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