Losing Never Came to Mind : Despite Many Close Calls, UCLA’s Players Knew They Would Find a Way to Prevail During Record 88-Grame Winning Streak

On Sunday, Jan. 24, 1971, Sidney Wicks sat on a curb outside the baggage claim area at Los Angeles International Airport, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, a picture of abject misery.

The day before, in South Bend, Ind., Wicks and the UCLA basketball team had been laid waste by one Austin George Carr of Notre Dame, who had scored 46 points in an 89-82 victory.

Wicks felt even worse because he had been one of five Bruin defenders who had futilely chased the runaway Carr.

“I was thinking, ‘I can’t believe we lost,’ and it was really bothering me,” Wicks said.

Then UCLA Coach John Wooden walked past.

“Sid, what’s wrong?” Wooden asked.

“I just can’t believe we lost,” Wicks said.

Wooden took a step closer to Wicks.

“Then I suggest not to do it again,” Wooden said.

Wicks thought about what Wooden had said.

I suggest not to do it again .

“Okaaaaaay . . . that’s what he said,” Wicks remembered. “For some reason, that has stuck with me the rest of my life.”

And the Bruins didn’t lose again for a very long time. UCLA didn’t lose for the rest of the 1970-71 season. Or all of the next season. Or the season after that. Or for the first 13 games after that.

UCLA won every basketball game it played for two full seasons and parts of two others, a streak of 88, a record of success unmatched in basketball. The NBA record is 33, set by the Lakers in 1971-72, during the same period that the Bruins were on their rampage.

UCLA tied the college record of 60 consecutive victories set in 1955-56 by the Bill Russell-K.C. Jones teams at the University of San Francisco and then kept going for 28 more games, or what amounted to a full season.

The longest-running hit play in college basketball had several cast changes. It went from Wicks and Curtis Rowe and Henry Bibby and Steve Patterson, to Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes and Greg Lee and Swen Nater, then on to Walton, Wilkes, Lee and David Meyers, Tommy Curtis, Pete Trgovich, Andre McCarter, Marques Johnson and Richard Washington--they kept on winning.

After a while, the streak seemed to have a life of its own, and Lee thinks he knows why.

“We just had an incredible, incredible string of excellent, excellent athletes,” he said.

The Bruins were in the midst of their string of seven consecutive NCAA championships, which meant that winning games was something that, well, was expected.

“It never ever entered my mind that we would possibly lose,” Lee said. “It got to be a little bizarre after a while. . . . It’s been so long that you lost, it doesn’t even appear to be an option in your brain. You can’t envision it.”

As it turned out, the Irish were bookends to the streak. Notre Dame ended it on Dwight (Ice Man) Clay’s 18-foot jump shot with 29 seconds to play.

“That’s pretty odd, how Notre Dame could be so involved,” Walton said.

Wicks, sitting on that curb at LAX, knew only the first half of it, though, because before there was the streak, there was a loss.

HIT-AND-RUN CARR

Tipoff for 15-0 UCLA and 8-4 Notre Dame was at 3 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 23, 1971, and 11,343 looked on in the Athletic and Convocation Center on the South Bend campus. But even before the tipoff, Wooden was not very happy. The previous afternoon, before 7,755 in the 17,339-seat Chicago Stadium, the No. 1-ranked Bruins had slogged past hapless Loyola of Chicago, 78-62.

Wooden had said that UCLA was not playing like a hungry team.

“We’re not sharp, but we’d better be sharp against Notre Dame or we’re going to lose,” he had predicted.

Waiting for them in South Bend was Carr, the nation’s leading scorer. On his way to an NCAA-leading 37.2 points a game, the 6-3 senior guard from Washington, D.C., knew that this would be his last chance to damage UCLA.

“We all keyed for that game on our schedule more than any other,” said Carr, 43, a mortgage broker in Cleveland.

Carr made 17 of 30 shots and 12 of 16 free throws for 46 points.

A hastily painted sign was hoisted in the stands: Wooden Barriers Can’t Stop Irish Carr.

Carr scored 15 points in the last 6 1/2 minutes, had 15 of Notre Dame’s last 17 points and was so tired at the end of the game that he slumped to the court. Irish fans carried him off.

“It was like we had won the NCAA championship,” Carr said.

Wooden was asked after the game to assess the Bruins.

“We’re a good ballclub, but we’re not unbeatable,” he said.

