Conference celebrates 100th birthday

Everett Dean, say thank you.\nMike Davis, say thank you, too.\nBranch McCracken, say thanks.\nOh, and Bob Knight, you too. \nSay thank you to Amos Alonzo Stagg for bringing basketball to the Big Ten.\nThe same Stagg who is better known for his excellence in football at the University of Chicago and started that school playing basketball in 1894 -- 11 years before the Big Ten conference began its basketball league. One hundred years later the Big Ten is going strong, having made its mark as one of the best conferences in college basketball over the past century. \nAs the game matured throughout the Midwest, going from seven players per team on the court down to five, and working out the kinks of Stagg's colleague and friend, Dr. James Naismith's original rules, the closer the Big Ten came to its birth in basketball. \nIn 1896, the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representatives converted into what is now the Big Ten Conference and then featured Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois and Stagg's Chicago. IU and Iowa joined the Big Ten in 1899 and were followed by Ohio State in 1912. But it wasn't until 1905 that the official Big Ten basketball league commenced with those 10 teams. \nDespite being known now for its power in college basketball it took IU a little while to get into the swing of things. \nMore than 20 years after the birth of the Big Ten, the Hoosiers finally got on the board with its first league title, a four-way tie with Michigan, Purdue and Iowa, in 1926.\nTwo years later, the Hoosiers captured their second Big Ten crown in three years -- but that would be the last conference trophy to visit Bloomington for a long time. \nTwenty-five years long, to be exact.\nIn 1953, IU started their dominance in the current era of Big Ten teams, which included Chicago disbanding its football program in 1939 and subsequently dropping out of the conference in 1949 -- the same year that Michigan State joined the group, making the Big Ten only nine teams. \nThe Hoosiers captured that 1953 league title, led by Big Ten Most Valuable Player Don Schlundt, who also paved the way for the Hoosiers second national championship that same season.\nA year later, IU notched its second consecutive conference crown and from there, the Hoosiers won three more league titles until the 1970s.\nThe dominance IU started in the 1970s helped secure the Hoosiers' place in Big Ten lore, something IU coach Mike Davis says is synonymous with the conference.\n"I think Indiana is the Big Ten," he said. "When you talk about Big Ten basketball, the first school that comes to mind is Indiana. And there's some other schools that's really doing well here lately, but when you go back all the way back, when you talk about basketball now, you really think Indiana when you hear the Big Ten."\nIU secured its legacy alongside Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA in the 1970s, with domination of not just the Big Ten, but the country in whole.\nStarting in 1973, in today's words, it was on.\nBetween '73 and 2005, IU won 12 Big Ten titles, including a stretch of four consecutively from 1973-76. During that span, the Hoosiers went 79-5 in league play, including back-to-back undefeated, 18-0 seasons in 1975 and 1976. But their run of dominance ended on a pedestal and has yet to be knocked off.\nStill known as "the greatest college basketball team of all time," the 1976 Bob Knight coached Hoosiers ran the table, finishing 32-0, winning their fourth Big Ten title and the NCAA Championship. That was the last undefeated season in college basketball. \nAfter the likes of Tom Abernathy, Quinn Buckner, James Crew, Scott May and Bobby Wilkerson left Bloomington after that historic season, it took the Hoosiers three seasons to get back on track in their winning ways. Starting in 1980, with Isiah Thomas running the point, the Hoosiers caught fire again, winning that year's Big Ten crown and came back the next year with another league win and their fourth NCAA title March 31, 1981 -- the day former-President Ronald Reagan was shot. Giving another team a chance to take the 1982 championship, IU came back in 1983 by topping the league for the 14th time. Once again, a few years separated championship streaks.\nStarting back up again in 1987, the Hoosiers took home yet another Big Ten title, and with the help of Keith Smart, IU captured the '87 NCAA title, putting up their fifth banner in Assembly Hall. From there, the conference crown sat upon the Hoosiers head every other year until 1993, when the Hoosiers had a 17-1 Big Ten record, their first zero or one loss season since 1976. \nThat would be the last Big Ten championship of Bob Knight's career, as the reign of the Big Ten's winningest coach ended in 2000 with his firing. \nFor Hoosier star Bracey Wright, the Big Ten isn't something new to him, but it wasn't what he followed when he was a youngster in Texas.\n"Growing up, I didn't really keep up much with the Big Ten," he said. "The conference I was really into was the Big 12, being from Texas, and the Pac-10 and stuff like that. But the Big Ten has a lot of history and a lot of great players have come through here, a lot of great teams. And obviously with the tradition it has with the teams in here, it's something special."\nHowever, coach Davis didn't let the Hoosier tradition down as he took home the 2002 title in a four-way tie and returned the Hoosiers to Big Ten greatness.\nAfter that 2002 title, the Hoosiers went on to play in the NCAA title game, losing to Maryland. But to this year's freshmen class, just sophomores in high school that year, the Final Four is their most recent big IU memory.\n"When IU went to the Final Four in 2002, I feel that was the biggest moment, right there," said freshman Robert Vaden about the Hoosiers' biggest moment he can remember.\nBeing a Big Ten coach, Davis said the great tradition of the conference and the fans is what makes the Big Ten so great.\n"It's definitely` an honor to be in a conference that the attendance is always good, no matter where you go," he said. "I've been around a lot of conferences and watched a lot of conferences, and this is by far, from top to bottom, as far as attendance and excitement of it, is pretty good."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Josh Weinfuss at jweinfus@indiana.edu.