The post below stimulated some potent reactions. LaFong
now wonders what your favorite UCLA basketball game ever was?
A choice might be based on a number of things that may be
peripheral to the game itself: Your location at the time, whom you
were with (my favorite Michigan football game was a shared with
my father at Michigan Stadium; the outcome of the game was
secondary), or you-name-it.
I was sitting at court side with a Nikon camera, pretending to be
a legitimate photographer throughout Alcindor's first varsity game
vs. usc. He scored 56 points.
So I go back quite a ways.
But that isn't my favorite.
Nor Edney, nor the Morrison Gonzaga game, nor UCLA-Illinois.
It was played on March 22, 1968. A rematch of the "Game of the
Century" vs. Houston. The game was played at the Sports
Arena, but there was an overflow crowd in Pauley watching a
somewhat inferior broadcast.
It was the National Semifinal game.
Alcindor was healthy (eye injury affected him in the Century game).
Everything flowed brilliantly from the start.
The Bruins demolished the Cougars, 101-69. I've heard that someone
taped the game and joined it with a symphony recording.
I was twenty-one ...