But Wooden remains fairly unemotional about that loss.

“Losses to nonconference teams never particularly bothered me because I used those games as preparation for the conference,” he said recently.

“I used to use certain analogies with my players. From Oct. 15, when we started practice, until we played our first game, these were tryouts. It was like putting on a play. I’m trying to assemble the cast to put the show on the road.

“Nonconference games are like dress rehearsals. When we open the conference season, now the show is on the road. Now how well we do on the road is going to determine whether we are going to get that special encore--that means to get into the tournament.

“So when Austin Carr had a tremendous game against us, I was not particularly upset because it was a nonconference game.”

For Carr, the game remains special.

“It felt so good to be the last team to beat them,” he said. “Just watching them go on like that, 88 straight, that makes it even more phenomenal.”

A WATERY GRAVE FOR USC

A week after the Bruins had rebounded from the loss at Notre Dame with a 74-61 victory over UC Santa Barbara, there was a showdown at the Sports Arena. On Feb. 6, 1971, in the Pacific 8 conference opener, No. 1 USC played No. 2 UCLA.

While Bob Boyd’s USC team was ascending to No. 1--thanks to losses by the Bruins and Marquette--UCLA had failed to impress Wooden in its 13-point victory over the Gauchos at Pauley Pavilion.

Afterward, Wooden had told reporters: “I am going to initiate this conversation by saying I am not at all pleased.”

But most of the 15,307 in the Sports Arena would have been shocked if they had known beforehand that USC would lead, 59-50, with 9 1/2 minutes left.

But USC scored only one point the rest of the game, and Kenny Booker’s steal and layup with 5 1/2 minutes left put UCLA ahead, 61-59, and sent the Bruins into a three-minute stall. Wicks finished the 64-60 victory with 24 points and 14 rebounds. Boyd ended up with a tried but true loser’s lament: “We went dead in the water.”

HOW TO DUCK A DUCK

There were few cities in the conference more difficult to play in than Eugene and Corvallis, and the Bruins figured they were going to be tested in their annual tour of Oregon. They were right.

Against the Oregon Ducks, UCLA trailed in the second half once again, this time by five points with only 2 1/2 minutes to play before 10,400 at Eugene’s McArthur Court.

UCLA got it down to one, then with 43 seconds left, guard Henry Bibby stole the ball from Bill Drozdiak and got away for a layup and a 69-68 Bruin lead.

Even now, Bibby remains slightly stunned by that turn of events.

“The only thing they have to do is hold onto the ball and they win the game,” he said.

Instead, the Ducks compounded their error. Center Stan Love grabbed the rim in disgust after Bibby’s basket and was assessed a technical foul, but Bibby missed the free throw.

The Bruins got the ball back and were stalling when Terry Schofield was fouled with 21 seconds left and went to the free-throw line. He missed the first shot on a one-and-one, and Oregon’s Len Jackson rebounded, calling time out with 14 seconds left. The Beavers then worked the ball around the perimeter, and Jackson, a reserve forward, found himself with the ball and a game-deciding shot.

He missed. From 20 feet away in the left corner, Jackson’s shot bounded off the rim and UCLA ran off with a one-point victory.

Two days later, at tiny Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, 8,604 screamed as their Beavers battled to a 64-58 lead with 3:17 to play. For the third consecutive game, UCLA was behind late in the game. Again, the Bruins rallied and tied the score at 65-65 on Rowe’s two free throws with 28 seconds to play.

Now it was up to Freddie Boyd, the Beavers’ top player, a flashy guard who would go on to the NBA. With Bibby guarding him closely, Boyd dribbled the ball off his foot and out of bounds.

Said Bibby, “I don’t explain that.”

Wicks claims that it was simple justice.

“What happened was, those guys were talking a lot of stuff,” Wicks said. “You know, we didn’t say anything. UCLA players, when I was going there, we did not talk to our opponents. They did all the talking, we did all the playing. (Boyd) was talking so much stuff and then he dribbles the ball off his foot. We all said ‘OK, now we’ll see what happens.’ ”

Wooden designed a play for Wicks, whom he often describes as one of the finest competitors he ever coached. The idea was for Wicks to take advantage of 6-9 sophomore center Neal Jurgenson’s lack of quickness.

“So, when I was dribbling the ball, he had to honor my speed to the basket, so there was a nice little cushion between us,” Wicks said. “When I faked, he backed up more because he probably thought I was going to go by him now, and then I pulled up and it was a jumper. It was a natural, in-my-range shot. I can make that shot.”

