A Close One At Last

Well, UCLA saved the East from firebugs, but Rootie Kazootie's last game was plenty exciting.

Villanova opened in a two-three zone, the sort that had given UCLA so much trouble in the West Regional game against Long Beach State. The Pennsylvanians held Wicks and Curtis Rowe in check fairly well, but 6'9" Center Steve Patterson (see cover) made nine of 13 shots, inside and out, and had 20 points at the half. ( Patterson turned down two pro offers to forgo his senior year at UCLA. "I know I'm not a famous entity," he said, "but I might have been infamous if I had left and UCLA lost a national championship because of that.")

With five minutes to go in the first half and UCLA holding a 39-32 lead by virtue of its furious pressing defense and some hot long-range shooting, the Bruins went into a stall to force Villanova out of its zone. Villanova obliged, just slightly, but that was enough for UCLA to move ahead by 11 points.

In the second half, UCLA spread out again. Wooden was afraid the long shots, so necessary against the zone, would stop dropping and he was certain his team could score on Villanova's seldom seen man-to-man. He was wrong. Villanova played man-to-man as if it had just discovered a new toy and the game turned into a battle to the end. When UCLA called a time out with 4:53 remaining, the Wildcats were only four points behind. Their man-to-man had held the Bruins to just three field goals—all layups. And the fans who could see at all were being treated to a superb show, a duel between All-America Wicks and All-America Howard Porter.

Twice Porter's jump shots closed the margin to three points, but three points were as close as Villanova would come. When Patterson's layup, aided by a goal tending call, made it 66-60 with 38 seconds left, Wicks went into his mugging act. He was justified. He had his third national championship.

Patterson finished his Saturday chores with 29 points, a career high. Porter, who scored 25 points, was voted the tournament's outstanding player. And Wicks had the game ball in his clutches. "Lew said he came to win three," Wicks said. "And I did, too."

To the credit of Villanova, this was the first time in years UCLA had had to work up a sweat in an NCAA-final game. Indeed, during the Lew Alcindor era it often seemed there were no final games—just passionless exhibitions. But this season's Wicks team, which was not up to its immediate predecessors, had grown used to close calls. The Bruins even lost once, to Notre Dame by seven points. They beat Stanford by only five points. They beat USC, after trailing by nine points with only 9� minutes to go. They trailed Oregon by one point with less than a minute to go when Bibby stole the ball and drove in for the winning basket. Wicks hit a 20-foot jump shot in the final seconds to beat Oregon State. Two foul shots with seven seconds to go were the margin over Washington State. Rowe's jump shot with less than a minute left beat Washington. And UCLA squeezed past Long Beach State by two points.

"At times it looked bad," said Wooden. "But somehow we stuck in there. Except for the Notre Dame game, we always ended up where we wanted to be at the end."

Afterward, as Wooden stood where he wanted to be, with his seventh NCAA championship wristwatch in his hand and interviewers and well-wishers surrounding him, it was easy to recall the brief clipping he had produced at the coaches' convention the day before.

It was one of those 25-years-ago-to-day features from an Elkhart, Ind. newspaper and it told how, in 1946, Coach John Wooden of South Bend Central High, a recent service returnee, came to speak at a winter sports banquet. "They had hoped to line up some prominent college coach," the paper said.