UCLA Was Big, but the ‘E’ Proved Bigger : College basketball: Hayes helped Houston end Bruins’ winning streak at 47 games Jan. 20, 1968.

Perhaps John Wooden shouldn’t have kept Lew Alcindor in the game. Perhaps Alcindor, now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Bruins should have collapsed on Elvin (Big E) Hayes after he picked up his fourth foul early in the second half.

And perhaps this 1968 battle of the top-ranked teams in the country should not have been played at the Houston Astrodome, where the distance between the court and the crowd created false depth perception, and the spotlights shining on the basketball and hoops made it difficult for the players to shoot.

“But it didn’t bother Elvin Hayes,” Wooden said Friday, recalling the 71-69 loss to second-ranked Houston that ended top-ranked UCLA’s 47-game winning streak Jan. 20, 1968.

The game was played before the largest crowd ever to see college basketball indoors, about 55,000. It also had the largest television audience of any college basketball game up to that time.

In their book, “The Wizard of Westwood,” Jeff Prugh and Dwight Chapin wrote:

‘It was the long-awaited shootout at the Houston Astrodome. Big Lew and those fast-draw artists from UCLA versus Big E and those Texas-sized big guns from the University of Houston. A battle of unbeatens between the Nos. 1-and 2-ranking college teams in the land. There were dazzling lights and thundering cheers that swirled inside the cavernous arena and a fireworks-spewing, cartoon-flashing scoreboard that looked almost as big as the LBJ Ranch.”

That game comes to mind in anticipation of today’s matchup of top-ranked UNLV and No. 2 Arkansas. Both UCLA and Houston were undefeated, with UCLA’s win streak dating to Feb. 19, 1966. UNLV has won 30 consecutive games, and Arkansas has only one loss this season, to Arizona. UCLA, as UNLV is today, was favored to win. But besides the unusual setting and the anticipated audience, the UCLA-Houston game had an added attraction. It was a chance for Houston to get even with UCLA for beating it the season before in the NCAA semifinals.

“Each team (Houston and UCLA) had one individual superstar (Alcindor and Hayes),” Wooden said. “Alcindor, of course, had been in the hospital for 10 days prior to that and had missed the last couple of games because of that eye scratch. He had, at least from a statistical point of view, the poorest game he had while at UCLA. It was the only game, I believe, where he made fewer than half his shots.”

It was, indeed, the poorest Alcindor ever played for UCLA.

Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. was confined to a dark room at the Jules Stein Eye Clinic at UCLA most of the week before the game, hoping the absence of light would heal an eye injury he suffered a week before in a game against California. A player had accidentally scratched Alcindor’s left eye with a stray hand on a rebound. He had three brief workouts all week, one time showing up with a patch over his eye.

Meanwhile in Houston, workers were converting the Astrodome from a football-baseball stadium to a basketball arena. The hardwood floor was trucked to Houston in sections from the Los Angeles Sports Arena. It was centered in the Astrodome where second base is normally located, about 100 feet from the nearest box seat. A trench was dug around the full perimeter of the court to accommodate the press.

“There had been a lot of nationally televised college basketball games, but this one had an aura surrounding it, because of UCLA’s perceived invincibility and Alcindor’s prominence but also because the setting itself was so unusual,” said Prugh, who covered the game for The Times. “I took an elevator nine stories to the top tier of the Astrodome and decided to look down. The players looked like ants crawling across an 8-cent postage stamp.”

Tickets to the event had gone on sale a year before, and by game time there were 52,693 paid admissions. The two schools received the largest payout ever up to that time, a split of $200,000 in receipts less 17% for the Astrodome.

But Prugh said the game itself was not an artistic success: “It was like both teams were traveling in slow motion.”

The game was all Elvin Hayes.

Houston had four starters from the team that lost to the Bruins the previous year in the NCAA tournament--Ken Spain at center, Don Chaney at guard, Theodis Lee and Hayes at forward. George Reynolds also started at guard.

UCLA started Alcindor at center, Edgar Lacey and Lynn Shackelford at forward and Lucius Allen and Mike Warren at guard.

The Bruins played sloppily from the beginning, and had their worst shooting night of the season, making 33%. After being sidelined for two games and taking a week off to rest his eye, Alcindor’s lack of stamina showed. Neither Lacey nor Mike Lynn, who replaced Lacey 13 minutes into the first half, could control Hayes. By halftime, with Houston leading, 46-43, Hayes had scored 29 points.

Yet in spite of their poor shooting, the Bruins stayed in the game thanks to Allen’s 25 points. With the score 69-69 with 28 seconds remaining, Jim Nielson fouled Hayes on a layup attempt. Nielson had entered the game early in the second half, replacing Lynn, and helped hold Hayes to 10 points.

Hayes made two free throws to make the score 71-69. Allen, who had tied the score at 69, crossed the center line with the ball, and rifled a cross-court pass into the corner. It sailed between Shackelford and Warren and went out of bounds. With 12 seconds remaining, Houston ran out the clock.

Alcindor made only four of 18 shots and seven of eight free throws for a total of 15 points. Afterward, he said that his eye had not bothered him and attributed the loss to poor play against a better team.

Warren, who scored 13 points, blamed an ineffective fast break. Some fans and UCLA boosters, however, blamed Wooden. Within the week, Lacey, disgruntled that he was removed from the game and never put back in, quit the team.

A year later, in a published report, Alcindor thanked Wooden for his loyalty and confidence, but said that he should not have stayed in the game. “And it was the reason we lost!” Alcindor said. “I stank up the joint; I was the worst player on the court, but out of some misguided feeling of loyalty or confidence in me, the coach let me stay in and blow the ballgame.”

Wooden would also second-guess himself, saying he probably erred by playing Alcindor the full 40 minutes. “I never wanted to use it as an excuse, and I’m sure I didn’t, but Alcindor being just a shell of himself and losing by only two points, I felt that if we played Houston again that they were a good team but we would have no trouble--we were just entirely too strong for them,” Wooden said.

In the NCAA semifinals that season, UCLA beat Houston, 101-69. Hayes, playing as though in a trance, scored only 10 points. The Bruins went on to beat North Carolina and win the NCAA championship.