With two seconds left, from 18 feet straight out from the basket, Wicks’ shot went up and in, and UCLA won, 67-65.

A dejected Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller said, “The ball just went right in the middle of the hole.”

At home, the Bruins were formidable--they won by 30 at Pauley Pavilion in a return game against Oregon State--but their road adventures continued.

On the two-game trip to Washington, UCLA trailed Washington State by three points at halftime, but an 11-1 run midway through the second half led to a 57-53 victory at Pullman.

It was even tighter in Seattle on March 1, 1971, at Hec Edmundson Pavilion, where 9,542 watched the Bruins take a 68-64 lead with 3:41 to play, then fail to score until only 29 seconds remained.

The Huskies actually led, 69-68, until Rowe’s four-foot jump shot got the Bruins the lead back and Steve Patterson’s free throw with a second left produced the final score, UCLA 71, Washington 69.

“Damn, how can those people continue to be so lucky?” Washington Coach Tex Winter asked.

Bibby said that at least part of it could be traced to the Bruins’ mind set.

“When we went into a game, we knew that at some point in time, we were going to win,” said Bibby, who coaches Tulsa of the Continental Basketball Assn. “I don’t know where it came from--maybe Coach Wooden’s philosophies--but when it keeps happening over and over, all of a sudden, you start believing.”

So the Bruins were 22-1 and 11-0 in the Pac 8. Three games later, they were 25-1 and 14-0 in the conference, having won their fifth consecutive title, and were heading for the West Regional in Salt Lake City. Unlucky USC was 24-2, both the defeats having been inflicted by the Bruins, and was staying home.

In the opening game of the NCAA tournament, Wicks had 20 rebounds, seven Bruins scored in double figures and UCLA won No. 13, a 91-73 victory over Brigham Young. Only Cal State Long Beach stood between UCLA and the Final Four.

Coached by Jerry Tarkanian and led by Ohio schoolboy star Ed Ratleff, the 49ers led six minutes into the second half, 44-33.

But the Bruins scored nine consecutive points and tied the score, 50-50, on a 30-foot jump shot by Bibby. The rest seemed routine, especially after Ratleff fouled out. Wicks made four consecutive free throws and UCLA was heading for the Final Four in the Astrodome, 57-55.

Said Tarkanian, “We did everything we wanted to do to win--except we lost.”

On March 25, 1971, 31,428 in Houston’s Astrodome saw UCLA bag No. 14, a 68-60 victory over Kansas. In the process, though, Wicks stubbed a toe and knew he would be limited in the championship game against Villanova.

THE STEVE PATTERSON SHOW

As it turned out, Wicks and Rowe scored only 15 points between them, and the star of the championship game was Steve Patterson, a 6-9 senior center. Until then, Patterson had not played well, worrying whether he would get a chance in the NBA, but Wicks’ sore toe changed the Bruins’ plans.

Patterson scored 29 points and set a screen for a key basket by Bibby late in the game as UCLA beat Villanova for its fifth consecutive NCAA title, 68-62.

“He was the sword that chopped our heads off,” Villanova’s Clarence Smith said of Patterson.

Patterson’s reaction after the game?

“I might as well die tonight,” he said.

Instead, Patterson went on to an NBA career--he and Austin Carr were both first-round selections of the Cleveland Cavaliers--and now is in his seventh year in the community relations department at Arizona State University in Tempe.

“Villanova’s game plan was basically to cut off the inside game,” Patterson said recently. “They played a zone defense. . . . and I just found myself wide open with lots of time to shoot. It was one of those games that the basket looked as big as all outdoors.”

And the streak?

“We didn’t consider it a streak at all,” Patterson said. “We considered the championships a streak, the fact that we (seniors) passed the torch, the burden belonged to a different era. But we did have some idea how good they were going to be.”

Enter Bill Walton, direct from Helix High in La Mesa.

“Walton (as a freshman) used to come up and work out with us two or three days a week because he just wasn’t getting any work against the freshman team,” Patterson said. “I remember he would block two, three, four, five shots in a row sometimes. Wooden would just go . . . nuts. I remember him using Walton as a stick to kind of beat us to keep us hungry and sharp. So we had a pretty good idea already that he was a force to be reckoned with.”

