Florida coach Todd Golden’s age immediately became a topic of conversation when he hoisted the NCAA Championship trophy Monday evening in San Antonio.
At 39, Golden is the youngest coach to win the tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
But did you know — two of the youngest coaches to ever win the NCAA Tournament were running the IU program?
At 35, Bob Knight is tied for the third youngest coach to win the title when he led the Hoosiers to their undefeated season in 1976. He also led Indiana to an undefeated regular season a year earlier at age 34.
Knight actually followed in the footsteps of his own college coach Fred Taylor, who led Ohio State to the 1960 title also at age 35.
But Knight, Taylor, Golden and everyone else have nothing on Indiana’s first national champion coach.
Indiana hired Branch McCracken right around is 30th birthday in 1938. And in just his second season at the helm in Bloomington, he led the Hoosiers to their first title.
McCracken was still just 31 when he led IU to the 1940 NCAA crown. And 85 years later, McCracken’s accomplishment is still three years younger than the next youngest national title winning coach on the list.
McCracken and Knight are two of only nine coaches who have won the tournament under the age of 40 after Golden joined the list. The others are Harold Foster (Wisconsin, 1941), Taylor, Howard Hobson (Oregon, 1939), Don Haskins (UTEP, 1966), Jim Valvano (N.C. State, 1983), and Phil Woolpert (San Francisco, 1955).
As a player, McCracken was a three-year letter winner for Hall of Fame coach Everett Dean at IU from 1928-30. McCracken led the Hoosiers in scoring for three years. As a sophomore he was named conference MVP. In his senior year McCracken tallied 147 points, a new conference record. He was named All-American and team captain for the 1929-30 season.
After a successful stint as head coach at Ball State from 1930-38 that saw him go 93-41 and claim the program’s only win against IU, McCracken was hired to take over for Dean and lead the Hoosiers.
Although Dean laid the foundation for basketball greatness at IU, McCracken helped put the Hoosiers on an elite pedestal. He spent 24 years at the helm of the “Hurryin’ Hoosiers” and brought two National Championships, four Big Ten Championships and IU’s first four 20-win seasons to Bloomington.
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