Quinn Buckner Reacts to Indiana's 1976 Undefeated Team Get Inducted into College Basketball Hall of Fame
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2020 Induction Celebration was streamed virtually on Wednesday night.
The class featured three inductions: The 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, the 1964 UCLA Bruins and the 1966 Texas Western Miners.
Clark Kellogg and Andy Katz hosted the event, and they had some interviews with former players and coaches on each of those teams.
When they got to talking about Indiana, Quinn Buckner was the representative to talk about that 1976 undefeated Hoosier team.
Here's what Buckner had to say about that historic team that many consider the best ever.
On if it's true that Bob Knight's preseason goal of was to undefeated:
"What coach Knight said effectively was, based on the year prior, we only had lost one game. If we would be doing what we were doing throughout the previous year and listened to him, he said it this way, 'There won't be anybody that really has a chance to beat you if you do it that way.' Listen, we had seniors. They were smart, tough and knew what their roles were. There was a clear mission of what we were trying to get accomplished, and we were determined to try to do that. As a senior, this is your last shot. Whatever motivation you had as a junior is different. You know as a senior, this is it. We were mentally prepared to do what we had to do and thankfully we were able to do it. Coach Knight, as he was about many things, was on point."
On how close the 1974-75 was to winning a National Championship:
"It was the best team I played on, quite frankly. Scott May I want to say about three-to-four weeks before, had his left arm broken, and Scott was our best player. So we had played Kentucky in the early part of the season and we had beat them, let's just say rather handedly. When we played them in Dayton, Ohio, to really get to the Final Four, they beat us. You talk about motivation, they had great motivation because we had played so well the time we had beaten them. Scott was not fully healthy and we didn't carry the load, and Kentucky beat us. That's why I thought we were much more effective, but without our best player being fully healthy, he came back and played, but Scott was our best player."
On if there were any distractions or friction amongst the team during the championship run:
"Hey Clark, I played for Coach Knight. He doesn't have descension. I'm sorry, you know better than I do, the culture he established was he wanted it to be united. At times he would do things where he would have the entire team, let's just say less than happy with him. It's just weird how it galvanized the unit. The blessings we had as a freshmen class, we went to the Final Four as freshmen and lost to UCLA, so you start stacking on experience, so you start experiencing the kinds of preparation you need to get to the '76 team and know that you don't have any chance to take anything for granted. But normally there's adversity. Coach Knight kept media basically away from us, very few people in practice, which is how people like to operate. Coach Knight managed the entire environment because he wanted as little distractions as possible because he understood what he had much more so than any of the players did. He managed that situation masterfully."
On beating UCLA in the first game of the season:
"What I recall is the year we lost to Kentucky, the previous year, Coach Knight had come to Scott and I and said we have the chance to play UCLA on a neutral site, and before he could get it out of his mouth, as competitive as we are, we said, 'Yes, let's do that.' That was important in many ways. UCLA had been the dominant team and they were who we played when we were freshmen in the Final Four and lost. So when this opportunity came, I wasn't passing it up because that was the standard. So we play them, and we beat them handedly. I remember they had Richard Washington, who's a great player, he said that was an exhibition game. My nature is not to talk. My nature is to do what we do, but I made that very pointed though, like OK, if that was an exhibition game, this first game in the semifinals round is real, let's see what you have. Our team played exceptionally well, and we were able to beat them again. That's really what we were made of. We've very competitive. We were very mild-mannered off the court if you will, but on the court, we were a very competitive group."
On what he takes most away from that championship season:
"Well there are a couple things. Coach Knight told the crowd on our senior night, 'Take a look at this group because you'll never see another one like it again.' And for many people, that is in fact the case. My teammates were very bright. Very bright. Also in these instances are the lifelong relationships that are developed. The bond that is developed. It was love from one another, regardless of where you're from, under these circumstances, they stood up for you, you stood up for them, those are the things you take with you. First of all, you know you did something you may have not thought you could do, but you got some brothers with you and you can count on people. Lastly, and what should be considered the top, we played for one of the great coaches in the history of coaching. He was extraordinarily bright. He was who you may say was maniacal about things, but it was about the details of being successful and making sure your preparation for that success was paramount to anything you did. You take that preparation, you take that thought process through life, you have a chance to be successful. That's what I take from that.
To view the whole ceremony, you can go to the link below:
Indiana's 1976 team finished a perfect 32-0 en route to winning the national title and remains the most recent Division I men’s team to complete an unbeaten season.
