Indiana already was known for its love of basketball, and Indiana University had won two national championships prior to 1976. Yet, the accomplishments of the IU’s men’s basketball team that year lifted the Hoosiers and Coach Bob Knight to unparalleled heights, making Indiana University a permanent part of the national collegiate basketball conversation. The previous year, 1975, IU had lost only once, by two points in an NCAA regional final, when the Hoosiers’ best player took the floor with a broken arm. When practice began the following season, Coach Knight gave his team a singular goal: not just to win a Big 10 title, not just to win a national championship. The goal for that year was to not lose a single game. They didn’t, ending with a record of 32-0 when the nets came down in Philadelphia on March 29, 1976. In the past 50 years, there have been no other undefeated NCAA men’s basketball champions, and in 2013, the NCAA crowned the unbeaten Hoosiers as the all-time best “March Madness” team. This exhibit follows the pursuit of perfection in photographs taken by the staff of The Herald-Times newspaper during its coverage of the 1975-1976 season, from the play on the court to the dancing in the streets when the final buzzer sounded.

Opens September 30th