianapolis. Purdue tumbled all the way to a 3-seed and was sent east to play in Syracuse.

It was a harsh penalty for one poor performance after a season of achievement. If Keady and Purdue fans took a dim view of the Selection Committee, they had good reason. In 1984 and 1986, the Boilermakers had to play true road games in the first weekend against teams they were seeded higher than. This year wasn’t that bad, but it was difficult to see why Iowa would get a 2-seed after finishing behind Purdue in the standings.

Even so, the Boilermakers were still the chalk to survive the first two rounds, something Keady had not yet done. But they were reeling. They didn’t play well defensively and needed 60 second-half points to get past Northeastern 104-95.

The Round of 32 opponent would be Florida. The Gators had talent. Guard Vernon Maxwell would one day be a starter on an NBA championship team in Houston. Purdue again did not play well; Maxwell went for 24 points and Florida pulled away in the second half to an 85-66 win.

It was a tough ending to a season that deserves to be remembered for everything that was achieved prior to the final regular season game. Despite being a young team, Purdue was a co-champ in one of the best years the Big Ten has ever had (Iowa reached the Elite Eight and Indiana won the national championship). And they laid the groundwork for 1988, when they finally won the outright conference title and reached the Sweet 16.

1984 Purdue Basketball: Gene Keady’s 1st Big Ten Championship

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Gene Keady was in his fourth year coaching at Purdue. He inherited a program that went to a Final Four in 1980, but had been gutted by departures. After two years of retooling, Keady returned the Boilermakers to the NCAA Tournament in 1983. The 1984 Purdue basketball team took the next step and won a piece of the Big Ten championship.

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The ’84 Boilermakers were anchored by 6’8” senior Jim Rowinski, who averaged 15 points/7 rebounds per game. He was joined up front by Jim Bullock and Mark Atkinson, who did more dirty work on the boards and combined to average ten rebounds a night.

Steve Reid only went 5’9”, but he was one of the top passers in the conference, with five assists per game and he also knocked down 12 points. Ricky Hally, the 6’1” senior rounded out a backcourt that was short, but productive—Hally was also a double-digit scorer.

Purdue was unranked to start the season. Then they won their first five games. Those included a victory over NCAA Tournament-bound Fresno State, and Louisville—fresh off back-to-back Final Four runs and headed back to the Sweet 16 this year. Those wins vaulted Purdue up to #7.

A bad 80-65 loss at Evansville brought the Boilermakers back to earth, but worse was the fact that this came right ahead of games with DePaul and Kentucky, both ranked in the top 5 nationally and each headed for a #1 seed in March. Purdue lost both and fell from the rankings as Big Ten play began.

The conference schedule opened with home games against mediocre competition in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Wins of 84-65 and 72-62 got the Boilermakers going. It set up a road trip to Ohio State. The Buckeyes had gone to the final game of the season in pursuit of the Big Ten title twice in the previous four years and they had a smooth small forward in Tony Campbell. Another double-digit win, this one 63-52, sent a clear message that this Purdue team was ready to contend.

And if that didn’t get the message across, going into Bloomington to face rival Indiana and Bob Knight, winners of three of the last four league titles, surely did. Purdue won 74-66 and briefly cracked the national rankings again at #19.

I say “briefly” because a 76-52 loss at Illinois sent Purdue back to the land of the unranked. Illinois would join Purdue in a race at the top of the conference standings. The fact the Boilermakers could be unranked with three of their four losses to Kentucky, DePaul and Illinois—all of whom would be on the top two seed lines in the NCAAs—indicates a definite lack of respect.

Purdue returned home to face Michigan. The Wolverines were a program on the rise and while they settled for winning the NIT this year, they were coming and led by center Roy Tarpley. Purdue pulled out a 61-57 win. Then they routed Michigan State 72-54.

