History of SC Hoops: Top 25 all time teams, #1

1971, Bob Boyd, 24-2

Dan Hurley is not the first college coach to turn down the Lakers HC job. That distinction belongs to Bob Boyd. After Butch van Breda Kolff gacked the 1969 NBA Finals 7th game at home by not playing Wilt Chamberlain in the 4th quarter, Lakers owner Jack Kent Cook offered the job to Bob Boyd. The USC coached turned the job down, because he truly thought the freshman he had on the team could take down Wooden and UCLA. The 71 team would end up having the leading rebounder in school history, and three 1,000 point career scorers. Paul Westphal from Aviation high was the top guard recruit the county, and was named Mr. Basketball in California. Westphal was wired a little differently, and saw joining UCLA as sort of the easy way out. I have it on good authority UCLA was supposed to leave him tickets for a game at Pauley and didn't, and that sealed the deal for SC. Wooden was not shy about his disappointment in losing Westphal: "In my career as a teacher and coach at UCLA, the most valuable recruit we ever lost was Paul Westphal. He’s the one who got away. He attended all my basketball camps, and I was sure he was going to come to UCLA. He changed his mind at the very last moment and went to USC. I’ve seen a lot of basketball players, and Paul Westphal is the only one who from what I saw was truly ambidextrous. I’ve had a lot of them who were pretty good with the off-hand. But you could tell whether they were left-handed or right-handed. With Paul, I believe that he could have shot with either hand and it would have looked exactly the same." Also in that recruiting class were Ron Riley, one of the greatest rebounders in Conference history, and Joe Mackey from Arizona, who was also a fantastic high jumper. In 71 Riley would have four of the school's all-time twelve 20 point, 20 rebound games. USC would then add Mo Layton, a JC guard from Phoenix, to form the core of one of the best teams in Conference history.

In the 69-70 season SC beat UCLA at Pauley for the second consecutive year, and so for the 70-71 Season, SC was ranked 7th in the AP preseason poll, and then got to 3rd after beating 17th ranked Florida State on Dec 19, and 18th ranked LSU on Jan 2. SC then waxed 18th ranked Illinois 81-68 at a Chicago Stadium double header. Number 1 UCLA, however, lost at Notre Dame on Jan 23, so was ranked 3rd going into the game against 2nd ranked USC, first in the UPI poll, on Saturday, Feb 6th at the Sports Arena. This is the highest a USC basketball team has ever been ranked.

It was all in front of Boyd and the team. They had no losses and UCLA had one, so if SC could win at home they were in control of their destiny. They had won two of the last four against UCLA, and a win in front of a sellout crowd of 15,307 would give them one foot in the NCAA tournament, breaking UCLA's champion streak of four straight. At the Sports Arena that year so far the average margin of victory had been 18, with a high of 47 when they hung 122 points on Alabama.

The biggest game in SC history started out great, with SC in control through the first half. They grabbed their biggest lead at 59-50 with 9:30 left. Then, for lack of a better term, SC choked. Boyd said after the game, "we went dead in the water, I can't really tell what caused it. We got careless and took some ill-advised shots". SC still held the lead 59-56 with 6:30 left, but then lost the lead 60-59 with 5:30 left. Westphal took some bad shots and had a couple of turnovers, but also Boyd for some reason had Mo Layton, who was the player of the game so far, on the bench. Once UCLA got the lead Wooden lost all interest in basketball- the-way-it-should- be-played, and went into a stall. The final score was 64-60, with USC scoring 1 point in the last 9 1/2 minutes. This game was the start of UCLA's 88 game win streak. Sydney Wicks scored 24 on 9-11 shooting, and Mo Layton led SC with 22 points. I recently met an alum who was at the game, as well as the two wins at Pauley. This was by far and away the most disappointing night of his life.

The team was devastated, with Westphal and Mackey staying up all night talking about what had gone wrong. Two days later a 6.5 earthquake hit Sylmar, so that kind of gave everyone some perspective. USC would win the next eight, so was still in good shape going into the last game of the year at Pauley. That, however, was a bridge too far, and UCLA would win the game 73-62, and go onto win their 5th straight NCAA title. USC would finish 5th in both polls, its highest ever, at the end of the season and this team, along with the excluded 1974 five loss Maryland team, drove the expansion of the NCAA tournament.

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History of SC Hoops: Top 25 all time teams, #1