These were realized as the Indians won their first regional game in school history under questionable circumstances against Morton Memorial, an orphanage school outside of Knightstown. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. He was a bit overshadowed by high school classmate Ron Bonham, but went on to become a star at the University of Colorado. added 10 to lead the Bears (25-5) and first-year coach Elmer McCall He was a sophomore starter on the University of Cincinnati team that won the NCAA tournament championship in 1962 and was a consensus first-team All-American in 1963 when Cincinnati lost an overtime game to Loyola of Chicago in the championship game. Gary Froebel suffered a 50-49 defeat at the hands of Lafayette Rolf scored 1,239 career points during his three-year varsity career, leading Muncie Central in scoring and rebounding as a junior and senior. semifinal. capture the crown. Attucks star Oscar Robertson, who established the mark the previous NJCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships is held annually in March at the Hutchinson Sports Arena in Hutchinson, KS. We were the bigger school, but they had been in the final four the year before and we had not, Agullana said, noting the Indians deployed a critical tactic to limit his Bearcats. (28-2). The 1963 team brought the school's fifth state championship, defeating South Bend Central in the final game. What I really wanted to do was throw it out of Hinkle Fieldhouse.". Coach Ray Eddy must have impressed some people during his tenure . "He got kind of nervous and then he said, What do you want? I said, I want to foul you on your last shot. IC would be the first Mercer County school to reach the state tournament in 1933. He followed Bonham to Cincinnati, where he broke Robertson's freshman scoring record and had three games of more than 50 points. With the score tied 30-30, Milan guard Bobby Plump hit a They shoved it to the back of their minds, because it couldnt have happened, Mannies said. He went on to play eight seasons in the NBA from 1967-75 with the Hawks, Houston Rockets and Detroit Pistons. Itwas that close.. INDIANAPOLIS | Fort Wayne South spoiled Crawfordsville's return Thirty-three years later, the film Hoosiers, a fictionalized account based on Milan's 195254 seasons, opened to positive reviews, renewing interest in the team and its legacy. Jim Barnes, the member of the '54 team that was guarding Bobby Plump, was Thompson's brother in law. Muncie got the rebound but turned the ball overand Milans Ray Craft made a basket to even the scoreat 28-28 with 2:12 remaining. And it was sincere.. People still talk about it yet andhow many years has it been?. Hammond couldn't prevail against Elkhart, falling 63-53 in the One Hall of Fame Court New Castle, Indiana 47362. info@hoopshall.com 765-529-1891. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". victory. In his email, Shanahan also noted that if a 3-point line had existed, Muncie Central would have won 37-33, thanks to Jim Hind's three 3-pointers. first-year coach Lawrence "Jay" McCreary. Basketball fans will always remember Milan and Hickory, but Muncie Central will always be the team that lost to Milan. Please subscribe to keep reading. He originally enrolled at Purdue, but changed course and went to Cincinnati. Despite all the graduation losses, Central's 1961 team handed eventual state champion Kokomo its only loss of the season, at Kokomo, and won sectional and regional titles before losing to eventual runner-up Manual by three points in the semistate. Roosevelt edged Fort Wayne North 68-66 to advance to its The 1959-60 Bearcats glided through the season without a loss, winning by an average of 32 points. Game audio was a radio broadcast laid over the game film.". I was under the basket when the ball came through. It just didnt work out. There are some that have eight or nine, but most have 10. He was the named the winner of the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame award as the top college player under 6-feet tall. See the Muncie Central Bearcats Boys Basketball news, schedule, rosters, rankings, standings and more at sblivesports.com and scorebooklive.com Everything we send is officiating specific because that's all we do. Post a Video. Central previously shared the record after compiling 106 points in Milan then had the ball with less than a minuteremaining and Plump held the ball again, letting theclock wind down. Crawfordsville 70-59 in the championship game of the Lafayette Moore also won the Trester Award. state champion Crispus Attucks 67-55 at Butler Fieldhouse to become with Madison. "The Milan vs. Muncie Central 1954 State Championship is undoubtedly the most famous high school basketball gameever played," IHSAA director of broadcasting/executive producer Heath Shanahan told the Star Press in an email. Raw footage of Milan High School defeating Muncie Central High School in the 1954 high school basketball state championship, the game the movie "Hoosiers" was based on. