UCLA vs ND January 19th, 1974
- Thread starter tkirish
- Start date
That’s almost accurate
To say that the other team “relaxed” and that than enabled the eventual winner to win the game, in the closing minutes is not accurate
While there are occasions when a team does relax, in many to most cases the team that performed exceptionally well in the closing minutes won because of their efforts and performance rather than their opponent, relaxing.
there are times when the offense wins in the closing minutes, and there are times when the defense wins in the closing minutes, and it’s not due to the opponent, relaxing
Jimmy Johnson, not necessarily my favorite, explained why he poured it on when he was already winning by a good margin. He indicated that he learned that lesson the hard way, by losing a game by relaxing when he was ahead by a good margin. Sometimes coaches make that mistake.
So following your argument, if a football team misses a last-second chip shot FG, it loses the game, but UCLA, with the final possession and the ball in the hands of its best player, missed the chip shot basket, plus two chances to put it back in, but they didn't lose.
Maybe we aren't the ones who are so stupid as to insist on pursuing a pointless argument.
For love of God. So it wasn't a layup. It was the kind of short turnaround jumper that Walton made often during his career. In any case, that's not the point. The point is that arguing that Notre Dame won, but UCLA didn't lose is just stupid. What Burma seems to be saying is if ND had made up an 11-point deficit with 7 or 8 minutes remaining and it turned into the teams trading baskets down the stretch, then UCLA would have lost because they missed the last shot. But somehow, because ND went on its run during the final 3+ minutes, it means that UCLA just lost focus, sort of like the hare who overslept and couldn't catch the tortoise down the stretch, but they didn't lose.
I'm moving over to the theology board where a debate on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is going to begin at 2 pm eastern time.
HDK, I was sitting in the stands and from my perspective Notre Dame "won" the game. They played with energy and tenaciousness for the last 3 minutes of the game, and clawed their way back to a hard fought victory. I never felt that UCLA pulled a "choke" job. UCLA tried to take the air out of the ball and didn't really attack the basket hard, but with a big lead and only a few minutes left in the game, that is a strategy that probably 99% of basketball coaches would have employed. So from where I sat, UCLA didn't "lose" the game, except in the sense that they came up on the short end of the score. It was a great game and a great moment in ND sports history, and I don't know that it makes any sense to try and parse whether ND "won" the game or UCLA "lost" it.
For those who are curious, here is a video of those last 3 minutes;
Watch the video and form your own judgment.
Totally agree about trying to parse whether the game was won or lost. I remember Shumate scoring and then stealing the in bounds pass and scoring again. An 11-point deficit with 3:22 left was suddenly only 7 with about 3 to play. That got the crowd back into the game, which obviously helped immensely.
The crowd was great during the UCLA game. The only other athletic event I can compare it to during my time as a student at ND was the football team's victory over USC at ND Stadium on 10/27/1973, on our way to the national championship that year. I remember the entire campus being abuzz with anticipation during the entire week of the USC game, and the Stadium itself was absolutely electric for the game, especially after Eric Pennick's 85-yd TD run to basically seal the victory. The ND/USC rivalry was pretty special back in those days, with Ara Parseghian coaching the Irish and John McKay coaching USC. The football program has seen some hard times since those days, but back in the 1960s and early 1970s it seemed USC and ND were annually in contention for the national championship. Ah, the good old days.
The men's bball team was also pretty damn good, with John Shumate, Adrian Dantley, Gary Brokaw, Dwight Clay and Peter Crotty/Billy Paterno. That was a formidable lineup. Sadly, the men's basketball program hasn't seen those halcyon days for several decades now.
And Digger followed Johnny Dee, who was also a pretty good coach. His last team featured Austin Car, Collis Jones, and Sid Catlett.
Back in those days, ND, as an independent, had to play a very competitive schedule to be considered for the NCAA tourney, which was smaller at the time. So we played UCLA (twice a year) Marquette, Kentucky (on a neutral court in Lexington, Ky.), Maryland, North Carolina, Indiana, Dayton, Creighton, and other good teams as they became prominent, such as DePaul. Those teams usually won 20 or more games a year.
Did you ever figure out if it was 74 or 71 or do they need to provide documentation?
I don’t know about that…I hold an undergraduate and a law degree from ND. What are you holding…beside that tiny member of yours?
I didn't really follow ND basketball until I became a student at ND in the early 1970s, though I do recall my father taking me to see a Notre Dame basketball game in Chicago Stadium a few years before I became a student, and I saw a dazzling performance from Austin Carr--one of many he gave while wearing an ND uniform.
To understand why ND's win over UCLA in 1974 was so special--and so improbable--some historical perspective is important. John Wooden's UCLA teams were simply better than anyone else, and by a wide margin. Over 12 seasons (from 1964 to 1975) UCLA won 10! national titles, including 7 in a row from 1967 to 1973. Incredible! That kind of dominance had never been seen before, and will likely never be seen again. UCLA was the Darth Vader of college basketball. So when ND beat them on January 19, 1974 to bring to an end UCLA's 88-game win streak, that wasn't just David beating Goliath, it was David beating Goliath on steroids. Us "old guys" remember that, but I suspect many of our "youthful" posters here probably don't appreciate just how special that win was. It was a magical win, and one of the great moments in ND sports history. I was blessed and lucky enough to see it in person. During those frantic, final few minutes of the game I think the crowd sensed something incredible might happen, and it did! It was my first time rushing the field (or this case, the court) at any sporting event. It was a day to remember forever, and I will.