THE FORCE IS WITH THEM

Does this figure? UCLA loses four starters from an NCAA title team and is still the 1971-72 preseason pick for No. 1?

It does with 6-11 sophomore Walton, who led a 20-0 UCLA freshman team that also featured Keith Wilkes and Greg Lee and won by an average of 38 points.

In his first year on the varsity, Walton averaged 21.1 points, 15.5 rebounds, shot 63.9% and didn’t come close to playing a full 40 minutes in any game. The Bruins extended their streak by 30, winning by an average of 30 points, and won their sixth consecutive NCAA title.

Although it wasn’t a huge game in the rankings, a key game was the fifth of the season, played Dec. 22, 1971, at Pauley against Notre Dame.

It was an obliteration. Notre Dame, under first-year coach Digger Phelps, was 2-4 coming in and featured two football players trying to play basketball, brothers Mike and Willie Townsend. The Bruins led by 27-5, 48-9 and by 53-16 at halftime en route to a 114-56 rout. Said Phelps: “I think John Wooden could split his team, send one east, and they’d still wind up playing each other in the NCAA finals.”

Others had similar thoughts.

After Walton had scored 32 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in consecutive victory No. 26, a 39-point victory over Stanford, Cardinal Coach Howie Dallmar said, “He looked 7-foot-8.”

And after Walton had 20 points, 21 rebounds and 14 blocks or deflections in No. 27, an 82-43 wipeout of Cal, Bear Coach Jim Padgett said, “I’m not sure there is a way to beat this team.”

About the only controversy surrounding the Bruins blew over quickly. Early in the year, Lee was designated by Wooden to speak to reporters after a 105-49 blowout of The Citadel and said, “They were a real good JC team.”

That was particularly ill-advised, because Wooden was sensitive to charges that UCLA played a soft nonconference schedule.

Now a math teacher at Claremont High, where he also coaches basketball and tennis, Lee stands by his assessment.

“I’ll admit it was not the most astute quote, although it was accurate,” Lee said recently. “I still shouldn’t have said it. Wooden was outraged--I was belittling the opposition. Actually, if you want to know the truth, they were like a real solid high school team.”

By tournament time, UCLA’s streak stood at 41. The Bruins arrived in Provo, Utah, for the West Regional and blew out Weber State, 90-58, bringing up a familiar tournament foe, Tarkanian’s Long Beach team.

UCLA wasted no time on the 49ers this time, winning by 73-57.

And once again, UCLA was off to the Final Four, which was across town at the Sports Arena. The semifinal was against Louisville, led by first-year Coach Denny Crum, who had worked on Wooden’s staff. Walton scored 33 points and UCLA rolled, 96-77, setting up a championship game against Florida State.

SO NICE TO BEAT YOU

An 81-76 victory over the Seminoles meant UCLA’s sixth consecutive NCAA title and eighth in nine years, but it left Walton strangely dissatisfied. The Bruins hadn’t dominated, as Walton had expected, although both Walton and Wilkes finished with impressive numbers. Walton had 24 points and 20 rebounds and Wilkes had 23 points and 10 rebounds.

Afterward, though, Walton, choosing his words carefully, stunned reporters when he said, “I don’t like to back into things. I like to win convincingly. I feel like we lost it.”

And 19 years later, Walton still feels much the same way. Retired from the NBA after a series of injuries, Walton lives in San Diego and has begun a new career as a television commentator.

“I was very disappointed about that game,” he said. “One of the things that Coach Wooden was so great at teaching was that your sense of competition was not so much based on beating the opposition, but playing and beating an ideal opponent of great quality. And to play well yourself.

“I just don’t feel that we had a good game, and myself in particular.”

Walton remembered an incident from the first half, when Florida State was in charge.

“Coming down the court one time, I made some eye contact with Coach Wooden and suggested, ‘Hey, why don’t we call a timeout and figure out what we are going to do, because they had control of the game,’ ” Walton said.

“Coach looked back at me, just shook his head. He just shook his head, a little smile on his face and just sort of waved his program, like, ‘Let’s keep going.’ Sure enough, in the next two or three minutes, it just turned right around.

“I don’t think we ever called time out. In the next three years that I played with the varsity, I don’t think we ever called a timeout.”

WOODEN BENCHED

Beginning the 1972-73 season with 45 consecutive victories, the Bruins were older and better than the year before. An 81-48 victory over Pacific and first-year Coach Stan Morrison was No. 48, a UCLA record.

