Branch McCracken
Branch McCracken (1908-1970)
Teams coached: Ball State Cardinals, Indiana Hoosiers
Ball State record^: 86-57 (.601)
Indiana record: 364-174 (.677)
Overall record^: 450-231 (.661)
Career Accomplishments:
- NCAA National Championships: 2 (1940, 1953)
- NCAA Tournament Appearances: 4 (1940, 1953, 1954, 1958)
- NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen: 3 (1953, 1954, 1958)
- NCAA Tournament Final Four: 2 (1940, 1953)
- NIT Championships: 0
- NIT Appearances: 0
- Big Ten Regular Season Champion: 4 (1953, 1954, 1957, 1958)
- Premo-Porretta National Championships: 1 (1940)
- Helms Foundation National Championships: 1 (1953)
Awards:
- Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (inducted 1960)
- National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (inducted 2006)
Coaching Career (head coach, unless noted):
1946-1965 | Indiana |
1938-1943 | Indiana |
1930-1938 | Ball State |
Branch McCracken Facts
- Emmett B. McCracken
- Born June 9, 1908
- Died June 4, 1970
- Hometown: Monrovia, Indiana
- Alma Mater: Indiana University (BA, 1930)
- Played for the hometown Indiana Hoosiers, earning the nickname “Big Bear” due to his size and scowl; played for HOF coach Everett Dean
- Led the Hoosiers in scoring all three years he played and set a Big Ten scoring record as a senior, earning consensus All-America honors
- Briefly played pro ball on some Midwestern barnstorming teams, including the Indianapolis Kautskys (alongside John Wooden) and the Oshkosh All-Stars (alongside Bud Foster)
- Became the Ball State Cardinals’ head coach in 1930 when the program was Independent; went 86-57 in eight seasons
- Returned to his alma mater IU in 1938 to succeed Dean as the Hoosiers’ head coach; his first year was also the first year for the NCAA Tournament
- Won two NCAA National Championships at IU, first in 1940 and then again in 1953, and his teams won four Big Ten regular season titles
- Part of McCracken’s legacy was helping breakdown the color barriers in college basketball; he recruited and coached Bill Garrett, who became the first African-American player in Big Ten history in 1948
- McCracken took a break from coaching for three years during World War II and served as a lieutenant in the US Navy
- In 1960, violations from the Indiana football program caused all IU athletic programs to be barred from postseason play – this made McCracken’s recruiting job much more difficult and the on-court results would eventually reflect that
- McCracken retired from coaching in 1965; the court at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington is named Branch McCracken Court in his honor when the stadium opened in 1971
Branch McCracken Coaching Tree
- Curly Armstrong (Fort Wayne Pistons)
- Bobby “Slick” Leonard (Indiana Pacers, Baltimore Bullets)
- Jay McCreary (LSU, DePauw)
- Frank Radovich (Georgia Southern)
- Herm Schaefer (Indianapolis Olympians)
- Lou Watson (Indiana)
^ overall record includes games coached at both the NCAA Division I and NCAA Independent levels; Ball State was not a Division I program until 1970