Old National Presents: The Day The Chair Flew

If you are feeling old today, this won't help.

Thirty-two years ago today (Feb. 23, 1985) was one of the most memorable afternoons in the history of Purdue basketball.

The Boilermakers, under fifth-year coach Gene Keady, were in Bloomington, trying hard to earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the third-straight year. Indiana, under Coach Bob Knight, were watching its season meltdown.

Early in the season, Keady's defending Big Ten co-championship team was inconsistent, starting league play with a 1-3 record. But it had won seven of its 10 league games, heading into a showdown at IU on an unseasonably warm late February day. Indiana, a team full of big-time expectations after making the Elite Eight the year before and on the heels of Knight serving as a Gold Medal Olympic coach the preceding summer, started conference play 3-1. All was well early, especially when one of those three triumphs was rousing 25-point blowout win at eventual league champ Michigan to open league play.

Then something happened to the Hoosiers. Knight, who was going through some marital strife, eventually resulting in a divorce from his first wife Nancy that year, seemed extra irascible on the sidelines, if not everywhere. And his team didn't respond well to it. While it difficult to pinpoint when it all went south for the Hoosiers that season, one of the defining moments was a loss at Mackey Arena on Jan. 24. The Hoosiers had suffered a couple of losses since that dominating performance at Crisler Arena, but when the Cream and Crimson was blitzed by the Boilermakers in the game's final two minutes, resulting in a 62-52 loss, the Hoosiers' season started their unraveling.

A month later for the rematch, IU was in the middle of a two-game losing streak at home, and in serious jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years. Purdue, thanks to the NCAA's expansion to a 64-team tournament, may not have been on the bubble, but was in need of a couple of quality wins to make sure its tournament fate was secure.

Despite the Hoosiers' troubles, a win would be huge for Purdue and would mark the first time it had enjoyed back-to-back wins in Assembly Hall. A year earlier, during Keady's first of six Big Ten title seasons, the Boilermakers used a 22-0 run midway through the game to post a 74-66 win.

One could tell from the outset that something wasn't quite right with Knight. After all, he wore a golf shirt on the bench, the first time he had worn anything but his famous, or infamous depending on your perspective, plaid jacket on the sidelines for an Indiana game. Ironically, Knight never wore a sportcoat again in the college game, opting for the golf/shirt sweater look for the remainder of his college coaching career that finished 23 years later in 2008.

The game started poorly for Indiana. Purdue jumped to an 11-6 lead, and Knight was already fuming while pacing up and down the Hoosiers' bench. But it all came to a head when sophomore Marty Simmons was called for a foul in a mad scramble for a loose ball and then sophomore standout Darryl Thomas was immediately whistled for another touch foul on the subsequent inbounds pass to Purdue's senior forward James Bullock.

Knight had seen enough. Referee Fred Jaspers T'd him up when an enraged Knight went off against the official. After the first technical, and with Purdue senior guard Steve Reid lining up to shoot the two free throws, Knight picked up his chair and tossed it across the court about 10 feet in front of Reid.

For some unknown reason, that Reid was never able to explain, Reid went over to pick up the chair that was at the end was a rest at the opposite end of the baseline. Meanwhile, Knight was tagged with two more technical fouls and was escorted from the court by official London Bradley.

Moments later, Reid, standing alone at the free throw line in front of a frenzied Assembly Hall crowd, had six free throws to navigate through. Having hit 20-of-21 free throw attempts in conference play, despite an uncharacteristically bad non-conference slump from the line, Reid calmly hit his first two. But then something happened, as Reid missed three in a row.

"I had never been through anything quite like that," said Reid, who stood just 5-foot-10, but was a tough-minded talented guard, years later. "For one of the few times in my basketball life, I was unnerved, if not a bit scared."

Reid gathered himself to hit the sixth attempt, and it gave Purdue a 14-6 lead. Yet now, the Hoosier crowd had become fully unhinged. And the Hoosiers responded with effort and actually pulled ahead of the Boilermakers at a couple of points in the game. But Purdue, thanks in part to the career-best game by freshman Todd Mitchell (21 points, 12 rebounds), gathered itself in time to post a 72-63 win. Senior forward Mark Atkinson, did his usual great job on Hoosier star guard Steve Alford, holding him to just 3-of-12 shooting as the Boilermakers swept IU for the first time in eight seasons, and also gave IU its fifth loss of the season in Assembly Hall, a first in the 14-year history of the facility.

The crowd was, in fact, ugly throughout the game. Keady's wife Pat was hit in the eye with a coin, as the Hoosier hostility never fully subsided.

"It was ugly," Reid recalled.

Keady, in the press conference, did his best to remind the media about what his team had just accomplished. It was the height of the Keady/Knight Cold War where Keady and his Purdue basketball program, had to fight for any bit of attention it received in the state of Indiana.

In that light, not a whole lot has changed in 32 years.

"The story should be how this team (Purdue) battled through all of that and got the win," said Keady, who knew better about what the story was going to be, after the game. "I have never been prouder of a group of kids."

Keady's team went on to finish 20-9 and earn a trip to the NCAA Tournament, losing in the first round to Auburn, and its standout forward Chuck Person. Indiana missed the NCAA, and finished the year 19-14, losing to UCLA in the final game of the NIT.

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