The next victory would be a landmark, too--a game without Wooden.

On Dec. 10, 1972, eight days after the victory over Pacific, Wooden entered St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. News was released that Wooden, 62, had a mild heart condition, but he actually had suffered a heart attack.

After coaching 679 consecutive games since he had taken over at UCLA in 1948, Wooden’s personal streak ended. On Dec. 16, assistant coach Gary Cunningham, 33, guided a 98-67 victory over UC Santa Barbara.

Walton said the Bruins were very upset by Wooden’s health problems.

“I think we were shocked,” he said. “When you are a great young athlete, you think you’re invincible and you’re immortal and that nothing bad is ever going to happen to you. Then all of a sudden, we lost our coach. It was a huge blow to us. But we know how tough Coach Wooden was--and is.”

The day after the game, Wooden was discharged. On Dec. 21, the day before UCLA’s game against Pittsburgh at Pauley, he returned to practice.

After practice, Wooden told reporters that he had to make some changes.

“No more chili sizes or banana splits after the game for me,” he said. “I’ve always told my players to be quick but don’t hurry. But my doctors have told me that I can’t fulfill my own advice. I can’t be quick or hurry.”

The Bruins defeated Pitt, 89-73, and 12,413 cheered Wooden’s return to Pauley.

Even Pitt Coach Buzz Ridl was moved.

“What’s better than great?” he asked.

A TIE . . . AND MORE

Walton had 32 points and 27 rebounds in UCLA’s 87-73 victory over Loyola of Chicago, a victory that tied the University of San Francisco’s NCAA-record 60-game winning streak. It coincided with a deepening interest in the Bruins and Walton, who had gained a national reputation as a basketball-playing anti-war protester.

He had been arrested and fined $50 for lying down in the middle of Wilshire Boulevard during a peace protest. And on campus, Walton had marched through classrooms, barricaded doors with wooden horses and decried the mining of Haiphong Harbor of North Vietnam.

It had also been revealed that Walton often ate dinner in his underwear, had gone to a concert by Traffic in Long Beach and, of all things, actually read James Michener for pleasure.

“I think I just mostly blew that stuff off,” Walton said. “I never wanted to be a creation of someone else’s thoughts. I wanted to be myself and not always try to create an image by what someone else was thinking about me. I thought I was pretty normal.

“Most people I hung out with did exactly the same stuff I was doing. Look, I had a fantastic time in college. I can’t say enough positive things about what a great time I had and how important it is to me what I got from UCLA.”

Wooden, though, had a little chat with Walton, advising him if he infringed on other peoples’ rights while espousing his own, “then I think you are defeating the very thing you are fighting for.”

There were other revelations, common knowledge locally but new to the rest of the country. Lee was a vegetarian and a math whiz. Larry Farmer’s nickname, Moose, was hung on him because he liked to watch “Rocky and His Friends,” the TV cartoon starring Rocky the flying squirrel and Bullwinkle the moose. David Meyers was one of 11 children of a manager of a Sears store in Covina. Wilkes was a minister’s son. Tommy Curtis had been the first black player at his high school in Florida.

Lee got a lot of ink for his anti-smog campaign and 18 years later asks: “Excuse me, was I wrong? I think not.”

As for how he, Walton and their teammates were portrayed, Lee said it was probably only natural that people were interested.

“Let’s face it, we were in the limelight,” Lee said. “Not that I was a national hero or star or anything. I became a vegetarian first and then Bill did. They want to write about that. And I’m still very, very left of the spectrum. I don’t think we should have been in the Persian Gulf War. I think it’s absolute ridiculousness. But I don’t go around spouting off. I wasn’t really trying to then. People would ask questions, and I’m sort of glib.”

NOTRE DAME (AGAIN)

The record became UCLA’s alone Jan. 27, 1973. Getting 20 points from Wilkes and 17 points and 15 rebounds from Walton, the Bruins rolled over Notre Dame, 82-63, before 11,343 in South Bend.

In a rare move, Wooden allowed reporters inside the locker room. Meyers clearly remembers how uncomfortable he felt.

“We were all just sitting there,” he said. “The media just kept looking at us like the monkey cage at the zoo (and they seemed to be saying,) ‘The monkeys aren’t doing anything today, what’s going on here?’ We acted the same way whether we won or lost.

