1970-71

UCLA lost one game during the 1970–71 season, to Notre Dame in South Bend. Austin Carr scored 48 points and the Irish won, 89–82.

Everybody else who played the Bruins lost. All 29. At the NCAAs, Long Beach State gave the Uclans a scare in the West Regional final but were eventually beaten back, 57–55.

At the Final Four in Houston, Villanova beat Western Kentucky, in a double overtime semifinal, then lost to UCLA by six when the Bruins' Steve Patterson outscored Howard Porter of the Wildcats, 29–25. Porter was named MVP, but when it was disclosed later that he had signed a pro contract before the tourney, the NCAA voided both the award and Villanova's records.

Otherwise, No.2 Marquette and No.3 Penn, both undefeated during the regular season, were beaten in their second tournament games—Marquette by Ohio State and Penn by Big Five rival Villanova. And South Carolina won the ACC tournament in its final year as a conference member.

Hard luck team of the year? How about No.5 Southern Cal. USC had a 24–2 record, but finished second to you-know-who in the Pac-8 and didn't make the NCAAs.

North Carolina won the ACC regular season title, lost the league tournament final to South Carolina, then bounced back to win the NIT with an 84–66 victory over another ACC rival—Georgia Tech. Bill Chamberlain led the Tar Heels with 35 points and was named MVP.

Rules change

• : Any team tendered an NCAA tournament bid must accept it or be banned from postseason play.

Final AP Top 20 (Writers' poll taken before tournament).

Note: UCLA won the NCAAs and North Carolina won the NIT.

Consensus All-America (In alphabetical order)

First Team

·         Austin Carr, Notre Dame

·         Artis Gilmore, Jacksonville

·         Dean Meminger, Marquette

·         Jim McDaniels, Western Kentucky

·         Sidney Wicks, UCLA

Second Team

·         Ken Durrett, La Salle

·         Johnny Neumann, Mississippi

·         Howard Porter, Villanova

·         John Roche, South Carolina

AP POLL

1. UCLA
2. Marquette
3. Pennsylvania
4. Kansas
5. USC
6. South Carolina
7. W. Kentucky
8. Kentucky
9. Fordham
10. Ohio State

UPI COACHES POLL

1. UCLA
2. Marquette
3. Pennsylvania
4. Kansas
5. Southern Cal
6. South Carolina
7. W. Kentucky
8. Kentucky
9. Fordham

  NCAA RESULTS

Penn 70, Duquesne 65
Villanova 93, St. Joseph's 75
Fordham 105, Furman 74
Western Kentucky 74, Jacksonville 72
Marquette 62, Miami (Ohio) 47
Notre Dame 102, Texas Christian 94
Houston 72, New Mexico State 69
Brigham Young 91, Utah State 82
Long Beach State 77, Weber State 66
Regional Semifinals
Penn 79, South Carolina 64
Villanova 85, Fordham 75
Western Kentucky 107, Kentucky 83
Ohio State 60, Marquette 59
Drake 79, Notre Dame 72 (ot)
Kansas 78, Houston 77
UCLA 91, Brigham Young 73
Long Beach State 78, Pacific 65
Regional Third Place
East: Fordham 100, South Carolina 90
Mideast: Marquette 91, Kentucky 74
Midwest: Houston 119, Notre Dame 106
West: Pacific 84, Brigham Young 81
Regional Finals
East: Villanova 90, Penn 47
Mideast: Western Ky. 81, Ohio State 78 (ot)
Midwest: Kansas 73, Drake 71
West: UCLA 57, Long Beach State 55
National Semifinals
Villanova 92, Western Kentucky 89 (2ot)
UCLA 68, Kansas 60
National Third Place
Western Kentucky 77, Kansas 75
Championship Game
UCLA 68, Villanova 62

UCLA leaders: Sidney Wicks, Sr., F; Curtis Rowe, Sr., F; Steve Patterson, Sr., C; Henry Bibby, Jr., G; Terry Schofield, Sr., G

All-NCAA Tournament Team

Top 10

All-America Team

Leaders
Team
Offense: Jacksonville, 99.9
Defense: Fairleigh Dickinson, 53.7

Individual Scoring

Rebounding

  Notes

• North Carolina (26-6) def. Georgia Tech to win the NIT title.

• Jacksonville’s Gilmore finished as the first player in major-college history to post career averages of more than 22 points and 22 rebounds.  

1971 Jan 05 Harlem Globetrotters lose 100-99 to New Jersey Reds, ending 2,495-game win streak.  

Site: Houston Astrodome

Most Outstanding Player: Howard Porter, Villanova

Despite rumblings that he had already signed a contract with the American Basketball Association, the 6'8" Porter (25 points, eight rebounds in final; 22, 16 in semi) was allowed to play in the Final Four. When rumors were substantiated, Porter's MOP award and Villanova's finish were stricken from the NCAA record book. The same thing happened to Western Kentucky when it was revealed 7-foot All-America Jim McDaniels (22, 17 in semis, 36, 19 in consolation win) also signed with the ABA. UCLA led the final by eight at halftime, but Villanova got within three with 1:53 to go before the Bruins pulled away.

