Trivia

Correct

Can't believe I missed that one.  Had a shot to beat them twice that year...unfortunately, HC didn't take the so-called conference they were in seriously, ended up second; and had to win on the road to go to the dance.   Perry Moss, ugh.

the ""ski" led me astray, thanks

This was the day after the SI story about point shaving broke.

I think you are thinking of Al Stazinski -- a good guy (who was, at least in part, responsible for creating my nickname "Breezy").

Well, even if that were true, that's not the real story.

In the January 1968 game against UCLA at Madison Square Garden, Al Stazinski hit a jump shot that gave HC an early 4-2 lead. As I recall, that was our only lead in the game.

It was the first game for UCLA after they lost to Houston the previous weekend.

Gerry Foley was also on that team. I don't remember whether he was prominent in that game. (I was happy to see Gerry at our 50th reunion 5 years ago.) My other vivid memories of the game. HC was behind 48-32 at the half, and the final score was 90-67. At the beginning of the game, Kareem started by guarding Ed Siudut, but when UCLA realized that Ed was an outside shooter and Keith Hochstein was the low post threat, Kareem switched to guarding Keith. There was one sequence where Keith tried for a layup, was blocked by Karem, got the ball back and tried again, another Kareem block, and then he went up a third time and was able to score.

Sat right under one of the baskets.

My takeaway - not statistically- but expectation-wise was our guards played exceptionally well against the two All-Americans including Hill Street Blues, Warren.

Alcindor was the main difference once he got going. And, yes, will bring up again how Ron T left our program before the season started as at 6’9” many thought he’d have a better shot handling Alcindor.

I’ve posted multiple times in the past that Lew seemed perplexed at his NY homecoming that there were so many people rooting for the Crusaders and not the hometown kid.

On campus, I was not the only one who felt disappointed that Ron quit before that season. I fully understand your support for your classmate but the height differential was simply too great. Not at all saying that Lew wouldn't have bested Ron but strongly believe the differential would have been smaller. Not enough to win, of course, but to make the final results a bit more respectable. But, we'll never know. 

And yes, no one handled Lew except in the game immediately before ours when UCLA played against Houston. And, in the rematch, he showed that was a fluke. 

Elvin Hayes averaged 37 points and 19 rebounds per game that season. I can’t recall how his stats compared with Kareem’s in that epic game. I believe that game, in the Astrodome, had the largest attendance for any basketball game in history. I don’t know if/when that mark was surpassed.

I have often said that this was the closest 23 point loss that I've ever witnessed.   Seriously, we all knew going into the game that after the Houston loss that UCLA was going to prove to the masses that they were indeed #1 and Houston was a fluke and on-campus discussions were that the Vegas betting line would have us as 50-60 point underdogs.

We went on an 8 game winning streak after this loss including wins over BC, Fordham, Syracuse, UMass, UConn and Providence:

1/26 U.C.L.A. (2) N6 L, 67-90

1/30 Boston University A W, 71-66

2/3 Boston College A W, 89-82

2/7 Fordham H W, 85-76

2/10 Syracuse H W, 95-79

2/14 Massachusetts A W, 70-69

2/17 Assumption H W, 91-77

2/22 Connecticut (ot) A W, 86-85

2/24 Providence A W, 64-62

2/27 St. John’s A L, 67-83

3/2 Boston College H L, 87-90


By way of an analogy, when I played baseball and we put a donut weight on the bat while on deck so that the bat seemed to be lighter when we got up to bat, UCLA was like that baseball donut. After that game, the following opponents just didn't seem nearly as tough.