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. "As a kid, you couldn't wait to become a Bearcat, wear those purple and white pinstripe pants.". Many people throughout Muncie thought the '63 championship might be the city's last. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. "People thought I was nuts," he said. In the years since, the former players have forged a unique bond. 1954 IHSAA Boys Basketball State Champions, Semi-State at Butler Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, State Finals at Butler Fieldhouse, Indianapolis. He was impressed by the unusual scope of size and talent available in such a small school among the many boys trying out for the team, talent forged by a strong junior-high program. "We didn't get a lot of ink; they didn't want us to get overconfident," Jones said. And while Central was a big school with roughly 1,500 students, it wasn't even the biggest in its conference. team in its 85-71 semifinal victory over Terre Haute Gerstmeyer Including the team that lost to Milan in 1954, Muncie has had seven runner-up teams in the state tournament, including Delta in the final year of the single-class tournament in 1997. Seven of the Tigers' 12 players from the previous year had to be in with 11. impressive than the first because they did it with the guidance of in their showdown against Kokomo. And it makes me wonder how we beat you in the first place.. Footage of the final seconds of the 1954 basketball state championship. With an enrollment of only 161, Milan was the smallest school ever to win a single-class state basketball title in Indiana, beating the team from the much larger Muncie Central High School in a classic competition known as the Milan Miracle. and finished the 1955-56 season with a record of 31-0. anyone formally objected to a specific player receiving the Trester John Coalman's combined 106 points in his team's Wood's coaching style was the opposite of Grinstead's in many ways. After winning the state title, he became the Ball State won at least 21 games all of those seasons, including an NCAA tournament regional semifinal appearance in 1990. Muncie Centrals fans werent just disappointed. What young boy wouldn't want to be part of such madness? 1954 Milan High School Basketball Team Coach Marvin Wood had been hired two years earlier, at the age of 24, after a collegiate playing career at Butler University and a coaching stint in French Lick. Allen Leavell The 6-1 Leavell averaged 17.9 points per game as a senior in 1974-75 but was not highly-recruited out of high school. All rights reserved. Gene Flowers, who would go on to play basketball at IU and later coach in high school, told the nwitimes.com his thoughts after seeing that their opponent would be Milan in the final game: We said, Now well (the school) have four (state championship) rings. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Forward Stanford Patton added 19 points for Crispus OVERALL 15-8 0.65 Win % CONFERENCE 5-3 3rdNorth Central. Echelbarger, a member of Central's 1963 state championship team, is one of 13 Central High graduates to be inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Delta, on the outskirts of the city, won the 3A title in 2002. B. Crispus Attucks finished with 45 victories in a two-year span 40,000 people descended on Milan (population: 1,150) the next day as the team returned home from Indianapolis, lining State Road 101 for 13 miles (21km) to congratulate the Indians. Lafayette Jefferson edged Elkhart 54-52 in the other semifinal. Sometimes portions of a community turn against a team or player that disappoints them. school. Beckner and his Bearcats (26-4) ended a 20-year drought for their The team's bus stopped on the outskirts of Muncie on the way home from Indianapolis and the players and coaches piled onto a fire truck. Many of these small schools had realistic expectations of advancing several rounds into the tournament in that era, but they would almost inevitably fall in the regionals to urban schools from places such as South Bend, Evansville, Gary, Terre Haute, Muncie, Bloomington, Lafayette, Fort Wayne, Anderson and Indianapolis. game at Butler Fieldhouse. All opinions expressed by Mark Montieth are solely his own and do not reflect the opinions of the Indiana Pacers, their partners, or sponsors. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. The Bearcats, resplendent in purple and white, were the biggest show in town. Good luck with that, because they usually were passed on in wills. Muncie attempted 42shots and made 11. While Muncie was favored in the title game, it was not a surprise to a lotof people that Milan, despite its size, made it to the finals as well. Anticipating a run deep into the later rounds of the Indiana High School Athletic Association boys basketball tournament, Milan expected to easily take the sectional before facing a tough test in the regional and a possible rematch against Aurora. Agullana also remembers this about the storied title game that followed: grabbing the final inbound pass, peeking at the clock and angrily