“UCLA Dancing Across the Decades” 

April 3, 2021

Coaching and Talented Swing Players Bridge the 50 years between the 1971 NCAA Title Team and the 2021 Bruins

Indianapolis - With the 2021 edition of the UCLA Bruins mens basketball team capturing the attention of college basketball teams, it might be worth a look back.  Okay, I almost always look back, it is kind of my thing, and I just needed an opening line to get going.

These days, the NCAA is most often resembling one of those cartoons where the explorer is in hot water, but they do manage to throw the best tournament in sports each year with the trademarked multi-billion dollar event known as “March Madness”.  It was built over decades, and over many of those decades the Bruins have been the marquee attraction.  This year is another opportunity for UCLA to shine, and it comes 50 years after UCLA won the schools seventh title in 1971.

It is fitting that the tournament is hosted in the state of Indiana, where the undisputed greatest coach in collegiate basketball history hails, the one who won 10 NCAA’s in a 12 year span, the legendary John Wooden.  As a player, Wooden led Martinsville High School to the state championship in 1927 and then was a three time all-American at Purdue.  He was, true to his nature, most proud of winning the Big 10 Medal of Honor, which included recognition of his academic achievements.  Wooden had a strong relationship with his father, Joshua, who instilled education and strong moralistic traits in his son.

Wooden would need those traits and his smarts to adjust his UCLA teams in the years between two of the best to ever play college basketball, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton.   

Lew Alcindor checked into UCLA in time for the 1966-67 school year, but, due to one of those ridiculous, hard to explain NCAA rules that forbid freshman from playing varsity, the best player in the country spent the year doing his thing on the UCLA frosh team.  Then, in the 1967, ’68 and ’69 seasons, Alcindor led the Bruins to an 88-2 record and three NCAA championships, picking up three Most Outstanding Players awards along the way.  When Alcindor graduated, UCLA opponents figure it was their time to win, before Wooden brought in another big man. 

Wooden showed he was well equipped to coach any sized team, as a 5’10” guard balling in Indiana, the “Indiana Rubber Man” had reached the high school state title game three times and his Purdue team was named the NCAA champion.  As a coach, he had plenty of success at various schools before he reached UCLA.  

Lead by a balanced scoring team in the 1969-70 without the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,  UCLA went 28-2 and won the schools sixth national championship.  6’8” sophomore Sydney Wicks, with help from teammates like Curtis Rowe, shut down Jacksonville and the 7’2” Artis Gilmore in the tournament finals.  

Hmmm…now what you do you do, opposing schools?  Well, opponents pondered, now now that Bruin floor leader John Vallely has graduated (yes, the best collegiate players stayed in school and graduated way back in the day), we’d better get a banner before that big red head playing for the frosh team gets up on varsity.

Not so fast, rest of the country.  50 years ago, the 1970-71 UCLA squad was even better than the year before.  During the season, the combo of Wickes and Rowe would combine for something like 40 points and 25 rebounds per game. They went 29-1, beating Villanova for UCLA’s seventh championship and fifth in a row.  Their only loss came at Notre Dame, where Austin Carr, one the all time greats of college basketball, (and it’s a shame he is not often argued as such), dropped 46 on the Bruins.

Today, the Bruins are once again headed up by a Midwest born and raised coach who also shares with Wooden a strong relationship with his father.  The story of Mick Cronin and his dad, Hep, has been front and center for the 2021 Bruins run to the Final Four.  

It’s a sample study in sociology, in particular the history of Los Angeles  high school basketball, to look at the 1971 and 2021 UCLA teams and their two stars roaming the court 50 years apart. 

Both Wicks and Rowe of the ’71 title team were products of the LA City Section.  They played at a time where the off-season for high school players was truly an “off season”.  Not that they didn’t play pick-up ball, but they certainly did not play organized elite club basketball during the summer, because that didn’t exist.  Both were African-American and grew up at time in Los Angeles when the racial dynamic played an instrumental role, like it does today.

Sydney Wicks, the pride of the  Alexander Hamilton High School Yankees, and Curtis Rowe from the John C. Fremont Pathfinders, proved themselves in city section play.  Both played for schools with cool and relevant mascots, a strong city section trait, and both were prodigious scorers.  Wicks was a first team “All-City”  selection and Rowe, who led the Pathfinders to the city championship, was the MVP.  

The two stars for this years UCLA Bruins share a few things in common with Wicks and Rowe.  Jaime Jaquez, Jr. and Johnny Juzang are gifted, versatile players that each go 6’6” and that can be counted on this season for close to 30 points and 10 rebounds per game.  They too represent the ever changing racial make-up of Los Angeles, Jaquez of Mexican descent and Juzang born of a Creole father and a Vietnamese mother.     

They of course played off-season or “summer basketball”, in fact, for a club that is named for a part of the city, the Compton Magic.  But things are much different now for standout players.  That off-season team is an elite AAU travel team, one that provides young basketball players a chance to see far more their neighborhood playgrounds.  

Jaquez and Juzang  were both terrific high school players, each “All-CIF” selections that led their teams to winning seasons.  But they were not stuck to settle for an over-burdened school district. 

The schools they attend provided opportunities far beyond what the resources of LAUSD are capable of.  Jaquez attended Camarillo High School, part of the Oxford Union High School District, which was named a California Department of Education Distinguished School.  Juzang was a class of 2019 graduate of Harvard-Westlake, one of the most prestigious private schools in the country.  While still so many young people in Los Angeles are trapped in a no win situation, it is at least something that some can find another way. 

Those differences aside, these two sets of swing players and their teams, 50 years apart, are connected through the decades by the city of Los Angeles, a coach with a strong foundation and the undeniable tradition of UCLA basketball.

Denny Lennon is the host of YouTube Live Shows and the Video Podcast, “Sports Stories with Denny Lennon”

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