In the early 1980s, the Big Ten used what can be a called a “reverse schedule” formula and they also used “travel partners”. The reverse schedule meant that after you played your nine conference opponents, you simply reversed course to move back upward. Which meant that the next four games would be against bad teams in Northwestern and Iowa. Purdue won all four games.

The “travel partner” concept meant you were paired with one other team and essentially swapped opponents with them in two-game increments. Purdue’s travel partner was Illinois. What makes this intriguing is that it meant the league’s two best teams would be swapping opponents back and forth down the stretch.

Purdue made their return trips to East Lansing and Ann Arbor. Michigan State was a young team that wouldn’t make postseason play, but they had talented players in point guard Scott Skiles and center Kevin Willis. They could play spoiler and with a 63-53 win over the Boilermakers, that’s exactly what they did.

A tough 67-64 win at Michigan got Purdue back on track, and at 12-2, they were atop the conference standings. But Illinois was tied in the loss column at 11-2, with Indiana lurking at 11-3. And the Illini and Hoosiers were the next two opponents on the docket.

Purdue got a tough 59-55 win over Illinois in Mackey and were poised to seize control of the Big Ten race, especially when Michigan State worked their spoiler magic in Blooming by knocking off Indiana. A win over the Hoosiers on a Wednesday night could all but salt away the league title.

But Indiana wouldn’t go quietly and Purdue played their worst game of the conference schedule in a 78-59 loss. Illinois had new life and the two teams were tied.

Ohio State came in for the final home game of the year and Purdue’s 85-63 win helped relegate the Buckeyes to the NIT. Illinois blasted Indiana to keep the race tied.

The travel partners would go north to end the year, with the opponents being Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Badgers might have been a bad team, but they had a terrific player in Cory Blackwell and the forward led the conference in scoring and rebounding. But the Boilers brought their defense to Madison in a 61-48 win. Illinois crushed Minnesota to hold serve.

Illinois kept it rolling with a blowout win over Wisconsin. Purdue had to win in the Twin Cities to secure their share of the league crown. It didn’t come easy, but with the 63-62 escape they were in the Big Ten throne room for the first time in five years.

Purdue was rewarded with a 3-seed in the Midwest Regional of the NCAA Tournament. This was the final year of the 48-team bracket, meaning the top four seeds in each regional got byes.

But another aspect of Purdue’s draw was…well, let’s just say it was a little less than rewarding. They were sent to play in Memphis—against sixth-seeded Memphis.

It was blatantly unfair at the time and looks even worse from the perspective of history when we know that the same thing would happen in 1986—Purdue having to play a lower-seeded team on the opponent’s home floor (11-seed LSU in that case). Gene Keady felt like he was always getting a raw deal from the Selection Committee, and while these complaints are common from all coaches and fan bases, Keady has more ammo than most to prove his case.

The result was a disappointing ending. Purdue shot 28 percent while Memphis’ great center Keith Lee went wild for 29 points/16 rebounds. The final was 66-48.

Home cookin’ may have brought Purdue’s 1984 season to a premature end, but the winning was just getting started with Keady. He won a share of the league title again in 1987. He won it outright in 1988. He won three straight outright crowns in a historic run from 1994-96. The Final Four always eluded him, but Clean Gene could get it done in a conference culture that values regular season titles. The first one came in 1984.

A Breakout Big Ten Crown For 1984 Illinois Basketball

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Illinois basketball was on hard times when Lou Henson took over in 1976. The Illini hadn’t made the Final Four since 1952 and had only been sporadically good in the ensuing quarter century, bottoming out at 13-36 over the final two years before Henson arrived in Champaign. By 1979, Henson had won 19 games. By 1981 he was in the NCAA Tournament. And the 1984 Illinois basketball team enjoyed a breakthrough year with a Big Ten championship and nearly made it back to the Final Four.

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The Illini had good balance throughout the lineup. Power forward Efrem Winters led the way with a per-game average of 15 points/7 rebounds. He was joined up front by 6’9” center George Montgomery, who averaged 10/7.

