Part 1: The 1940 National Championship Team

Written by: Bill Murphy (@Williamindiana2)

Branch entered year two as the head coach of Indiana with great anticipation.  His first Indiana team had come within an eyelash of capturing the Big Ten title,  and now nearly all the members of that squad were back.  All-American Ernie Andres and three-year veteran Bill Johnson were gone. However, the Hoosiers, known to many as the Merry Macs, would return their senior leader Marv Huffman, who through not a leading scorer,  would be the heart and soul of this team. Along with their leader from New Castle, the Hoosiers would return a quintet of juniors,  high-scoring Herm Schaefer, Curly Armstrong. Center Bill Menke, Jay McCreary, and Bern's Bob Dro.

This team’s greatest asset was its speed.  Although not tall, they could follow Branch 's constant instructions to run, run  run. McCracken 's basketball philosophy was that players enjoyed the running game, and to get the most out of your players you had to run, run, run.  As McCracken would say "All we care about is getting the ball in the enemy basket in the shortest possible time. Our emphasis is on rolling up those points. Our defense lies primarily in our offense. Go, go, go is our watch word. Think of the ball as a red-hot potato that must be kept moving, and the faster the better.” 

Indiana opened this special season at home on December 9 against the Little Giants of Wabash.  Indiana was up at halftime 12-9 led by Schaefer's 8 points, rolled Wabash, 37-24. Two days later in Bloomington,  the Merry Macs would defeat Xavier 58-24 again led by Schaefer's 14 points.  They would go on to defeat both Nebraska and Pittsburgh before going to Indianapolis to take on Tony Hinkle's Butler Bulldogs coming away with a 40-33 victory. 

The Hoosiers would hit the road for two more wins over Duquesne and Villanova.  The Merry Macs would push their win streak to nine with conference wins over Illinois and Iowa.  The fantastic ride came to an end on January 13th as the Minnesota Gophers handed the Hoosiers their first defeat by two 46-44. Indiana would rebound by crushing both Wisconsin and DePauw.

On February 10th, the Hoosiers hosted the Boilermakers of Purdue in what would prove to be a very important game beyond its traditional rivalry. The Merry Macs defeated Purdue 46-39 behind Bill Menke's 12 points. At this point, both teams had 4-1 conference records.  The Hoosiers would defeat Michigan, but lose to Northwestern dropping the Hoosiers to 5-2 one game behind Purdue.  Then on February 28th, the shooting went stone cold as they connected on only 12 of 77 shots for 16 percent in a loss to Ohio State. Indiana would next travel to West Lafayette for a rematch with league-leading Purdue.  A record crowd of 9,150 watched as Indiana pulled out a 6 point win 51-46.

The final game of the regular season would take place on March 4th in Bloomington against the Ohio State Buckeyes.  The Hoosiers annihilated the Buckeyes 52-31 finishing 2nd in the Big Ten.  

Indiana, however, had defeated Purdue twice so they were given the invitation to go to the NCAA Tournament.  McCracken would say "Well, we've been invited and we're going.  We don't have any money for the trip and I don't know how much we will be getting but we're going. " 

Indiana Athletic Director Clevenger made sure there was indeed money for the trip, and Mary Jo McCracken went along to handle the accounts so that Branch could concentrate on coaching the boys.

The trip to the finals would end in Kansas City. First, Indiana had to win the the Eastern Regional played in Indianapolis at the Butler Fieldhouse. Besides the Hoosiers, the other teams in the Eastern Regional were Duquesne, Western Kentucky, and Springfield.  IU would defeat both Springfield and Duquesne to advance to the finals in Kansas City. 

On the train ride to KC, McCracken would wait until the entire team could be seated in the dining area car at the same time. A funny thing happened in the dining car that day : The menus were all printed in French. The boys had never seen anything like it. McCracken solved the problem looking at Mary Jo, he said, "you take one table and I will take the other, and we will help with the menus. "  Mary Jo laughingly recalled asking mac "Fine, but since when did you read French. " 

On the afternoon of the championship game, some of the players wanted to go to the movies and see “Gone With The Wind”. McCracken would have none of it, he did not want his players to spend five hours in a movie theater before the big game. However, Branch had to go to a coaches meeting, so Mary Jo took the boys to the show. 

When the Hoosiers arrived at the auditorium where the game was to be played, Phog Allen and the Kansas team were being showered with gifts much to the chagrin of the Indiana players.  In fact, Curly Armstrong would turn to Schaefer and Dro saying "Now isn't that something?.. Let's go out there and whip them before all their fans. " 

The game itself started off slow with neither team able to score. Then Armstrong, Schaefer, and Dro started running and Indiana started to take off. During the action, Armstrong gave Bob Allen, the Kansas coach’s son, a fake that caused him to be out of position and take an accidental shot to the chin, knocking him to the ground.  Armstrong looked down, pointed to the bench and told Allen he should go over and "sit by daddy". The Hoosiers led by half 32-19 and won the game and the championship by a score of 60-42. After the game, the USC coach who had witness the game said "I knew Indiana was fast but not that fast". Marv Huffman was named the Most Outstanding Player. 

Huffman and Bill Menke were named All-Americans,  Curly Armstrong was selected all Big Ten.  Branch was named coach of the year.  

In closing the season, McCracken would meet history.  After the championship game, a middle-aged man approached McCracken "I want to shake your hand . My name is Naismith." 

"Are you any relation to the fellow who invented basketball?", McCracken asked. 

"He was my father " the stranger replied,  "and I wish he could have been here to see this game tonight.  This is the greatest basketball team I have ever seen."

What a perfect ending to a perfect season.