heaving a three-quarters court shot as far as he could, knowing he could never change script of the The Milan Miracle. consecutive year, leading the way. claim their seventh consecutive sectional title. Gary Roosevelt suffered a 50-48 defeat against Lafayette INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The 1954 Indiana high school basketball tournament remains so vivid in Leon Agullana's memory it's as if he never left Muncie Central. Robertson, who was named to the all-state team for the second The 1954 Milan Museum also contains a Central section, and even the reunions have taken on "Hoosiers" themes. Muncie Central Basketball Schedule. fellow forward Jerry Trice had 13, guard Larry McIntyre and center One of them is that Bearcats fans can't stand going to a gym and looking at South Side's championship banner when they would have eight of their own in the gym in which they should be playing. This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:36. their old coach and his new team 50-39 in the Muncie Regional. He went on to star at Ball State, where he scored 1,219 career points and had. They were unknown to us but not to everybody, said Joe Beck, a 1956 Central graduate who was at Hinkle that fateful day thanks to winning a ticket lottery. level, Crispus Attucks edged Madison 82-80 in overtime and Muncie Bobby Plump's game-winning jumper became a legendary moment in tournament history and inspired a class sports movie, "Hoosiers." That held true for decades, as Central won state championships in the Twenties, Thirties, Fifties, Sixties, Seventies and Eighties eight in all, matched only by Marion among state schools. He went on to star at Ball State, where he scored 1,219 career points and had 534 career rebounds, ranking in the top-20 in school history on both categories. What other high school team from Indiana can claim a roster that included three future NBA players, another future major college star whose career was ended prematurely by injury, and a future NFL player? And so the Bearcat faithful were under this pall, a hangover from the game and the retellings that so often came up. Rolf averaged 13.3 points and 5.8 rebounds as a senior in 1966-67. We knew a big school got beat by a small school, but we didnt thinkanything of it. Moore scored 61 points in the Bearcats two final four wins. The Bearcats are playing their home games at Southside, which, by the way, won the city's ninth state championship in 2001 with an overtime win over Evansville Mater Dei in the 3A class. He taught them more patience than the run-and-gun Grinstead, culminating in a four-corner ball control offense he called the "cat-and-mouse".[3]. Indianapolis to win a state championship when it crushed Gary 42 was retired by the school. The game was aslow-down cat and mouse affair,with Milan spreading their offenseand stalling for long periods oftime, especially in the second half. Morry Mannies was only in high school when the game happened, but two years later he came to Muncie for college and started broadcasting Ball State and Bearcats games for WLBC. Coach Art Final: Milan 32, Muncie Central 30. Milan High School, enrollment 161, defeated the favored Bearcats ofMuncie Central, 32-30, to win the 1954 Indiana state basketball championship. entire season -- South Bend Central's 81-72 season-opening win He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. East Chicago Washington fell 56-52 to Lafayette Jefferson in a View the 22-23 Muncie Central varsity basketball team schedule. Fieldhouse. One of those second-place teams is widely regarded as the all-time greatest among the non-champions, and an argument can be made it belongs in the conversation with the greatest of the champions as well. Attitude. Who wouldn't love a 161-student school having a team good enough to beat em all back when Indianas glorious single-class tournament erased all doubt about who really was the best? Center Jim Davis starred collegiately at Colorado and then played eight NBA seasons for St. Louis, Atlanta, Houston and Detroit. Birge and Todd called only fivepersonal fouls on Milan and 11against Muncie during the game. Ray McCallum The 5-9 McCallum was a part of back-to-back Muncie Central state championship teams as a junior in 1977-78 and senior in 1978-79. Vinnie Drake, Ansonia. Volunteer Help the coach manage this team. "He said, That tells me God was responsible for the tornado and that basketball is still king in Muncie. 3rd T20I. four players named to the all-state team. No school its size had ever won the state titlebefore that March 20 game and no school that small ever would again. In later years members of both teams met at various functions and have become fast friends. He later played on two NBA championship teams with the Boston Celtics and was a member of the original Pacers team in 1967-68. INDIANAPOLIS | Crispus Attucks became the first school from The Milan Miracle team in the 1953-54 season inspired the 1986 . lead the Archers in the title game. 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