beat Oscar Robertson's team in the quarterfinals. Wikipedia says they won the championship game 32-30 by stalling for 4 minutes in the 4th quarter before their star Plump hit a jumper for the winning points.

The year prior, Milan had made it to the state final four before getting blown out by a South Bend team. For the 1954 team that won the state championship, they returned 4 starters from the team that a year earlier had made it to their final four.