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Bob Boyd deserves a statue at USC just for taking the coaching job. He replaced Forrest Twogood, who had been steamrolled his last three years by UCLA. After winning two straight NCAA Championships and going 58-2, UCLA had a "down year" in 65-66, the year before Boyd arrived at SC, but sitting on the Frosh team for Wooden in the just opened Pauley Pavilion that year were Lucius Allen, Lynn Shakelford and Lew Alcindor. Once eligible for the Varsity in 66-67, Boyd's first year at SC, that group would win three straight NCAA championships, go 88-2, and largely be considered the greatest college basketball team of all time. One of those two losses, Wooden's only at Pauley Pavilion during those three years, was to Boyd's USC team (more on that later).
Boyd had coached at the HS, JC and Div 1 level, going 41–13 in 2 seasons at Seattle Univ. USC's first choice to replace Twogood was Jack Gardner, the former SC player who had just been to the Final Four with Utah. He was 56, however, and chose to stay at Utah, with who was on the UCLA Frosh team a likely factor in the decision. In the end it came down to Bill Sharman, coaching at Cal State LA, and Boyd. A deciding factor may have been the support of the JC hoops coaches in the area, who wrote a letter to Athletic Director Jess Hill in support. It was also reported that JC player Bill Hewitt would go to SC if Boyd was the coach. Whether this was a factor or not isn't known, but it would be a huge change for SC as Hewitt would be SC's first big time African American recruit in basketball.
So on March 23rd, 1966 Boyd was named SC's head coach, and Sharman later that day took the Warriors job. Boyd's first team in 66-67 was 13-12, led by first year player Bill Hewitt, who averaged 19.5 points and 11 rebounds. Boyd's first game ever as SC's head coach was also Lew Alcindor's first college game ever, the season opener at Pauley. They played the 30-0 Bruins four times that year, so that 13-12 first year record was a lot better than it looks. SC got killed in those first two games, so in his first home game against UCLA at the Sports Arena, Boyd would try something that really pissed off John Wooden. Boyd decided to play a stall and the Trojans didn’t shoot for 2-3 minutes at a time. USC led 17-14 at halftime and the game was tied at the end of regulation before the Bruins won in OT before 14,417. In those days, every Monday featured a basketball writers’ luncheon with all the college coaches from Southern California. “Too many coaches think too much of basketball to do (what USC did),” John Wooden said. USC athletic director Jess Hill was next and stood up for his coach. “Bob had my support in everything he did. Any team that attempts to run against UCLA is doomed for devastation,” Hill said.
The next year in 67-68 Boyd added JC transfer Calvin Mack to go along with Hewitt, and SC finished 18-8, second in the conference. The most important accomplishment that year was Boyd winning the biggest recruiting war John Wooden ever lost. 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. He hit it off with Boyd, who convinced him he could build a team with Westphal to knock off UCLA. Wooden was not shy about his disappointment in losing Westphal to Boyd: "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. I’ve seen a lot of basketball players, and Paul Westphal is the only one who from what I saw was truly ambidextrous."
In that recruiting class also were Ron Riley, one of the greatest rebounders in Conference history, and Joe Mackey from Arizona, who was also a fantastic high jumper. A year later USC would add Mo Layton, a JC guard from Phoenix, to form the core of one of the best teams in Conference history.
The next year SC was 15-11, but experienced one of the greatest wins in school history. Boyd and the team planned all year for how they would slay the dragon at the end, since their two games against UCLA came in the last two games of the year. Boyd knew he needed to slow the game, but not just stall. He came up with a shuffle cut, where the post man would set a pick up top and the guards would drive the lane, and if no shot was there, they would run it again. On Friday night USC scared the Bruins down to the final possession, but Lynn Shackleford hit a wild shot to send it to overtime, and UCLA won 55-51 for Wooden's 17th consecutive win against SC. The next night the two teams played again in Alcindor's last game at Pauley. He was 88-1 with two Natties up to this point, and had established himself as the greatest college player ever. The same plan worked to perfection, and USC won 46-44, ruining Alcindor's last home game and breaking Wooden's win streaks of 41 in a row overall, 45 consecutive in Conference play, and 51 straight at Pauley. Boyd told reporters "They are lucky we didn't beat them twice!"
