Published: April 04, 2008 11:19 pm      

Ritter played in Final 4

There once was an NCAA men’s basketball Final Four with a Goshen High School graduate in the spotlight.

That would be March 24, 1973 in St. Louis when John Ritter, still the GHS career scoring leader, was a senior captain for the Indiana Hoosiers under second-year head coach Bob Knight.

This marks the 35-year anniversary of that accomplishment.

Ritter led the Goshen Redskins to sectional and regional championships in 1969 when Hall of Fame coach Art Cosgrove was guiding the Crimson fortunes through a glorious era.

Ritter was recruited to IU by Coach Lou Watson who was fired in 1971 and replaced by a 31-year-old coach from Army named Bob Knight.

An amazing accomplishment during Ritter’s junior year at IU was outscoring the entire Notre Dame team at the new Assembly Hall.

He tallied 32 points as the Hoosiers romped 94-29 over a very young and inexperienced Notre Dame team which also had a new coach — Digger Phelps who had come to South Bend from Fordham.

Indiana shocked the college basketball world in 1973 by winning the Big 10 championship. Regular season losses were to South Carolina, El Paso, Ohio State, Purdue and Minnesota.

The Hoosiers defeated Marquette 75-69 and Kentucky 72-65 for a regional championship and that put them in the NCAA Final Four at St. Louis.

Steve Downing, 6-9 center from Indianapolis Washington, was the IU star that winter and the team had a pair of freshman guards in Quinn Buckner and Tom Crews to go with veterans Ritter and Steve Green at forwards.

The top two reserves were John “Super Sub” Laskowski and Tom Abernethy who had been teammates at South Bend St. Joseph’s High School.

As luck would have it, the Hoosiers were paired in an NCAA semifinal game with the mighty UCLA Bruins, coached by legendary John Wooden and led by 6-11 All-American center Bill Walton.

Wooden had visited Goshen in 1969, trying to lure Ritter to the Bruins of Westwood, but the Redskin star decided to stay closer to home.

Wooden had coached at South Bend Central High School and Indiana State University in Terre Haute before taking the UCLA job in 1948.

There was a “Good Luck, John Ritter” message on the sign outside the Goshen High School gymnasium that week.

“I received a telegram from Goshen,” Ritter said that week. “There were so many names on it, they had to use two envelopes.”

There were 19,000 fans at St. Louis Arena. The Hoosiers were big underdogs and Ritter had the assignment of guarding Bruins’ forward Larry Farmer.

“This is a combination of everything I have done in my playing days,” Ritter said before the game. “For us to be here is equivalent of being in the state high school finals.

“Coach Knight said at the start of the season that this is where we want to be while other teams are in mothballs. When I went to Bloomington, I wanted to help put IU basketball back on top.”

Indiana took an early lead on the Bruins, but then went on a long scoreless drought. UCLA led by as much as 22 points and it was 40-22 at halftime.

The Hoosiers rallied spectaculary and, when Ritter hit back-to-back buckets in the second half, the Bruins’ lead was down to two points with 5:51 to play. But, UCLA regrouped and was able to hold off the Indiana upset bid.

The Hoosiers were hampered with Downing being in foul trouble and exiting with about eight minutes to play, finishing with 26 points. Walton had 14 points and 17 rebounds.

UCLA would go on to defeat Memphis, 87-66, in the championship game as the amazing Walton was 21-for-22 from the field and scored 44 points to go with 13 rebounds.

Back then, there was a third-place game and Indiana defeated Providence 97-79. The Providence star was a dynamic little guard named Ernie DiGregorio.

Ritter scored 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds in his final college game, the Hoosiers finishing with a 22-6 record.

“It’s kind of a feeling of relief,” Ritter told the media when it was over. “There was a lot of pressure I won’t have to worry about any more, but in a few weeks I will probably miss it.”

Rltter now lives in Indianapolis and Knight recently retired as the winningest coach in college basketball history. He was 661-240 in 29 seasons at Bloomington.

Ritter for awhile was the top-free throw shooter in IU history, making 257 of 298 attempts for 86.2 per cent. Steve Alford topped that with 535-of-596 for 89.8 per cent from 1984-87.

Ritter was named an Academic All-American in 1973 and was Academic All-Big 10 three times.

Coach Knight had kind words for the former Goshen star when he was done playing for the Hoosiers.

“John Ritter has meant an awful lot to Indiana basketball,” said Knight. “His play in various games has been outstanding.

“From start to finish, he has meant as much in leadership as a senior possibly could.”

Ritter was honored back at the GHS gym a week after the NCAA Final Four. He scored 39 points in an Alumni game before a capacity crowd on March 31, 1973.