“We were all protected from the media,” said Meyers, who later went on to play for the Milwaukee Bucks and is now an elementary school teacher in Lake Elsinore.

“Coach Wooden didn’t allow reporters in the locker room. As a matter of fact, when we saw a reporter walk in before practice or anything, we were all very suspicious. ‘How did this guy get in here?’ I was always shocked when reporters got a chance to come into the locker room.”

Wooden said he was casual when questioned about the record, the streak and mounting expectations.

“After we won, people kept talking about the pressure from that,” Wooden said. “Well, there was no pressure at all. We broke the record. It was just icing on the cake.”

AN NCAA TITLE (AGAIN)

The Bruins closed out the regular season with 10 more victories and entered the West Regional at a familiar location, Pauley Pavilion. Two games later, UCLA was in the Final Four at the Arena in St. Louis. The Bruins blitzed Arizona State, 98-81, as Walton finished with 28 points and 14 rebounds, then survived a slowdown against San Francisco when Curtis and Meyers came off the bench and sparked a 15-point victory.

In the Final Four semifinal, UCLA led Indiana by 22 points early in the second half, but the Hoosiers cut it to 57-55 before the Bruins pulled away.

Standing between UCLA and its seventh consecutive NCAA title and a 30-0 season was Coach Gene Bartow’s Memphis State team. It was close for a half. In one of the most lopsided championship games, Walton scored 44 points, made 21 of 22 shots and had 13 rebounds in an 87-66 UCLA victory.

How good was he?

“Quite truthfully, he was phenomenal,” said Lee, who had 14 assists. “But they played an incredibly ill-advised defense. They switched to a 3-2 defense where there were three people above the free throw line. They were playing, like, above Bill without that much pressure on me. I was just basically throwing the ball to him, and he was just catching it and putting it in. Nowadays, he would be dunking.”

Outstanding as Walton’s effort might have been, though, once again he was not happy about it. He was brusque in answering questions and even left his commemorative watch at the postgame interview podium, where Bartow picked it up.

“Oh, well, he doesn’t need another one anyway,” Bartow quipped.

Walton said he never liked the individual attention that he received and felt uncomfortable when he was singled out.

“I think I was immature in my relationship with the press,” Walton said. “I was inexperienced. Coach Wooden allowed us to dictate what sort of relationship we wanted with the press. I didn’t want to deal with the press and that was probably a mistake. Looking back, that was a big mistake. But you live and learn. And I have learned a lot of lessons, many of them the hard way.”

THE HARD WAY, CONTINUED

The second game of the 1973-74 season brought Maryland to Pauley Dec. 1, 1973. The ACC powerhouse featuring John Lucas, Len Elmore and Tom McMillen, seemed on the verge of a stunning upset when UCLA freshman Richard Washington missed the first of one-and-one free throws with 22 seconds left. Trailing, 65-64, Maryland rebounded and had a chance to end the streak with the last shot.

“I remember that last timeout,” Meyers said. “They had the ball and there were people leaving Pauley Pavilion. They didn’t want to see UCLA lose the streak. It all kind of hit us. I remember just going out thinking, ‘We can’t let them have a good shot.’ ”

Lucas dribbled the ball into the corner and passed up an open shot. Then Meyers jumped out at him from the baseline.

“It was funny,” Meyers said. “He just kind of looked at me like, ‘I don’t know if I want to take this shot or not,’ so I just kind of reached out and the ball fell right into my hands. I hardly touched it. He just stood there. He didn’t react. So I shoveled it to Tommy (Curtis), he took off downcourt and that was it.

“Maryland was, like, stunned. It was like, ‘We have a chance to win, but we don’t want to.’ We realized after that game that we could be beaten by anybody.”

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

On Jan. 7, 1974, with 10 1/2 minutes left in UCLA’s 55-45 victory over Washington State at Pullman, Walton was low-bridged as he jumped up for a lob pass and crashed to the floor on his back.

“I never saw it coming,” Walton remembered.

The official explanation was that he had suffered a deep bruise above his hip. Actually, Walton cracked two small bones that the muscles attach to along the spine.

“All I knew is I couldn’t get off the ground,” Walton said. “It was just miserable. I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t move. That was very painful.”

Even at that stage, Walton was familiar with pain. He had knee surgery when he was 13. In high school, he had torn cartilage, a broken ankle and a broken leg.