But Illinois wasn’t a big team, so they had to rely on the backcourt and the three-guard combo Henson had was excellent. Bruce Douglas could both score and pass, averaging 13 points/4 rebounds/6 assists. Doug Altenberger was solid on the wings with 11 ppg. Quinn Richardson was the only starter who didn’t average double figures, but the 5’11” senior was a valuable floor leader and his 59% shooting from the floor showed what would happen if you backed off him defensively.

Respect was still a hard thing to come by in Champaign and Illinois was unranked when the season began just after Thanksgiving. They got a nice 70-53 win over Loyola-Illinois in a holiday tournament. The Ramblers were a good team who were just a year away from making the NCAA Sweet 16. The two teams played again in Champaign on December 12 with Illinois again winning, this time 74-69.

Missouri was mediocre, but a 66-60 win in this rivalry game is always satisfying for the Illinois program. And on Christmas Eve they got a crack at #2-ranked Kentucky. The Wildcats came to Champaign and won 56-54, but the Illini showed they could compete with the nation’s best. And they hadn’t seen the last of Big Blue.

Illinois was catching some attention nationally and ranked at #20 when Big Ten play began just after the New Year. They opened up by blasting mediocre Minnesota 80-53. A road trip to Wisconsin was a little tougher. The Badgers weren’t good, but they had a forward in Cory Blackwell who wound up leading the conference in both scoring and rebounding. The Illini escaped Madison with a 63-62 win.

Thus began a run of three key games against Indiana, Ohio State and Purdue. The Hoosiers had won three of the last four Big Ten championships and were led by sharpshooting freshman Steve Alford. The Buckeyes had gone to the very end of the season chasing two of those league titles and had a smooth small forward in Tony Campbell who could fill up the bucket. And the Boilermakers were a consistent contender under the leadership of Gene Keady.

The stretch started with a tough overtime loss to Indiana, but the 73-68 defeat was in Bloomington. And it was followed by a narrow 55-53 survival at Ohio State and then a comfortable 76-52 blasting of Purdue. At 4-1 in the conference, Illinois was positioned to make a run.

They hosted Michigan State and Michigan in succession. The Spartans were too young to seriously win this year, but with Scott Skiles at the point and big Kevin Willis down low, they were still a threat in any one-game shot. Illinois won 46-40. The Wolverines were starting to come on strong and would end up winning the NIT behind center Roy Tarpley. Illinois beat them 75-66.

In the early 1980s, the Big Ten used what can be called a “reverse scheduling” formula. That is, you played all nine of your conference opponents. Then you simply reversed order and went back through them. Which meant that the next four games would be against Iowa and Northwestern. Neither team was very good and Illinois cashed in, ripping off four straight wins.

A tough 62-60 loss at Ann Arbor followed, but the trip to East Lansing went much better. Illinois routed Michigan State 70-53 and moved to 11-2 in the conference. They were tied in the loss column with league leader Purdue, who was 12-2. Indiana was nipping at the heels with an 11-3 league mark. And the reverse schedule formula meant the conference season would end as it had begun.

That meant a Saturday trip to West Lafayette with first place on the line. And when Illinois took a 59-55 loss to Purdue, their Big Ten championship hopes were in serious jeopardy.

If there was any consolation, it was that Indiana had lost at home to Michigan State. That proved even more significant four days later when the Hoosiers gave Illinois what they needed. IU went into Purdue and routed the Boilermakers 78-59. Illinois and Purdue were back to being tied.

A 73-58 home win over Ohio State, who would settle for the NIT this season, got Illinois winning again. It sent up a visit from Indiana on the first Sunday afternoon in March. The Illini, showing little gratitude for the help in the league race, but plenty of hunger for the opportunity, delivered a 70-53 beatdown. On that same day, Purdue blew out Ohio State. In the final week of the season, there was no question the race was down to the Illini and Boilermakers and they were in a dead heat.

