USC and Baylor, the only undefeated teams of the early 2021-22 basketball season, both fell this week. This preserves the multi-decade streak of the 1975-76 Indiana University Hoosiers, the last college basketball team to finish the regular season and tournament unblemished at 32-0. It’s now been 46 years since this unbeatable perfection has been tied. “Five teams have finished the regular season undefeated since 1976 — with the most recent being Wichita State in 2014, Kentucky in 2015 and Gonzaga in 2021. Two of those teams — 1991 UNLV and 2015 Kentucky lost in the Final Four.” UCLA is the only other university to have achieved this level of NCAA greatness – 1967 (30-0), 1972 (30-0) and 1973 (30-0). The record lives on, at least another year.

After two straight BIG home victories, the Hoosiers seem to be back in winning form this season and competitive in the conference at 2-2. After their recent performances, many expect them to finish in the Top 5, while the top half would get them in the Big Dance for the first time since 2016. They still have to prove they can win on the road to earn an evasive NCAA tourney bid (their 40th in history), and they have to break Purdue’s recent domination that now stands at an embarrassing 9-straight dating back to 2016. That sole Hoosier victory was in Bloomington, stopping another 3-game Boiler winning streak. It’s hardly the perfection that I once experienced watching them lose only one game in two full years just after I graduated. 

Coach Mike Woodson, not to be confused with fellow Hoosier (Martinsville and Purdue) John Wooden, has produced a remarkable start in restoring the “Glory of Old IU.” Woodson has legendary status as a player, but far from achieving that level as a coach, and probably never to be associated in the same sentence with names like Knight and Wooden.  Right now, all we can say is that he’s a few letters from being Wooden. Also, as we all know, it was Coach Wooden that directed those great UCLA undefeated teams.