Most basketball fans know that the last undefeated national champion was the 1975-76 Indiana team. What a lot of people don’t realize is that Bob Knight got the job in 1971 and he was just 30 years old.
He built that program incredibly fast. Keep in mind that at the time, there was no freshman eligibility, no instant transfers and no NIL.
In his second season, Knight got Indiana to the Final Four, in his fourth season, turned in a 31-1 record and in his fifth, went undefeated for the national championship.
And he had an eye for talent too: Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army, was a graduate assistant in 1974-75 and, for a few weeks that year, Larry Bird was a freshman, before he hitchhiked back home to French Lick, overwhelmed by the size of the school and the program (we may have missed it, but we don’t think anyone has ever asked Coach K about his impressions of Bird at IU).
History obviously would have changed had Bird stayed. Indiana might have won four straight championships.
However, the 1975-76 team was magnificent. It was Knight at his best: that team played as a perfect unit, hungry for greatness.
His cruel and vindictive side would struggle with his decency for his entire career and soon enough it would begin to sabotage his brilliant career and legacy. In just 10 years, John Feinstein would write Season On The Brink, a legendary book that took an unflinching look at Knight’s strengths and his inability to control himself as well.
For a brief, shining time in the mid 7o’s though, Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski and Larry Bird, three towering legends of the game, were part of the same thing. It’s almost impossible to believe.