Our One (and only) Final Four Season

For Rutgers basketball fans, the 2024-2025 season was a calamitous disappointment, to say the least. After all, we had two of the most talented freshmen players in the country in Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey. In fact, many believed that it would be our best shot to make the Final Four (again), a feat that had eluded RU fans for half a century and for which fond memories brought me all the way back to my freshman year.

When I began my college journey in 1975 in New Brunswick, NJ at the 8th oldest campus in the U.S. (founded as Queen’s College in 1766 and renamed after Revolutionary War hero Colonel Henry Rutgers), Rutgers had recently transitioned from an all-male school, graduating it’s first co-ed class just a year earlier. Prior to arriving, the school was well-known not just as the birthplace of college football (beating Princeton 6-4 in the first intercollegiate game in 1869), but also for its quirky connection to Mr. Magoo (voiced by alum Jim Backus) and for having the nation’s number #1 hit in the summer of ’72, Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) by a group of Rutgers students known as Looking Glass.

After losing to Louisville in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 1975 (Rutgers 1st NCAA basketball tournament), the 1975-76 campaign included a group of talented starters, led by Phil Sellers, and included Eddie Jordan , Hollis Copeland , Mike Dabney and James Bailey all of whom would play in the NBA. Years later, I ran into Eddie in Chicago when he was an assistant coach for Sacramento (prior to becoming head coach for the Kings, Wizards and then…Rutgers) and shared memories of the Rutgers arena at the time, known affectionately as the Barn!

During my freshman year, excitement buzzed across campus as the Scarlet Knights basketball team went undefeated during the season en route to the NCAA Final Four. I attended many unforgettable games, including a pivotal matchup at Jadwin Gymnasium, where the Scarlet Knights ousted Princeton, 75-62. Ten years earlier, Bill Bradley led Princeton basketball to its first-ever Final Four appearance and ironically, as a Junior, I volunteered for his Senatorial campaign after he retired from the Knicks.

Beyond the basketball court, campus life in the mid-’70s was vibrant and engaging. Needless to say, my first year at Rutgers was a blend of tradition, transformation, and a growing sense of purpose.

Michael Miller, MD is Chief of Medicine, Corporal Michael J Crescenz VAMC and Professor of Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania His latest book “Heal Your Heart” is published by Penguin Random House