Elvin “The Big E” Hayes and yours truly, The Pecan Park Eagle meet up at a party in 2009. Fortunately for The Eagle on this festive night, there was no jump ball on who gets a place at the banquet table.
Forty-six years ago, on January 20, 1968, UH and UCLA played a game at the Astrodome that elevated the sport of college basketball forever to a new level of profitable market opportunities via national television. It was the thing that had to happen to make the now popular phrase, “March Madness,” meaningful to the tournament that determines the annual championship of basketball at the Division One level. The largest crowd in basketball history to that point in time, 52,693, turned out to watch the two top ranked teams in the nation play their hearts out in a venue built for the normally much larger crowds of successful baseball and football teams. The University of Houston Cougars, behind Coach Guy V. Lewis and star forward/center Elvin Hayes, took on the UCLA Bruins and center Lew Alcindor (later better known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar) in a late mid-season battle for domination.
They called their first meeting in the Astrodome by all the hubris that could be mustered. – It was “The Game of the Century,” And, indeed, it’s shaping up that way as the game that put college basketball on the map as a collegiate money sport. Also, UH won a thrilling game that night by a final score of 71-69, but UCLA would later exact revenge on Houston in the semi-final round by a runaway score of 101-69.
Here’s how Associated Press sports writer Bob Green handled the January 20, 1968 game in the Astrodome:
____________________
BIG E, COUGARS WHIP UCLA
52,693 See UH Prevail, 71-69
By Bob Green, Associated Press Sports Writer
Houston (AP) – Houston’s inspired Cougars, led by All American Elvin Hayes, stunned UCLA by 71-69 Saturday night and ended forever the Bruins’ myth of invincibility in college basketball.
A howling, happy crowd of 52,693 in the Astrodome – saw Hayes, Houston’s Big E, toss in 39 points and put the defensive clamp on UCLA’s Lew Alcindor.
Appropriately enough, it was Hayes’ two free throws in the last 28 seconds that broke a 69-69 tie and snapped UCLA’s 47-game winning streak, second longest of all time.
The Cougars, ranked No. 2 in the nation with a 16-0 mark going into their climatic showdown with top-ranked Bruins, turned UCLA’s own weapons on them – a super performance by a super-star and a tenacious defense.
Houston, sparked by Hayes’ 29 first half points, established a 46-43 margin and spent the second half fighting off challenge after challenge by the cold-shooting Bruins.
When it was over the delirious Houston fans and cheerleaders stormed onto the court, hoisted their heroes to their shoulders, and began a rhythmic chant, “We’re No. 1, we’re No. 1.”
If they are, they can thank their poise, which never broke in the face of the famous UCLA press defense.
Houston established a 13-12 lead with 13:45 to go in the first half on a basket by George Reynolds. The Cougars didn’t trail again, although tied three times.
The last came when Luscious Allen, high scorer for the Bruins with 25 points, dropped in two free throws with 44 seconds to go. The Cougars brought the ball down court and when Hayes was fouled by Jim Nielson, they went ahead for good.
UCLA had one more chance, but blew it on an uncharacteristic mix up in signals on which the Bruins’ Mike Warren tipped the ball out of bounds. Houston took over with 12 seconds left and ran out the clock.
“Isn’t that Hayes great?” exulted Houston Coach Guy Lewis. “Almost every game he plays is great.”
“Houston played a tremendous game,” said John Wooden, Coach of UCLA. “We’ll just have to start over again.”
~ Bob Green, Associated Press, Brownwood (TX) Bulletin, Sunday, January 21, 1968, Page 8.
____________________
The belated recent induction of the 92-year old Guy Lewis into the Basketball Hall of Fame helps make up for the fact he should have been there years ago, alongside the great John Wooden of UCLA and the two big name stars from the 1968 Astrodome monument game, Elvin Hayes of UH and Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar of UCLA.
Yours truly will always be grateful that he was there to see the great Astrodome basketball game of 1968 in person. As a Cougar, my only disappointment was one of brief inconvenience that used to happen in the low tech standard car days. In my excitement to reach the game, I later learned that I was one of a dozen or so people who had left their headlights on and run their batteries down that night. Thankfully, the Dome had battery jump-start people on hand to help out fans like me.
What a night that was. Nothing will ever spoil the memory of that experience. It was one of the great moments in the histories of UH, the Astrodome, the City of Houston, and the sport of college basketball.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
February 10, 2014 at 1:36 pm |
For what set the tone for the dynamic explosion of college basketball, the focus of support for UH basketball at this time should have set the stage for UH’s ongoing and still current preeminence in the college hardwood ranks. During this time, UT and A&M were still throwing granny shots into a peachbasket. UH basketball owned Houston and the media.