Illinois had to go up to Minnesota and they brought their defense with them, grinding out a 53-41 win. The win answered Purdue’s victory at Wisconsin two days earlier.

On the final Saturday, Illinois hosted Wisconsin and it turned into one long party. The easy 81-57 rout gave the Illini a piece of the Big Ten championship. The nearly got the whole thing—Purdue barely survived its trip to Minneapolis, escaping with a 63-62 win. But with a 15-3 conference record, no one in Illinois was going to complain about sharing the title.

They were rewarded with a #2 seed in the Mideast Regional (the forerunner of today’s South Regional) and sent to play in Milwaukee.

I had the good fortune to be in the stands at Milwaukee’s old MECCA for the games that went on Friday/Sunday. This was the last year of the 48-team NCAA bracket, where the top four seeds in each regional got a bye, so Illinois didn’t play on Friday. On Sunday, they drew Villanova in the Round of 32.

The Wildcats were just a year away from a national championship and they had the players who keyed that memorable run. Notably, center Ed Pinckney was a handful, getting 24 points/14 rebounds against Illinois, while Dwayne McClain added 15.

But Illinois brought their defense, holding Villanova to 38% shooting. And the Illini brought their balance. Douglas, Altenberger, Richardson and Winters all scored between 11-13 points. Winters hit the glass for 14 rebounds. Douglas dished eight assists. The game was good, but Illinois stayed in control for a 64-56 win.

It was on to Lexington and the fabled Rupp Arena for the regionals. Kentucky was looming over the proceedings as the 1-seed and the host, but Illinois first had to deal with Maryland. This was a talented Terps team led by Lenny Bias. In an excellent college basketball game, the Illini answered by shooting 59 percent. All five starters landed between 11-15 points. The ball movement was impeccable, with Douglas again handing out eight assists and Richardson adding six more. Illinois won it 72-70.

The home crowd had pushed Kentucky by Louisville in the other regional semi and it set up a rematch of the Christmas Eve game, this time with a Final Four berth on the line. This game would be worthy of the stakes, but not without controversy.

Richardson was brilliant with 16 points on 8-for-11 shooting, but Illinois only shot 46 percent as a team. They were already woefully undersized, with Kentucky having a huge frontline led by Sam Bowie and Mel Turpin. The Wildcats shot 55 percent and that kind of edge was going to be tough to overcome.

Especially when the officiating would be called into question by neutral observers. Kentucky shot 17 free throws to Illinois’ 9. The overall foul total was pretty even, but at one point in the second half, the Illini had been whistled for ten fouls to just two for the ‘Cats. Only when Kentucky began wasting fouls down the stretch did the overall number come to even.

And there was a specific call with 0:16 left that stuck in Henson’s craw. Kentucky led 52-50, but point guard Dicky Beal appeared to travel. There was no call. Illinois had to foul, and Beal hit the free throws that sealed the 54-51 win.

The loss was a tough pill to swallow, but the 1984 season was still a special one in Champaign. It took a few more tries to finally get through to the Final Four. In 1989, the program got there. And the 1984 still holds a special place as Lou Henson’s only Big Ten championship year in his successful run at Illinois.

The Breakthrough & Heartbreak Of 1988 Purdue Basketball

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Gene Keady inherited a Purdue basketball program that reached the 1980 Final Four and kept the tradition of success going in West Lafayette. Over the ensuing seven years, in a competitive era of Big Ten basketball, Keady’s teams made the NCAA Tournament every year and won a piece of two Big Ten championships. But success in March was missing.

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Keady had never made it out of the first weekend. The 1988 Purdue basketball team was Keady’s best yet and finally pushed him to the regionals…but the ending would still be one of the more heartbreaking in a program that has a long history of crushing losses in March.

The ending to the 1987 season had been particularly galling. An excellent team, Purdue reached the final game of the regular season with a share of the Big Ten crown in hand and in line for a #1 seed in the Midwest Regional, which would place them in Indianapolis.

