1975 03 22 Indiana vs Kentucky

This classic video was created by Mark Greenspan
March 22, 1975, in Dayton, Ohio, was a pitch perfect beginning to a day that would forever be remembered for the most stunning upset in the glorious history of Kentucky basketball - a 92-90 victory over No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Indiana that sent the Wildcats to the Final Four.
Minutes before tipoff that Saturday afternoon, with University of Dayton Arena’s 13,458 patrons split evenly between boisterous Kentucky and Indiana fans, Hall was in that cramped locker room, standing next to a blackboard where he had scratched out four simple words.
Nets! Bus! Police! Coliseum!
“I said, ‘Fellas, I want us to be careful cutting the nets down. We’ll use a ladder and scissors. No knives. Nobody hanging from the rim. We’ll all go home on the bus. Nobody goes with their parents or friends. When we cross the Ohio River, the State Police will meet us and give us an escort to the Coliseum where we’ll celebrate. Let’s go play.”
The coach’s ploy worked beautifully, drawing the precise reaction he hoped to see.
“They were so fired up,” Hall said, “I wasn’t sure they would even know where they were.”
“I had a good feeling. I was loose,” Hall said. “I don’t know what gave me the confidence but I had it before the game even started … or I wouldn’t have written that on the blackboard. I truly believed we were going to win.
“They were poised and focused to take that challenge. I could sense it,” he added. “I was ready and I think they felt through me that they were ready.”
Incredibly, Hall’s blackboard stunt paled in comparison to what came next. With players filing out of the locker room for the opening tip, the coach pulled senior guards Jimmy Dan Conner and Mike Flynn off to the side.
“I told Flynn and Conner the way to beat Indiana was through our guards. We could penetrate and get good shots,” Hall said. “So I took the handle off those two. I gave them freedom, turned them loose for that game.”
With no warning, Hall put a new offensive game plan into place. To this day, Conner can’t believe the courage and confidence displayed by his coach to gamble Kentucky’s season on his belief.
Imagine, if you will, the mindset of Kentucky’s players trotting through the tunnel to face mighty Indiana, unbeaten at 31-0, and doing so with a few tricks up their collective sleeve and a prayer they would work.
“He gave me and Jimmy Dan the green light to shoot and, well, he didn’t have to tell me twice,” Flynn said with a smile. “I was putting it up as fast as I could.”
“I was 5-for-12 in the first half, which normally would get you a 20-minute tongue-lashing,” Conner said. “But Joe came up to me and said, ‘Keep doing it.’”
Conner finished 8-of-20 for 17 points. For Flynn, a native of Jeffersonville and a former Indiana Mr. Basketball, it was a game to one day regale children and grandchildren. It was the only time all season that Flynn would lead UK in scoring as he tallied 22 points while hitting 9-of-13 field goals.
“I had the college game of my life,” Flynn said. “All I had on my mind was that I wanted to beat IU. I had never beaten them.”
“We had all matured,” freshman Rick Robey said. “We were confident that we could play a physical game with them, confident we could play with a team that had beaten the tar out of us earlier that year.”
A halftime score of 44-44 and a 92-90 final would suggest a buzzer beater finish. Instead, Kentucky was in control much of the game, leading by as many as eight points before holding on for the victory.
“I doubt if there is any team in the country which would ever want to win a ball game more than Indiana,” Knight said afterwards. “We just were never able to play the type of defense we needed to play and are capable of playing. We just didn’t get the job done.”
To be fair, the Hoosiers were without second leading scorer Scott May, who suffered a broken arm on Feb. 22. He played just seven minutes, scoring a single bucket, though his replacement, John Laskowski, played admirably with 12 points.
“It was a heck of a game, probably the greatest game ever played in Dayton Arena,” Flynn said. “Half the building were IU fans, the other half was blue. And you could cut the air with a knife there was so much electricity.”
“It was one of the great upsets in college basketball,” Grevey declared. “To do it, we all had to come together, we all had to be on the same page and we had to follow coach Hall’s lead and play the style of play that he wanted from us. Of course, we were all willing to give it because we weren’t going to lose. We just knew we weren’t going to lose.”
The undertow to Kentucky’s determination in March, of course, was a December whipping Kentucky endured in Bloomington and the infamous head slap IU coach Bob Knight gave to Hall in the closing minutes.
“All of us wanted to beat Bob Knight for what he did to coach Hall,” Flynn said. “That didn’t sit too well with any of us and we never forgot it. We wanted to teach them a lesson.”

[@mrbake6933]

Great to hear Cawood and Ralph, so many great calls from them over the years!

[@alifetimeoflearning]

I have been looking for this video for years.

[@frndofbear]

Me too!!

[@douglascarlson9006]

We were on our way down to Jamaica by way of FLA when we got the news ...
This was one of the two most devastating sports losses in my life.

[@wramsey2656]

Dewayne Casey and Larry Johnson were both from my high school (Union County High School) we were so proud of them as well as all the cats! I remember hearing this game on the radio when i was 13 yrs old.

[@brianarbenz1329]

Larry was my favorite college player ever!

[@dejure9178]

As a UK fan, this is perhaps my favorite UK win of all time.

[@airplanes42]

If only Scott May hadn't been hurt, they'd have gone undefeated two seasons in a row!

[@brianarbenz1329]

IU’s Steve Green and UK’s Mike Flynn were high school rivals in Indiana. Flynn’s Jeffersonville and Green’s Silver Creek were 10 miles apart and played in a 1970-71 battle which Jeffersonville won on a last second jumper by Flynn. The two players were neck and neck for Mr. Basketball honors and that shot tipped to voting toward Flynn.

[@lauragray3421]

I vaguely remember this game because I was only nine years old when this game was played and my mom told about the game in Bloomington and she said it was awful big time even Cawoood said it. Glad the Cats 🐈 got their revenge over the Hoosiers.

[@dannyyork1142]

So telling of Bob knight, he's team gets beat fair and square, even though they got calls all night. And he wouldn't shake coach Joe B. Hall hand. So telling of how Bob knight was.

[@GBeret83]

The one video that Hoosier fans wish would disappear from TH-cam forever.

[@bigsmootht]

Zebras did all they could to keep IU in the game.

[@hansgordy]

Knight was a loser in his attitude. Wouldn't shake hands. He got outcoached.

[@forgottenindiana.5991]

They didnt have scott may. If they had uk would have got their asses handed to them

[@jeffrey7938]

​@@forgottenindiana.5991sounds like a butt hurt IU fan.

[@kenwilliams5513]

Who needs a shot clock? I think that shot by Flynn just before the half was the SI Cover the following week. Cats back in Dayton 3 years later in another nail-biter vs a Big Ten team(MSU)

[@brianarbenz1329]

Ah yes, beating Magic Johnson in the postseason was something no one else ever did. That was a day the much maligned ‘78 Kentucky team showed its greatness.