SI's Pick: "In NCAA basketball, beating UCLA is the only unnatural act."

Surprise Guest: No. 18 Villanova beat No. 9 Fordham in the East semis and then destroyed No. 3 Penn (which was 28-0, including a regular-season win over the Wildcats) 90-47 in the final.

Close Call: UCLA overcame a 29% shooting performance and an 11-point second-half deficit to beat Jerry Tarkanian and Long Beach State 57-55 in the West final.

Surprise Performance: In the final, UCLA All-America Sidney Wicks played with a sore big toe, finishing with seven points (only seven shots), nine rebounds and seven assists. Fellow senior Steve Patterson picked up the slack with a career-best 29 points and eight rebounds, hitting nine of 13 shots for 20 points before halftime.

Significant Fact: Western Kentucky lost its semifinal to Villanova despite having 11 more rebounds, two fewer turnovers, and taking 32 more shots.

They Said It: Western Kentucky's Clarence Glover, a renowned ladies' man—"When I got married, home attendance dropped 500. Just leave the 'G' off my name and you are spelling it correctly."

Swan Song: During UCLA's semifinal, Wooden and assistant Denny Crum had a well-publicized argument when Crum wanted to sub guard Terry Schofield; Wooden threatened to banish Crum to the end of the bench. After another disagreement on strategy, Wooden was heard to say: "I'm the coach of this team, and don't tell me how to coach my team." The next year Crum was coaching Louisville in the Final Four against his mentor.

Future First-Round Picks: UCLA—Sidney Wicks (1971, 2nd, Portland), Curtis Rowe (1971, 11th, Detroit); Western Kentucky—Clarence Glover (1971, 10th, Boston); Kansas—Bud Stallworth (1972, 7th, Seattle).

ARTICLE BY JOE GERGAN   For The Sporting News

College basketball had gotten a glimpse of the future when UCLA and Houston played a regular-season game in the Astrodome. Three years later, the sport officially embraced the new order.

The NCAA scheduled the 1971 Final Four in the massive Houston stadium with the plexiglass roof and seating for thousands more customers than any basketball arena in the nation.

It clearly wasn't a matter of aesthetics.

"Playing in large arenas is for one reason only," UCLA coach John Wooden said.

The reason was evident in the gate receipts. A record crowd of 52,693 attended the historic duel between the Bruins' Lew Alcindor and Houston's Elvin Hayes in 1968.

The attendance record would not be threatened in 1971. Tournament officials decided to move the basketball floor closer to one end rather than place it in the middle of the Astrodome, as had been done in 1968, thus eliminating thousands of the more distant seats. And the defeat of hometown Houston in the Midwest Regional didn't help.

Still, interest in college basketball had grown to a level that made it worthwhile -- and profitable -- to hold the Final Four under a monstrous dome. Indeed, the crowd of 31,428 at the national semifinals dwarfed the largest previous gathering for an NCAA Tournament event.

If there was price for such a financial windfall, it was the strangeness of the setting. The court was raised four feet above the floor so players might better be viewed by spectators at ground level. That arrangement, however, left precious little space between the sidelines and potential calamity.

"Here's my first prediction," Western Kentucky coach John Oldham said at his team's first practice session. "Clarence Glover goes over the side."

Glover, a 6-foot-8 forward/center, was one of the Hilltoppers' two prime players, a rebounding marvel and an all-out competitor.

"I'll go after the ball," said guard Rex Bailey, Glover's teammate. "I may not want to, but when you're playing for the national championship, you don't hold back. Of course, I'll land on somebody's head."

Another bizarre feature was the presence of an 80-foot camera crane above one end of the court. It was a sight to jar the memory of someone who remembered the old gymnasiums where the sport had its taken first significant steps -- someone like John Wooden, Purdue University, class of '32. Wooden and UCLA would provide the constant in this festival of change.

Somehow, the Bruins' presence in the 1971 Final Four offered reassurance that God still was in his heaven and that the world below was not completely out of kilter.

The Bruins had been hard-pressed throughout the season, rallying to win several games in the final minutes. They had been taken to the wire by Long Beach State in the West Regional final before pulling out a 57-55 triumph. But here they were again, ranked No. 1 in the country and with only a single blemish on their record.

Two of the teams expected to challenge UCLA in the Astrodome had fallen. Both Marquette and Pennsylvania had concluded their regular seasons with undefeated marks, but Marquette was nipped by Ohio State in the Mideast Regional, which eventually was won by Western Kentucky. And Penn was embarrassed, 90-47, in the East Regional final by a Villanova team it had beaten earlier in the year.