But they were blown out at Michigan in the finale. The result was Indiana sharing the conference championship, getting the 1-seed and placement in Indy and eventually winning the national title. Meanwhile, Purdue went East and lost in the Round of 32.

So Purdue convened for the 1988 season with their key players intact and having something to prove. They were led by three seniors. Troy Lewis was the two-guard and the leading scorer at 18ppg, also averaging five rebounds and five assists a night. Everette Stephens ran the floor show, with six assists per game and also chipped in double-digit scoring. Todd Mitchell was a tough power forward, good for 16 points/6 rebounds a night.

This core of senior talent was not alone. Melvin McCants was a junior center that showed flashes of dominance and averaged 14/5. Tony Jones was a valuable ball-handler off the bench and kicked in four assists per game. Purdue had talent, experience and cohesion. Expectations were appropriately high and they started the season ranked #2 in the country.

The start to the season was shaky. Purdue lost at home to Iowa State 104-96 and the Cyclones were a team that would barely scrape into the NCAA Tournament. Wins over Illinois State and Wichita State, neither of whom were noteworthy in 1988, were less than inspiring.

Then on December 20, Purdue hosted a good Kansas State team, with future Hall of Famer Mitch Richmond in tow and blasted the Wildcats 101-72. They concluded the non-conference schedule at 10-1 and were rolling again. K-State went to lick its wounds and wait for another day.

Purdue started Big Ten play and immediately racked up six straight wins. They won by 13 at Illinois, who ended up as a 3-seed in the NCAAs. They nipped a good Iowa team at home. And after the 6-0 start in conference, the Boilers ventured out to play Louisville. The Cardinals were two years removed from a national championship and would be a 4-seed this coming March. Purdue got a 91-85 road win.

The Boilermakers took a week off and then went to that hated place in Bloomington. Some more disappointment awaited in an 82-79 loss, but Purdue still closed the month of January with a record of 17-2 and were back to #2 in the national rankings.

After an easy win at lowly Wisconsin, the Boilermakers went to Ann Arbor. Michigan was their chief competition for the Big Ten crown. The Wolverines had the league’s top two scorers in Glen Rice and Gary Grant. Rice was also third in the league in rebounding, while Grant led in assists and ended up winning conference MVP. Purdue’s 91-87 road win was a big statement and put them in control of the league race.

The Boilers went on to survive at mediocre Michigan State by two and then got a nice 73-68 road win at Iowa. It set up a Sunday afternoon revenge game with Indiana at Mackey Arena. In a sizzling basketball game, Purdue won 95-85. A week later they got another double-digit win over Illinois, this one 93-79. As the Boilermakers closed February with an easy win at Northwestern, they were two games up on Michigan in the Big Ten race with four to play.

A 28-point pounding of Wisconsin up in Madison set the stage for another battle with Michigan. This one was in Mackey and this time there was room to spare. Purdue won 80-67 and clinched the first outright Big Ten championship of the Keady era.

After a loss at Ohio State and blowout win over Minnesota, Purdue got its expected reward from the NCAA Selection Committee—the #1 seed in the Midwest and favorable first weekend geography. The great fans of Boiler Nation would need to simply get on a bus and head to South Bend for the beginning of what looked certain to be a Final Four run and perhaps even more. In tournament pools, Purdue was a reasonably popular pick to win the school’s first national championship.

And they looked the part in South Bend. After the expected dismantling of 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson 94-79, the Boilermakers came out and dropped triple digits on Memphis with a 100-73 win. Over the two games, McCants scored 46 points, Lewis dropped 41 and Mitchell added 34. The rebounding edge was decisive, with Purdue getting 33 more rebounds than their opponents. The performance both team-wide and individually, was comparable over the two games—those numbers aren’t padded by the Fairleigh Dickinson game.

