700 and counting!

The General’s Assembly reached a new milestone today — the 700th item was added to the vault! We’ll keep marching on…and in the spirit of this milestone, we’ll take a look at Coach Knight’s 700th career coaching victory.

March 5, 1997 — after opening the season with a hot start and racing out to a 14-1 record, Indiana’s record stood at 4-6 after 10 games into Big Ten conference play. Coming into this contest against the Wisconsin Badgers, the Hoosiers had won 4 of their previous 6 games to bring their conference record to an even 8-8, building their resume for an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament. Wisconsin was also in contention for a tourney berth and was slightly ahead in the conference standings, so this game was pivotal for both. On Senior Day, Indiana would go on to win the game 70-66 behind Andrae Patterson’s 18 points, giving Bob Knight a 700-256 career record and becoming the 8th coach to achieve 700 victories.

Little did we know that Indiana’s perennial dominance of Wisconsin would come to an end the following season. In their lone matchup of the 1997-98 campaign, Indiana would triumph in the newly opened Kohl Center…and the last time the Hoosiers have won in that venue.

The program from this game features Joliet Junior College transfer and Bosnian born Haris Mujezinovic, who would later go on to play professionally in Europe.