I have seen ND play USC in the Coliseum 5 or 6 times, I think. Sadly, that 1974 game was my first. I went to the game with 4 or 5 of my buddies. We spent the better part of 2 days driving from South Bend to Los Angeles, as I recall. (None of us could afford plane and hotel fare, so we drove and slept in my buddy's van.) We were tired from the long trip, but were feeling pretty good when ND went up 24-0. Then the dam broke, and all we saw was Anthony Davis scoring one TD after another. Davis scored 6 in all that day. And it all happened so fast, as I recall. I got so tired of hearing the USC fight song and watching the USC mascot horse, Traveler, run up and down the sideline that I wanted to scream. If I had a rifle, I might have taken a shot at Traveler. That is how discouraging it was. The horrible loss made for a very long drive home back to South Bend. And then we had to show up for classes on Monday!
DId ND "choke"? I suppose one might say so, but I personally don't think so. ND and USC were pretty evenly ranked going into the game, so it was not a surprise that ND lost the game. We were playing them in their house, and they had a great team, and John McKay was a great college football coach. They got it going in the second half and ND didn't have an answer. Sometimes those things happen.
To make matters worse, Ara Parseghian announced soon thereafter that he was retiring from coaching. The Era of Ara was over. That USC game was his second to last as HC of the Irish. He did finish his career with a win, however, as ND took down Alabama in the Orange Bowl, 13-11.
I remember that time well. I grew up outside Milwaukee and the Bucks won the right to draft a guy named Lew Alcindor out of UCLA. I think his teams only lost once during his varsity career. I never thought of UCLA as "Darth Vader" because I never thought of them as evil. They were just hands-down the best team in the country year after year.
It's funny, I was more of a Marquette basketball fan until I saw a game ('71 maybe?) when ND with Carr scoring at will edged Marquette with the score for both teams in the 90s. Prior to that, I hadn't paid any mind to ND basketball.
It is kind of ironic that ND, which has struggled in basketball for some time, remains among the top 10 for all-time wins.
Well, It’s very difficult for that tiny member to get excited over a bunch of geeks on an Internet football website, but he does rise to the occasion and attains significant size when properly motivated by the female form.
I entered Notre Dame as a chemical engineering major, saw the light, the dim light, and changed majors and graduated with a B.A.
I was going to go to law school, in Cambridge, but did what some would consider an impulsive and imprudent act, i eloped with a nice Jewish girl from Boston, so I had to go to work.
I formed several companies and built them up rather nicely, so much so that I ended up, in terms of holding things, holding memberships in seven golf/country clubs
When I need lawyers, I hire them.
If you look at the structure of the NCAA tournament, it was dramatically different from today, and it significantly favored the winner of the Pac 12, which was almost always UCLA
I’ve had many discussions with Lynn Shackleford and Gail Goodrich about the benign path that UCLA had to follow in order to win the championship
I’m not taking anything away from John Wooden and his teams
But their path was dramatically different than the path that any team would have to take today
The number of teams that made the NCAA was very limited, and play was very regional
UCLA was almost guaranteed a spot in the final four
You are right, my bad. I guess I had the nightmare games of 1974 and 1972 reversed. Luckily, I did not attend the 1972 game. In the 1974 game I recall USC scored just before haltime to make it 24-6 (or was it 24-7?) and then Davis returned the second half kickoff for a TD. I turned to my buddy and said, "I don't like this." It only got worse.
I couldn't remember the score of the 1975 game, so I looked it up and saw we lost 24-17 in SB. So the only time I saw ND beat USC during my time as a student was the 1973 game. But that game is a pretty damn good memory.
Winning 10 nattys in 12 years was impressive regardless of the structure of the tournament. And as I recall--though I concede my memory isn't what it was--UCLA was pretty much the best team in the country every year, talent-wise. Wooden stacked his roster every year.
A couple of things I didn't know about Wooden back in the day. Although I knew he was from Indiana, I didn't know he coached at South Bend Central High for a stretch. I also didn't realize that he was at UCLA from 1948 on. His last 12 years as a coach were really remarkable.
Starting in 1939 Only 8 teams qualified for the tournament
That gradually expanded to 32 teams in 1975
But the early seeding was by region, and UCLA was almost guaranteed a spot if they won the Pac 12, which was almost automatic
Kinda like taking a hockey team from the north and having them compete in the SEC
Not to diminish the accomplishment, but today’s NCAA tournament is dramatically different in terms of the number of teams and the non-regional method of seeding
That gradually expanded to 32 teams in 1975
But the early seeding was by region, and UCLA was almost guaranteed a spot if they won the Pac 12, which was almost automatic
Kinda like taking a hockey team from the north and having them compete in the SEC
Not to diminish the accomplishment, but today’s NCAA tournament is dramatically different in terms of the number of teams and the non-regional method of seeding
Close, it started with putting their socks on properly and then lacing up their sneakers.
He wanted to teach them how to avoid getting blisters