This event set the stage for the arrival of the Houston Rockets. Coupled with that is the local media’s need to defer to the wishes of the maroon and orange to diminish any focus on UH lest they dominate and usurp athletic prominence in Houston and the state and the nation, as is its birthright, and you have set the stage for UH’s basketball program being relegated to irrelevance.
If you think my statements are delusional and fantastical, well then consider the plight of Guy Lewis. If Guy Lewis had accomplished the same things in every respect at either UT or A&M such that he did at UH, then the powers that exert influence would have had Lewis in the Basketball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility for induction. If you cannot come to grips with the reality of that assertion, then you are indeed delusional. And the influence and power that the maroon and orange exerts extends well beyond even the omission of exerting power, to indeed diminish UH athletics in every way and at every turn.
So much for fair play, as dictated by hypocrites.
February 10, 2014 at 3:35 pm |
I doubt UT or A&M did anything at all to diminish the Cougars of that era as much as the fact that the Cougars didn’t play on the East Coast or Los Angeles or Kentucky or Indiana so the media prefers to forget they exist. Heck, look how long it has taken to get an Astro into the Hall of Fame. Houston is, sadly, a media backwater and winning national titles is about the only way they get any credit.
February 10, 2014 at 3:40 pm |
For years after January 20, 1968, when anyone pulled out a copy of the Guinness World Records book, I would tell them I was in the section under the largest crowd to watch a basketball game. When they turned to the appropriate page, I would point to the “3” in 52, 693 and claim it as my number. I sat in the nosebleed seats, so the players looked smaller than usual. I went to the first event at the Astrodome, the exhibition game between the New York Yankees and the newly christened Astros in April of 1965; I attended the first football game in the Dome between Tulsa and UH in September of 1965; and watched UH beat UCLA in the first basketball game there.
That’s why the prospect of the Astrodome being razed is so sad.
February 10, 2014 at 4:05 pm |
Even though the UH team played NCAA tournament games throughout the country during that period, and played UCLA in LA in ’69 I believe, the point is that the Rockets (which came here as a result of the perceived UH draw) and the maroon/orange influence OVER TIME, w/ the threat that UH posed in FB and BB, put them under the scrutiny and watchful eye of the 2 majors, and along w/ the media have done everything they can to diminish and frustrate UH over time with their basketball team now relegated to backpage filler. Should anyone need a narrative on what UT an A&M have done to directly and indirectly impact UH athletics in a negative fashion, they are either wearing the associative colored glasses from those schools or are not familiar with UH’s sports history to know better.
February 10, 2014 at 5:38 pm |
Wow, and some people think over the top conspiracy theories are just for politics! UH’s lack of national coverage comes from the fact they haven’t won anything. On the field or on the court, they have no national titles,(college golf and track don’t get coverage) and as Bob so wisely says above, that is what gets the notice of East Coast writers. Those writers don’t give a rat’s behind about UT or A&M either.
As far as local media coverage lacking, that is because nobody goes to their games. Period. Print media is a completely reactive industry. They hear from Horns and Aggie fans constantly. UT has the largest number of alumni in the nation, and Houston is the home to more of them than any other market. Until Cougar fans start supporting their programs in large numbers, they will get what they’ve been getting. Houston writers have a lot to cover and that starts with our pro sports and is followed by the college programs that enjoy exponentially more support.
Just for the record, UH has twice as much Basketball Hall of Fame representation than those scheming conspirator schools combined. (Hayes, Drexler, Olajuwon and Lewis). Texas has Slater Martin and Jody Conradt, a women’s coach. And A&M barely has any basketball players in their own school Hall of Fame.
February 11, 2014 at 1:35 am |
i don’t have time or space here to inform the uniformed or those using faulty logic and parallels and unable to respond correctly to the statements made, but instead using twisted logic …………read the statements accurately and then respond in kind
February 14, 2014 at 5:40 pm |
What’s funny is that UT tried and failed to pull off another Game of the Century with UCLA in Houston in 2012, but this time at Reliant Stadium. These cocky teasips think they own Houston so much so these days, that they did not think it odd at all to be scheduling a basketball game with the Cougars’ old foe at a venue of that size.
Needless to say, the Longhorns were the laughing stock of the day, as they played to an almost-empty stadium.
February 16, 2014 at 1:15 pm |
Brian, the Teasips are so cockey because there are more UT grads in Houston than Cougar High grads in the world. Same can be said for TAMU. I could have a field day with this one but in deference to my good friend Bill, will defer. However, one of my finest memories is attending that Game of the Century (and it was) and the story behind getting my ticket ($7.00) signed by the Big E (his handlers lost it). Hook ’em, Coach Strong.