BLOOMINGTON — Indiana basketball is hosting USC for the first time in program history on Wednesday night.
The new Big Ten rivals don’t share much history — the all-time series is tied 2-2 — but former IU coach Bob Knight made the last matchup between the schools in 1974 a memorable one.
Indiana faced USC in the title game of the inaugural College Commissioners Association tournament, a postseason tournament for conference runners-up at a time when the NCAA only invited league champions to the NCAA Tournament.
The Hoosiers won the event with an 85-60 win with Knight lending a helping hand to his coaching staff from the bleachers after getting ejected midway through the first half.
Knight sat among the 4,721 fans in attendance at the St. Louis Arena and had one of his assistants deliver a series of hand-written messages to Dave Bliss, who was coaching in his stead.
Here’s a look back at the game based on reporting at the time from The Herald-Times longtime sports editor Bob Hammel:
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Former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight unloads on the officiating
Knight got into a heated exchange with officials when they failed to call USC’s 6-foot-10 center Mike Westra for an obvious traveling violation. He got into an extended back-and-forth with official John Overby that resulted in his ejection.
“If a coach can’t bitch on an out-and-out bad call, then that’s what’s wrong with basketball,” Knight said.”The officials think the damned thing is played for them, and it isn’t. It’s for the kids. It would have been different if he (Overby) had told me, ‘Sit down, I blew one.’ But he told me it wasn’t a palm and that’s a lot of baloney.”
Indiana responded to Knight’s ejection by going on a 9-0 run to erase a 28-20 deficit. The Hoosiers freshman center Kent Benson, who was named the tournament’s MVP after putting up 17 points and seven rebounds in the finals, scored seven points during that run all by himself.
After the game, Knight was asked if he instigated the argument with the officials to motivate his team. It was his second-career ejection in his first nine seasons.
“That wasn’t my intention,” Knight said. “I wasn’t trying to arouse anybody. But we had here a consolation tournament so we got stuck also with consolation officials.”
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Knight poked fun at the tournament while accepting the trophy for winning the event with all nine collegiate conference commissioners who organized the event in the crowd.
“On behalf of the people of Indiana University who know a lot about basketball and although we would have preferred to be playing in the NCAA in Greensboro or the NIT in New York, we’re still happy to have won this tournament,” Knight told the crowd.
He expanded on his frustration — IU wasn’t allowed to play in the NIT over the CAA — with the media after the game.
“The crowds in Madison Square Garden this week, I understand, have been 10,000, 14,000 and 18,000 (compared to 4,000, 5,000, 5,000 and 4,000 in St. Lous). And the tickets here cost more than they do at the NCAA. That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense to me.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana basketball vs. USC 1974 game with Bob Knight ejection