Furthermore, the Midwest Regional was gutted by upsets. The 2-seed (Pitt) and 3-seed (Jim Valvano’s N.C. State) were both gone. As Purdue went to Detroit and the Pontiac Silverdome for the regionals, a Final Four trip seemed inevitable.

Kansas State was lying in wait for a rematch. When Purdue took a 43-34 lead at halftime it seemed like business as usual. Stephens knocked down 20 points and handed out nine assists on the night. Lewis scored 19. But Mitchell and McCants weren’t shooting well. The inside pair would combine to go 11-for-27. And note that this was not an era where big men shot from the perimeter—only one of those shots was from behind the arc. That means Purdue was missing chances from closer in.

And Mitch Richmond was going off. He would end up with 27 points/11 rebounds. Kansas State took control in the second half and in a most improbable ending, the 4-seed Wildcats won 73-70 in an upset that seemed bigger than the seed differential would indicate.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered. Kansas was the 6-seed and with Danny Manning in charge, were on a run that would led them to a memorable national championship. But it still wasn’t the ending that anyone had in mind for the 1988 Purdue Boilermakers.

Keady would go on to win more Big Ten championships (three straight outright from 1994-96). He got into the regional weekend four more times. Twice he pushed his way to the Elite Eight, one of them with national Player of the Year Glenn Robinson in 1994. But he never made the Final Four. Some of us still look back on that 1988 group as the one that was his best shot.

1983 Indiana Basketball: A 3rd Big Ten Crown In 4 Years

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Bob Knight’s Indiana basketball program was on a good roll coming in the early 1980s. They had won Big Ten titles in 1980 and 1981, the latter being punctuated with a dominating run to the national championship. Even a step-back in 1982 was modest, as the Hoosiers still tied for second in their league and reached the Round of 32 in March. The 1983 Indiana basketball team got back on top of the Big Ten and if not for an untimely injury might have done even more.

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Indiana was led by two lights-out shooters on the wings. Randy Wittman went 6’6” and averaged 19ppg. Ted Kitchel, at 6’8”, was good for 17ppg. These two fifth-year seniors were the focal point of the team and were augmented by a solid senior point guard in Jim Thomas. Uwe Blab, a 7’2” sophomore center from Germany provided some height in the middle and Tony Brown was a valuable role player in the backcourt who averaged four assists per game.

The Hoosiers opened the season ranked ninth in the country and rolled out to a 10-0 start in non-conference play. They beat respectable teams in UTEP and Notre Dame. And they knocked off #2 Kentucky 62-59 in Bloomington just prior to Christmas. When Big Ten play opened after the New Year, Indiana was ranked #1 in the country.

A 70-67 loss at Ohio State opened the league schedule and knocked IU from the top of the polls, but even that wasn’t a bad thing. The beginning of the conference schedule was abnormally tough. The Buckeyes, along with Illinois and Purdue would be Indiana’s primary competition in conference—and the Hoosiers had to play all three on the road to start January. After dropping the opener, IU promptly picked up where they left off and beat Illinois by fourteen, then edged Purdue 81-78.

Indiana returned home to face Michigan State and Michigan, neither of whom were particularly good this year. The Hoosiers didn’t play great defense against Sparty, but still won 89-85. And IU coasted past Michigan 93-76. After a road win at Northwestern, the Hoosiers played poorly at Iowa in a fifteen-point loss. But Indiana was still 5-2 in Big Ten play as January came to a close.

The Big Ten schedule was set up to go “in reverse”, meaning you took the order of the first half of the schedule (nine games) and simply reversed it for the second half. That meant the next four games would all be against Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Badgers had a good inside man in Brad Sellers, although they weren’t very good. The Gophers were the defending conference champs and 7’3” center Randy Breuer was one of the conference’s best scorers and rebounders.

Indiana won all four games and for Minnesota it started a path when they fell from the land of the ranked (#17 prior to the first meeting) and would end up missing the NCAA Tournament altogether. The Hoosiers were riding high.