The next year SC ran out the core of Westphal, Layton, Riley and MacKey, and got to 6th in the AP poll after a 101-98 road win at 18th ranked LSU. They would be up and down from there, losing some leads late in conference games, but were on a three game win streak going into the 2 game end of season series vs #1 UCLA, who were 28-1. The first of the two were at Pauley, and this time SC didn't need any type of stall to pull out a 87-86 win, for an unheard of 2 game win streak at Pauley As she was down big at half, but then went from zone to man. Wooden would comment later that was the biggest lead he had ever lost .They lost the next night at the Sports Arena, but the stage was set to finally topple the Giant in 70-71 with the entire core of the team coming back.
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, 1st in the UPI poll, on Saturday, Feb 6th at the Sports Arena. USC basketball was now a big deal, with lots of media coverage, like this TV segment:
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.
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. The story of the 70-71 USC basketball team is this: in the 83 years of NCAA basketball champions, only 13 teams have won the title with fewer losses than USC had in 70-71, and only six of those were schools other than UCLA.
After only losing Layton, the 71-72 team had high hopes, and were ranked 3rd in the preseason AP poll, but just like 10 years earlier when they were ranked 4th in the preseason, this season was a big disappointment. They started the season 10-2, including a win at Allen Fieldhouse, but then went 5-8 the rest of the way. Without Layton they were 8 points worse on offense, and a point worse on defense. UCLA, now with Bill Walton at center, killed them a combined 160 to 122.
Boyd kept the ball rolling however, going 18-10 in 72-73, and ending up 17th in the AP poll. Led by Jr Dan Anderson and Sophomores Gus Williams, Clint Chapman and John Lambert, SC would finish 2nd in Conference. The next year the same group would go 24-5, finished 1 game behind UCLA in conference, and would play three rounds in something called the NCIT. In their last year together, Williams Lambert and Chapman were at one point 13-1, but finished the season 5-7. Williams had one of the best seasons at SC ever, averaging 21 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists.
To understand this run by SC, and why it is so frustrating to look back on, based on today's 64 team format SC would have likely gone to 6 or 7 tournaments in Boyd's first 9 years, with one certain #1 seed, but instead they went to zero. The 24-2 team was a catalyst for the NCAA to expand the tournament, but that is of little comfort to USC fans, who saw great basketball teams live in the shadow of a giant.
Next Time: Boyd departs, Pimm, Olsen, facilities and Stan Morrison
Boyd had coached at the HS, JC and Div 1 level, going 41–13 in 2 seasons at Seattle Univ. USC's first choice to replace Twogood was Jack Gardner, the former SC player who had just been to the Final Four with Utah. He was 56, however, and chose to stay at Utah, with who was on the UCLA Frosh team a likely factor in the decision. In the end it came down to Bill Sharman, coaching at Cal State LA, and Boyd. A deciding factor may have been the support of the JC hoops coaches in the area, who wrote a letter to Athletic Director Jess Hill in support. It was also reported that JC player Bill Hewitt would go to SC if Boyd was the coach. Whether this was a factor or not isn't known, but it would be a huge change for SC as Hewitt would be SC's first big time African American recruit in basketball.
So on March 23rd, 1966 Boyd was named SC's head coach, and Sharman later that day took the Warriors job. Boyd's first team in 66-67 was 13-12, led by first year player Bill Hewitt, who averaged 19.5 points and 11 rebounds. Boyd's first game ever as SC's head coach was also Lew Alcindor's first college game ever, the season opener at Pauley. They played the 30-0 Bruins four times that year, so that 13-12 first year record was a lot better than it looks. SC got killed in those first two games, so in his first home game against UCLA at the Sports Arena, Boyd would try something that really pissed off John Wooden. Boyd decided to play a stall and the Trojans didn’t shoot for 2-3 minutes at a time. USC led 17-14 at halftime and the game was tied at the end of regulation before the Bruins won in OT before 14,417. In those days, every Monday featured a basketball writers’ luncheon with all the college coaches from Southern California. “Too many coaches think too much of basketball to do (what USC did),” John Wooden said. USC athletic director Jess Hill was next and stood up for his coach. “Bob had my support in everything he did. Any team that attempts to run against UCLA is doomed for devastation,” Hill said.
