Bradley Was Already Gathering Support

Upstaging an NCAA basketball championship game is a tall order, but Bill Bradley almost did it, 34 years ago tonight.

At Portland, on a night UCLA won its second consecutive national championship, Bradley and his Princeton Tigers were playing Wichita State in the third-place game, which was discontinued after 1981.

Bradley scored 58 points before fouling out with 5:04 remaining in Princeton’s 118-82 win. He received an ovation that lasted several minutes.

The next day, several coaches said they favored raising the number of personal fouls allowed or any other rule change that would enable teams to keep their best players in the game.

Bradley was 22 for 29 from the field, 14 for 15 from the line. In the semifinal game, he scored 29 in a losing effort against Michigan.

His 58 points broke Oscar Robertson’s tournament scoring record of 56. Notre Dame’s Austin Carr scored 61 in 1970, and those two remain atop the single-game scoring list in the tournament.

In the championship game, Gail Goodrich scored 42 points in a 91-80 win over a Michigan team that was up against a far quicker team.

Rated No. 2 in the polls behind Michigan most of the season, UCLA took a 47-34 halftime lead, thanks in no small part to sixth man Kenny Washington, playing for the injured Keith Erickson.

UCLA became the fifth team to win back-to-back championships since the tournament began in 1939.

Also on this date: In 1934, Olympic track and field gold medalist Babe Didrickson pitched one inning for the Philadelphia A’s against the Brooklyn Dodgers and gave up a walk and hit a batter, after which the A’s executed a triple play.