YouTube Gold: John Wooden’s Last Championship

We will never see the likes of UCLA’s dynasty again

In a video we linked recently, Bob Knight basically said he didn’t respect UCLA’s John Wooden. Most American basketball fans were in awe of UCLA’s astonishing dynasty in the 1960’s and early ‘70’s.

But Kentucky fans?

We’re guessing here, but think about it - Big Blue Nation probably saw the Wizard of Westwood and his dynasty as an interregnum. What was that compared to what Adolph Rupp had done?

Yeah, it’s not logical, but we are talking about Kentucky fans here, so logic is not necessarily involved.

UCLA won their first titles in 1963-64, beating Duke in the title game, and 1964-65.

Texas Western famously won in 1965-66 and then UCLA won it every year from 1967 to 1974. David Thompson and NC State beat UCLA and then the Bruins came back the next year and won Wooden’s final title over Kentucky.

It was a bit of a surprise. Kentucky was a massive team, with a lot of talent that would return in 1978 to defeat Duke’s most interesting Final Four team of all time, and the great Bill Walton had moved on. But UCLA still knew how to win and, much like its first win over the Blue Devils in 1963, leveraged speed and athleticism to overcome a bigger (and slower) team.