Kansas, the Midwest Regional favorite, advanced to the national semifinals, but not without some anxious moments. The Jayhawks won their two games by a total of three points, earning the right to be ground down by UCLA, 68-60, in the semifinals.

Much of the conversation in Houston centered on the war for players being waged by the upstart American Basketball Association and the established National Basketball Association. Newsmen reported seeing ABA contracts signed by 7-foot consensus All-America center Jim McDaniels of Western Kentucky and Villanova star forward Howard Porter. As a result, the NCAA had asked and received signed affidavits from the two players to the effect that they still were amateurs before allowing them to compete.

Both men played with professional assurance in their semifinal matchup. McDaniels scored at will, but his lackadaisical defense against 6-7 Hank Siemiontkowski, who scored a game-high 31 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, was a major factor in the Hilltoppers' defeat. Meanwhile, the 6-8 Porter scored 22 points and added 16 rebounds in Villanova's 92-89 double-overtime victory.

UCLA's Steve Patterson was a pro prospect who could have skipped the 1971 season after being redshirted for the '68 campaign. But the 6-9 center turned down two professional offers to return for his senior year.

"I know I'm not a famous entity," he said, "but I might have been infamous if I had left and UCLA lost a national championship because of that."

At the moment, Patterson's assessment of his value to the team appeared to be unjustifiably high. He had suffered through an erratic season in which he made barely 40 percent of his field-goal attempts and averaged 12.4 points per game. He also had been benched for most of one conference game and had scored a paltry six points against Kansas in the semifinal game.

"I was nearly always in the teens in scoring and rebounding," he said, "so the Kansas game was very disheartening."

The pro draft, he admitted, was on his mind. He could not ignore the pressure of trying to impress NBA and ABA scouts.

"Coach Wooden accused the seniors of thinking too much about our pro contracts," Patterson said, "and we probably were. I know I was pressing too hard."

Patterson had dinner with his parents the night before his last college game and decided to play not for future riches, but for fun. Patterson was as relaxed as anyone on the court in the finale, and that was fortunate.

Both of the Bruins forwards -- Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe, the team's top scorers -- were shut down by Villanova's zone defense, so UCLA needed a career performance from Patterson. That's what he produced.

Despite the fact Villanova already had lost six games that season, the Wildcats gave the Bruins their most closely contested championship game. Largely responsible for keeping the game tight was Wooden's decision to stall after his team took a 45-37 halftime lead. The last thing anyone expected was to see the Bruins holding the ball.

Many assumed it was Wooden's intention to force the Wildcats out of their zone defense, to play man-to-man. And it was. But the coach later conceded he had something else in mind, too.

"I wanted the rules committee to see the argument for a shot clock," he said. "There had been some farcical games recently with teams just standing around. I held the ball to make a point."

Whatever the reason for Wooden's strategy, Villanova did emerge from its zone. And UCLA found itself seriously challenged. After trailing by as many as 12 points in the second half, the Wildcats cut the deficit to 58-54 with 5:09 remaining.

"The slowdown made our players scrap all the more and thus helped us get back into the game," Villanova coach Jack Kraft said.

Twice in the final minutes, jump shots by Porter closed the deficit to three. On each occasion, however, UCLA answered. The victory was not secured until Patterson's layup, aided by a goaltending call, boosted the lead to 66-60 with 38 seconds left. Patterson finished as the game's high scorer with 29 points.

While guard Henry Bibby was putting the finishing touches (a pair of free throws) on UCLA's 68-62 triumph and its fifth consecutive national championship, Wicks leaned over the side of the court and shook Wooden's hand.

"Coach," the consensus All-America forward said, "you're really something."

The Wizard beamed.

It had been a most unusual Final Four, and not only because of the Astrodome's vast dimensions. During UCLA's semifinal victory over Kansas, Wooden had clashed openly with assistant Denny Crum on a matter of substitutions and strategy. Although this did not drive a wedge between the master and his pupil, Crum left Westwood shortly thereafter.

Crum was ready to run his own program and Louisville presented an excellent opportunity.

In addition, the outstanding-player award was presented to Porter, who had 25 points and eight rebounds in Villanova's loss. While it was not unprecedented for a player from a vanquished team to be so honored, the ceremony was mocked when the Pittsburgh Condors of the ABA announced they had signed Porter before the Final Four. Porter was declared ineligible by the NCAA and his award deleted from the tournament honor roll.

HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

1971
*Edgar A. Diddle, Coach
*Robert L. Douglas, Contributor
*Paul Endacott, Player
*Max Friedman, Player
*Edward Gottlieb, Contributor
*W. R. Clifford Wells, Contributor