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Memories: Michigan-UCLA 1975 NCAA tourney game....and more

Jim__S

Heisman
May 29, 2001
10,150
38,132
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Facing UCLA brings back memories of our 1975 NCAA tournament loss to UCLA. They beat us in overtime and went on to win John Wooden’s final NCAA title. If memory serves me well (and it may not) we had a chance to win the game on the final play of regulation but C.J Kupec’s shot fell short.

It was a strange season. First for UCLA, after their great Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes led team was upset by NC State in 1974. Earlier in the 1974 season their insane unbeaten streak had been snapped by Notre Dame ((John Shumate, Adrian Dantley, Gary Brokaw). But they came back and surprised in 1975, led in part by talented sophs Marques Johnson and Richard Washington. It was probably Wooden’s best coaching job in the tournament and he retired a winner.

Michigan, on the other hand, made the tournament with a team that had only one player, Kupec, who went on to see any serious minutes in the NBA. And Kupec’s minutes were limited to serving as a back-up to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center for two years. Certainly our least talented NCAA tourney team, with expectations having been diminished after Campy Russell took the then relatively rare step of declaring early for the NBA draft after his junior season in 1974. That 1975 team would provide the foundation for the 1976 team that went on to lose in the NCAA finals to unbeaten Indiana. Wayman Britt, John Robinson and Steve Grote. They would be joined on that 1976 team by the team’s two new stars- freshman center Phil Hubbard and junior college transfer guard Rickey Green (As an aside, another transfer, Mike Smith, may be the fastest guard that I have seen at Michigan since Green).

Back in 1975 I was still young and had delusions that if we were good enough to just be a shot short in beating the great UCLA (you gotta realize that back then they were like Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and UNC all rolled into one and still some) that if we made that shot we could have gone on to win the tourney. Of course not. The college hoops landscape was changing and Wooden was smart to leave while still on top. Indiana went unbeaten that next season but since 1976 there have not been dominant programs like the mid-70s UCLA and Indiana teams. In part because it was the last generation where the college stars remained in school for four years. Once kids started leaving after their soph or junior seasons it was already enough to tip the balance of power away from having that sort of an unbeaten team.

Which brings me to Gonzaga, an outstanding team which is unbeaten. The thing is, would they be unbeaten if they had played in the Big Ten? Who knows. But it could be interesting to see how we do against them if we each win our next game. It would bring up memories of 1976 Indiana-Michigan. That 1976 Indiana basketball team had five starters who would each go on to play at least five years in the NBA. A great team. Not sure Gonzaga has that type of talent. On the other hand, Michigan had just Hubbard and Green who would go on to have NBA careers. A freshman center and speedy point guard. Sound familiar? Hunter Dickinson and Mike Smith. Now Smith is not the NBA prospect that Green was, but that 1976 team also did not have a Franz Wagner nor the depth of talent that our current team possesses. So I would argue that the gap in talent between 2021 Gonzaga vs. Michigan would be substantially narrower than the the gap between Indiana and Michigan in 1976. And if we were to lose to Gonzaga and they went on to win the title? Michigan would have the unique distinction of having lost to the last two unbeaten teams in college basketball history in the final four. Throw in our Fab Five team loss to what many consider to be the greatest Duke team, a loss to UCLA that was the book-end to the greatest dynasty in the history of the sport and our loss in 2018 to a Villanova team that lapped the field and one could make the case that Michigan has had the unique bad luck of having some of their greatest teams in the same year that some of the most dominant teams in NCAA history went on to beat us in the tournament. And I have not even mentioned the 1965 NCAA title game loss to UCLA. Our Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin-led team came up one game short. Didn’t only cost us a title but probably also cost us a recruit- Lew Alcindor, now better known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I sort of wonder what heights we could have achieved if we had landed Lew. But now back to 2021 and reality. Time to get some serious revenge on UCLA and position ourselves to shock the world against Gonzaga.
 
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