Bone Daddy was in New Orleans for this 1987 NCAA Men’s Final Four….which gives even more value to this video of The Finals between Coach Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orangemen verses Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers….as he calls this finals game one of the greatest games he has ever seen….saying that the energy in the Louisiana Superdome was a a fever-pitch throughout the entire contest.
The 1986–87 Indiana Hoosiers men’s basketball team head coach was Bobby Knight….who was in his 16th year with a team that is noted for having achieved tremendous success without much NBA talent. The Hoosiers finished the regular season with an overall record of 24–4…with a conference record of 15 –3….while finishing 1st in the Big Ten Conference as co-champions with Purdue. The Hoosiers were named a one-seed in the 1987 NCAA Tournament….whereby they won solidly over Fairfield, Auburn, and Duke in NCAA tournament play…..but they needed Ricky Calloway’s rebound lay-in to beat LSU by a score of 77 – 76, to get to the Final Four. Once there, Indiana beat one-seed UNLV, 97–93, despite ten 3-pointers by UNLV guard Freddie Banks….which is still the Final Four record….to get to this championship game versus Syracuse….which featured three future long-time professional players in G Sherman Douglas, C Rony Seikaly and F Derrick Coleman. Indiana trailed 73–70 in the last minute….however, two “late shot daggers” were placed the hearts of the Orange by Indiana G Keith Smart….including the last at 0:05 to win the game for Indiana…..when Bone Daddy was sitting at the corner baseline where Smart inserted the final dagger.
Coach Knight would say….“The greatness in this team may be the greatness no other team here has had, to the degree that this one hadd an almost total resolve not to recognize or be a part of defeat. This team played the last five minutes of critical games as well as I’ve ever seen a team play.”….which makes this video MUST SEE TV for any and all college basketball fans.
