YouTube Gold: The 1968 U.S. Olympic Basketball Team

An unexpected but wonderful gold medal team

By 1968, U.S. Olympic basketball dominance had been taken for granted for a long time, but the power of USA Basketball had tailed off a bit. This was exacerbated by a boycott by Black athletes. For basketball, this meant that Lew Alcindor, soon to be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elvin Hayes and Wesley Unseld, among others, declined to participate.

Still, the cuts before the team was finalized were startling: Pete Maravich was dropped, which was probably not surprising, given that coach Henry Iba was in no way a fan of that style of basketball. So was Calvin Murphy, who would go on to a long and tremendous NBA career. He was 5-9 though and that probably worked against him.

One unknown star emerged: 19-year-old Spencer Haywood, who was at a junior college. UNC’s Charles Scott was also invited as was Kansas Jayhawk All-American JoJo White, who would go on to a stellar career with the Boston Celtics.

Although Dan Issel of Kentucky and Rick Mount of Purdue were alternates, most of the players on the team were guys you have never heard of.

Consequently, for the first time, the U.S. was not favored. The USSR and Yugoslavia were pegged for gold and silver and the US maybe bronze.

It didn't quite work out that way of course.

The Yugoslavs upset the USSR and then faced the Americans in the finals. Team USA won by 15, 65-50, and extended its dominance of Olympic basketball.

The U.S. won every Olympic basketball tournament from 1936 to 1968. That streak would come to a traumatic end in 1972.