Then came a big bump in the road. Simply saying Indiana lost three of their next four would, on its own, be sufficient explanation. But there’s more. One of the losses was at home, to Iowa by a point. The other two were to non-NCAA Tournament teams in Michigan and Michigan State. The win was over Northwestern. The losing skid dropped IU into a first-place tie with Ohio State, Purdue was a half-game back (tied in the loss column) while Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota were all giving chance one game behind.

And that isn’t even the worst of it. In the Michigan loss, Kitchel aggravated a back injury. He would require surgery. His season was over.

The decisive moment of the 1983 Big Ten basketball season had arrived and only Wittman was a reliable scorer. The opponents would be Purdue, Illinois and Ohio State. If nothing else, the “in reverse” nature of the conference schedule meant that Indiana would have all three games at home.

The state of Indiana—and the flagship university in Bloomington in particular—have a reputation for their love of basketball that needs no further expounding here. Suffice it to say, the fans rallied to the moment. After Kitchel was flooded with get-well cards, the fans came determined to make Assembly Hall rock.

And the team responded. Indiana hammered Purdue 64-41 with a vintage Knight-style defense in a big game. They knocked off Illinois 67-55. The race was narrowed to Indiana and Ohio State, each at 12-5 in Big Ten play. Just like 1980, the Hoosiers and Buckeyes would play a winner-take-all game in Bloomington to settle the conference championship.

The 1980 game had been a thriller. Not so much in 1983. Indiana, feeding off the energy of the fans and determined to win for Kitchel, simply took over. An 81-60 blowout win culminated the devastating closing push where they posted double-digit victories over their top three competitors with the second-leading scorer in the hospital. For the third time in four years, Indiana was Big Ten champs.

They also got the #2 seed in what was then called the Mideast Regional of the NCAA Tournament (today it’s the South bracket). The field was only 48 teams in 1983, so anyone seeded on the 1-4 lines got a bye into the Round of 32. Indiana watched as Oklahoma earned the right to meet them in Evansville.

OU had a great low-post scorer in Wayman Tisdale, who would eventually become both a whipping boy and all-time favorite of Knight on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. Tisdale scored 14 points and was respectable, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Wittman knocked down 10 of his 17 shots from the field and scored 22. Thomas added 13. The Hoosiers shot 51 percent compared to 39 percent for the Sooners. Indiana was up twelve by the half and won 63-49.

It was on to the Sweet 16 and what a regional weekend awaited. Indiana was facing an old friend, #3 seed Kentucky. The other game in the Mideast bracket was Louisville-Arkansas. That’s four passionate fan bases all within pretty reasonable travel distances of Knoxville, where the games would be held.

The regional lived up to the hype. All three games were sizzling and down to the wire, but Indiana’s time had run out. Even with Wittman getting 18 points and Blab adding 17, the Hoosiers couldn’t slow down Kentucky. The Wildcats shot 63 percent and without Kitchel, IU wasn’t going to keep pace with that kind of offensive efficiency. A 64-59 loss ended the season. Louisville would end up going to the Final Four.

1983 was still another banner year in Bloomington—quite literally, as the Big Ten championship banner went up and Knight declared it to be in honor of the fans for the way they rallied to the cause in the stretch run.

The next three years would be a volatile roller-coaster for the program. In 1984, Indiana pulled one of the most stunning upsets of the decade in the NCAA Tournament when they knocked off Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team in the Sweet 16. Two days later they lost to vastly less talented Virginia team. In the summer of 1984 Knight and freshman guard Steve Alford won an Olympic gold medal. In 1985, a season of great expectation ended in the NIT. A nice turnaround in 1986 was followed by a shocking first-round upset loss in the NCAAs to Cleveland State.

Finally in 1987, Indiana returned to the top. They won a share of the Big Ten title, got a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and behind Keith Smart’s shot on Monday Night, won Knight his third national championship.