Knight Time Rewind: December 11, 1960

ON THIS DAY: After hurting his knee in a game versus Miami just seven days prior to suiting up against Kentucky (Adolph Rupp’s last game coached against IU), along with not participating in practice nearly the entire week, Steve Downing would go on to play the entire 50 minutes of the double-overtime contest, scoring 47 points and grabbing 25 rebounds — despite being significantly undersized compared to Kentucky’s front line. In what Coach Knight characterized as the greatest individual performance of any Indiana game he had ever coached, he couldn’t imagine that Downing could play the entire game that day and recalled that Downing had to walk from one end of the floor to the other towards the end of the game when Indiana was on offense. In just the fourth game of the season, in Knight’s inaugural season as the head coach of Indiana, this victory early in the season over a top 10 team quickly brought national attention and the spotlight back to the basketball program.

I was fortunate to get this stub signed by Steve Downing after IU’s 2022-23 exhibition game against the Marian Knights.