A Near-Perfect Night for UCLA and Walton

After 26 years, it remains the showcase performance of NCAA basketball championship games.

In leading UCLA to its seventh consecutive title, Bill Walton was . . . well, Memphis State’s Wes Westfall said it best after Walton had made 21 of 22 shots and UCLA had beaten Memphis State, 87-66:

“He’s just . . . indescribable,” Westfall said.

Walton, finishing his junior season, routed the Tigers with catch-and-shoot basketball, taking lob passes from Greg Lee (14 assists) and Larry Hollyfield to score on turnaround jump shots.

Walton’s 44 points broke the title-game scoring record of 42 set in 1965 by another Bruin, Gail Goodrich.

It was UCLA’s 75th consecutive victory and 36th straight NCAA tournament win, and afterward Coach John Wooden called the team his greatest at UCLA.

Walton, who also had 13 rebounds, played his last 9:27 with four fouls, then left with 2:51 remaining because of a sprained ankle, to a one-minute standing ovation from the 19,301 in St. Louis Arena.

Afterward, Walton and his business advisor, Sam Gilbert, left for a meeting with Don DeJardin, general manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, who owned draft rights to Walton. The rumor: The 76ers were offering Walton a $2-million contract to leave UCLA early as an NBA hardship case.

Walton remained at UCLA for another season, though the Bruins failed to win their eighth consecutive title, finishing in third place in the 1974 tournament.

Also on this date: In 1951, about 3,000 people went to USC to see Joe DiMaggio and the New York Yankees play the Trojans in a spring training game. They left talking about a 19-year-old rookie, Mickey Mantle, who hit a home run that would stand as one of the most prodigious of his career. It cleared old Bovard Field’s right-field fence and the width of a football practice field behind it. Mantle hit a second homer and a bases-loaded triple and New York won, 15-1. . . . In 1973, George Sisler, who hit .400 twice in a 15-year major league career, died at 80. It was Sisler’s record of hitting in 41 straight games in 1922 that Joe DiMaggio broke with 56 in 1941. . . . In 1922, Johnny Weismuller broke four world swimming records in one afternoon.