John Wooden was all business, when he spoke his teams listened. They listened, learned and earned him a record 10 NCAA championships.

Walt Hazzard was a driving force in leading the UCLA Bruins to their first NCAA title with John Wooden winning his 1st as coach in 1964. Hazzard was the MOP Award for the tournament

Glory Road is a film that depicts what it took for Texas Western to win the 1966 NCAA title

SPORTS NOTES - MARCH MADNESS - UCLA THE BEST EVER

James Loving/National Radio Text Service

Since the NCAA basketball Tournament was created in 1939 UCLA has won the most tournaments ever with 11 including seven in a row under the leadership of Coach John Wooden. The most amazing tournament win was when Texas Western won against powerhouse Kentucky. The Texas Western team was the first to start and ALL BLACK team in tournament history during a time of extreme racism in America

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

THE JOHN WOODEN verses KRZYZEWSKI & RUPP COMPARISONS

It's that time again in America when the NCAA basketball tournament is on. To Americans it is the World Cup of collegiate basketball also recognized as March Madness.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's Division I Basketball Tournament is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams, to determine the national championship of the major college basketball teams.

The tournament, organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), was created during 1939 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was the idea of Ohio State University coach Harold Olsen. Played mostly during March, it is known informally as March Madness or the Big Dance, and has become one of the most famous annual sporting events in the United States.

With 11 national titles, UCLA has the record for the most NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships; John Wooden coached UCLA to 10 of its 11 titles. The University of Kentucky is 2nd, with 8 national titles, while the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and Indiana University are tied for 3rd with 5 national titles.

The tournament has produced some of the most memorable moments in all of sports. The most dominate is the accomplishment of former UCLA coach Wooden whose teams won 10 NCAA titles including seven in a row.

As the saying goes records are made to be broken but this is one record that seems impossible to break, particularly winning seven consecutive titles.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has led his teams to five titles including being the 2015 champions. This season his team has reached the final 16 but is not touted to win the tournament based on their 4th seed in the Western bracket.

Wooden's 10 National Championships occurred in (1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973 & 1975). Krzyzewski's title winning teams won in (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010 & 2015).

Krzyzewski would have to win six more titles in a row to tie Wooden's seven consecutive titles and eclipse Wooden's record 10 titles. The Duke coach is currently 69 years old and would be 75 to accomplish this feat.

Wooden retired at the age of 65 making his achievement more remarkable. To top it of his final game was winning his 10th NCAA title in 1975 with a 92-85 victory over another title winning powerhouse the University of Kentucky.

Wooden announced his retirement during the post-game press conference of the semi-final win against Louisville. UCLA's Richard Washington and Dave Meyers scored 28 and 24 points respectively to offset Kentucky's Kevin Grevey's game-high 34.

Four of Wooden's title winning team's finished the season UNDFEATED in 1964 (26-0), 67 (26-0), 72 (26-0) & 73 (26-0) which is another NCAA record.

Another UCLA tournament record is they entered the tournament ranked #1 in at least one of the AP, UPI, or USA Today polls and won the tournament. # 1964: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1967: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1969: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1971: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1972: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1973: UCLA (AP/UPI) # 1975: UCLA (AP) 1995: UCLA (AP/USA Today). Jim Harrick coached the 1995 team and is the only UCLA coach to win the tournament other than Wooden.

This season marks the 50th anniversary of the famous Texas Western title winning team over the highly touted University of Kentucky in 1966. Kentucky's coach Adolph Rupp was considered by many to be a racist. What makes such a remarkable feat is Texas Western now known as UTEP (University of Texas Elpaso) fielded and ALL BLACK team against an ALL WHITE team during a period of heighten racism in America.

In those days there were very few black players on college teams in the south. There is a film that tells this story titled Glory Road. It shows how a newly hired white coach from the high school level, Don Haskins, had a hard time recruiting top rated players to play at his school that had a losing reputation.

Haskins was the coach of a girls basketball team prior to taking the job at the university. He inherited a losing program and couldn't recruit top white players because of the losing reputation. With very little money (closer to NO MONEY) he went on the road and recruited quality black players that were ignored by the major universities. He searched the inner-city cities of Detroit, Michigan; Gary, Indiana; New York City and Houston Texas.

The players on the team were David Lattin, Bobby Joe Hill, Willie Cager, Willie Worsley, Jerry Armstrong, Orsten Artis, Nevil Shed, Harry Flournoy, Togo Railey, Louis Baudoin, Dick Myers and David Palacio. The black players were not recruited or desired by major college programs.

After arriving at Texas Western the black players were ridiculed at their own schoolmates simply because they were black. The white players on the team initially resented them.

Following a rough start Haskins decided to replace the white starting players with the black recruits. There were seven black players on the team. The chemistry paid off as the team went on to win the title game against Kentucky 72-65 with Bobby Joe Hill leading the way with 20 points. They held the lead for the final 29 minutes of a 40 minute game. They also were the first national champions to have all their scoring come from black players in the title game.

That development (in the middle of the civil rights movement) was seen as a door-opener for black players in big college programs.

The team finished the season with a record of 28 wins and 1 loss. They were the only team to defeat Adolph Rupp in a title game leaving his record at 4-1 in championship games. Rupp is the third winningest NCAA title winning coach in history.

Now here's the shocker of trivia. While I was interviewing then Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley and currently Miami Heat President, in his office at the LA Forum he related to me that he was the starting center on that Kentucky team.

What is most shocking is that I'm 6'1" and while I was standing next to him Riley didn't seem much taller than me. The NBA record book lists him as 6'4". When I was playing I was listed as 6'3" and weighing 185 pounds and not the 175 pounds that I really was.

The bottom line is Riley was a member of one of the most shocking results in NCAA tournament chronicles as a member of a Kentucky team that was involved in one of the most amazing results in the tournaments history.

The other trivia point is that Western Kentucky win was the only win by a team other than UCLA between 1964 to 1973. If UCLA had won that tournament Wooden's teams would have had 10 consecutive tournament wins and not seven. The question now is who will be the victor at the end of this GLORY ROAD to the NCAA title?

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