YouTube Gold: The UCLA Dynasty
What John Wooden built at Westwood was phenomenal
The NCAA Tournament today is a 68-team event that obsesses the nation in March and April. Winning it all is very hard and repeats these days are rare, with only Duke, Florida and UConn doing it since 1972-73.
It wasn’t always this way.
In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, UCLA dominated college basketball in a way that has never been seen before or since.
The only thing like it was the NBA’s Boston Celtics.
John Wooden got the Bruins to the 1962 Final Four then won back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965. They missed in 1966, but no one minded. Why?
Because the freshman team was better than the varsity team and on that team was Lew Alcindor, now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
UCLA won in 1967, 1968 and 1969 and lost just twice in those three years.
After he left, UCLA kept winning. In 1969-70, the Bruins lost twice and won another national championship. In 1970-71 they lost to Notre Dame on January 23rd then didn’t lose again until January 19, 1974 - 88 games later.
NC State finally ended UCLA’s championship run in 1974 at seven, but Wooden won again the next year, then retired.
From Walt Hazzard to Gail Goodrich to Jabbar to Walton, UCLA did things that no had ever done before and no one will ever do again.