The next year in 67-68 Boyd added JC transfer Calvin Mack to go along with Hewitt, and SC finished 18-8, second in the conference. The most important accomplishment that year was Boyd winning the biggest recruiting war John Wooden ever lost. 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. He hit it off with Boyd, who convinced him he could build a team with Westphal to knock off UCLA. Wooden was not shy about his disappointment in losing Westphal to Boyd: "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. I’ve seen a lot of basketball players, and Paul Westphal is the only one who from what I saw was truly ambidextrous."
In that recruiting class also were Ron Riley, one of the greatest rebounders in Conference history, and Joe Mackey from Arizona, who was also a fantastic high jumper. A year later USC would add Mo Layton, a JC guard from Phoenix, to form the core of one of the best teams in Conference history.
The next year SC was 15-11, but experienced one of the greatest wins in school history. Boyd and the team planned all year for how they would slay the dragon at the end, since their two games against UCLA came in the last two games of the year. Boyd knew he needed to slow the game, but not just stall. He came up with a shuffle cut, where the post man would set a pick up top and the guards would drive the lane, and if no shot was there, they would run it again. On Friday night USC scared the Bruins down to the final possession, but Lynn Shackleford hit a wild shot to send it to overtime, and UCLA won 55-51 for Wooden's 17th consecutive win against SC. The next night the two teams played again in Alcindor's last game at Pauley. He was 88-1 with two Natties up to this point, and had established himself as the greatest college player ever. The same plan worked to perfection, and USC won 46-44, ruining Alcindor's last home game and breaking Wooden's win streaks of 41 in a row overall, 45 consecutive in Conference play, and 51 straight at Pauley. Boyd told reporters "They are lucky we didn't beat them twice!"
The next year SC ran out the core of Westphal, Layton, Riley and MacKey, and got to 6th in the AP poll after a 101-98 road win at 18th ranked LSU. They would be up and down from there, losing some leads late in conference games, but were on a three game win streak going into the 2 game end of season series vs #1 UCLA, who were 28-1. The first of the two were at Pauley, and this time SC didn't need any type of stall to pull out a 87-86 win, for an unheard of 2 game win streak at Pauley As she was down big at half, but then went from zone to man. Wooden would comment later that was the biggest lead he had ever lost .They lost the next night at the Sports Arena, but the stage was set to finally topple the Giant in 70-71 with the entire core of the team coming back.
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, 1st in the UPI poll, on Saturday, Feb 6th at the Sports Arena. USC basketball was now a big deal, with lots of media coverage, like this TV segment:
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.
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. The story of the 70-71 USC basketball team is this: in the 83 years of NCAA basketball champions, only 13 teams have won the title with fewer losses than USC had in 70-71, and only six of those were schools other than UCLA.
After only losing Layton, the 71-72 team had high hopes, and were ranked 3rd in the preseason AP poll, but just like 10 years earlier when they were ranked 4th in the preseason, this season was a big disappointment. They started the season 10-2, including a win at Allen Fieldhouse, but then went 5-8 the rest of the way. Without Layton they were 8 points worse on offense, and a point worse on defense. UCLA, now with Bill Walton at center, killed them a combined 160 to 122.
Boyd kept the ball rolling however, going 18-10 in 72-73, and ending up 17th in the AP poll. Led by Jr Dan Anderson and Sophomores Gus Williams, Clint Chapman and John Lambert, SC would finish 2nd in Conference. The next year the same group would go 24-5, finished 1 game behind UCLA in conference, and would play three rounds in something called the NCIT. In their last year together, Williams Lambert and Chapman were at one point 13-1, but finished the season 5-7. Williams had one of the best seasons at SC ever, averaging 21 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists.
To understand this run by SC, and why it is so frustrating to look back on, based on today's 64 team format SC would have likely gone to 6 or 7 tournaments in Boyd's first 9 years, with one certain #1 seed, but instead they went to zero. The 24-2 team was a catalyst for the NCAA to expand the tournament, but that is of little comfort to USC fans, who saw great basketball teams live in the shadow of a giant.
Next Time: Boyd departs, Pimm, Olsen, facilities and Stan Morrison