He missed the next three UCLA victories as Ralph Drollinger replaced him at center. The Bruins beat California and Stanford easily and then, on Jan. 17, 1974, blasted Iowa, 68-44, for their 88th consecutive victory.

Next up: Notre Dame.

THE END

Twelve days after Walton’s spill at Pullman, he put on a corset and said he was ready to play against Notre Dame in South Bend. It was Saturday afternoon, Jan. 19, 1974.

“I didn’t want to miss Notre Dame,” Walton said.

Maybe he should have. The Irish, who were 9-0 coming in, fell behind at the half, 43-34, and still trailed by 11 points, 70-59, with 3:30 to go.

But UCLA did not score another point.

And Notre Dame scored the last 12.

3:06--John Shumate scores inside over Walton, 70-61.

2:56--Shumate steals Curtis’ inbounds pass and scores, 70-63.

2:22--Adrian Dantley steals the ball from Wilkes and drives the length of the court for a layup, 70-65.

2:01--Curtis travels on a breakaway and Gary Brokaw hits from the corner, 70-67.

1:11--Meyers misses and Brokaw hits again from near the free throw line, 70-69.

Wilkes committed another turnover when he was called for charging into Dantley and the Irish got the ball again. To whom did they turn? In Notre Dame basketball lore, this period is knows as “The Ice Man Cometh.”

Dwight Clay, a 6-foot junior guard from Pittsburgh, earned his “Ice Man” name by sinking game-winning shots against Marquette and Ohio State and sending the Pittsburgh game into overtime.

“My teammates did look for me down the stretch,” said Clay. “They knew who was Mr. Clutch.”

Clay brought the ball down, passed to Brokaw and drifted to the right corner. When Curtis backed slightly away from Clay to help out on Brokaw, the Ice Man saw his chance.

“I was waving my hands feverishly to Gary to let him know that I was wide open in the corner,” Clay said. “So he spotted me and threw it to me and that was it. It was a normal shot for me. When it left my hand, you could still see the rotation of the ball. It was a good feeling. I haven’t seen anything as dramatic as that since Michael Jordan hit one against Georgetown.”

Clay’s shot went in, of course, and Notre Dame led, 71-70. UCLA called time out with 21 seconds remaining, then set up quickly on offense to try to get a good shot. Actually, they got five of them--and missed every one.

Curtis missed. Meyers missed. Walton missed a bank shot. Pete Trgovich missed, then Meyers missed again. Shumate grabbed the ball and slumped to the floor as time ran out, then heaved the ball at the ceiling.

The streak was over.

Walton believes that the Bruins might have won that game if he had not played.

“I don’t know, but probably,” he said. “When players come back from injury, they often slow the team down. I couldn’t bend. My back just hurt too much. I was in pain for a long time after that.”

Lee said he is fairly certain that UCLA would have won without Walton that day.

“There was nothing resembling the correct Bill,” Lee said. “Bill was absolutely out there and nobody could possibly play him. All of a sudden, he’s in a corset with his back. He was just not himself.”

Wooden said his concern with Walton’s injury was that he might not have been able to play again, not that his limitations in a corset might have helped end the streak.

“That wasn’t why we lost,” Wooden said. “He played well. They beat us. They scored the last 12 points. No one should score the last 12 points on us and they did.”

Walton played the entire game, finishing with 24 points and nine rebounds. His counterpart, Shumate, equaled Walton’s 24 points, and Brokaw led Notre Dame with 25 points. But this game belonged to the Ice Man.

“It is something that will never be forgotten,” said Clay, an investment officer in the trust department of a Pittsburgh bank. “When you talk about the legend of John Wooden, you have to talk about where it all ended. Tell the folks in California that I did it. I’m the one.”

Said Walton, “I hope his bank goes under.”

THE NEXT STREAK?

Can it happen again? Is, say, an 89-game winning streak possible? Wooden believes it is.

“Certainly,” he said. “ . . . If someone had said before we won 88 consecutive games that someone would do it, what would you say? ‘They are nuts. They need to have their heads examined.’ Well, it’s the same today.”

Still, it’s been more than 17 years since the end of UCLA’s streak and more than 20 years since it started.

“Sports is like that,” Meyers said. “There is always something great or someone great. That’s what we felt about Bill. I’m sure that’s how the guys before us at UCLA felt about Kareem. It happens once in a great while. But you know, there have been many great players who have come along in the last 17 years. And nobody has done it yet.”