The Lost Weekend
by Telemachus on Feb 15, 2009 11:26 AM PST
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It became known simply as the Lost Weekend.
< snip >Twenty-four years later, Bill Walton still cringes at the memory of a team that went to Oregon with an 18-1 record and control of the Pacific 8 Conference and was spit out like some Division II program.
The above and following passages are from "The Bruin 100, The Greatest Games in the History of UCLA Basketball," © 1999 by Scott Howard-Cooper, Addax Publishing Group. February 15-16, 1974, the Bruins under Coach Wooden lost to Oregon State (61-57) and Oregon (56-51).
35 years ago, almost to the day, a Bruins team (that would end up in the Final Four) suffered a pair of unexplicable losses, much like our recent journey into the desert.
Indeed, it was the way the Bruins lost.
Friday at Corvallis, they blew an eight-point lead from early in the second half and were outscored, 26-17, in the final 12:51 against a team that came in 9-10 and started three freshmen.
< snip >"I guess you should be concerned when a team that's only 2-5 in our conference beats you," Coach John Wooden said, smiling wearily.
< snip >Saturday at Eugene, the Ducks, all of 11-9 when a national powerhouse came to McArthur Court, shot 61%, led by a sophomore named Bruce Coledren, who made 12 of 14 attempts. They stalled late and held UCLA without a point for almost 5 1/2 minutes, this team that a week earlier had lost in Los Angeles by 18 points.
And legendary Coach John Wooden, one year away from retirement and his 10th National Championship, acknowledged he might have made a mistake.
"The worst thing a coach can do right now is panic," Wooden said after the Oregon game. "I'm not going to do that now, especially with a team that has an 18-3 record.
"I made some changes in our offense this past week to give us more movement. I thought it would make us sharper, but instead it had made us hesitant. Maybe, in retrospect, I've made a mistake by making this change."
Nothing is automatic about this game. That's why the games are played. Mistakes are made and the measure of a man is how he responds to adversity. I'm proud the Bruins didn't pack it in yesterday when the deficit got to 25 (a lot of "fans" did). They showed character to get the deficit down to 9 late in the game. A couple of breaks and maybe some more threes fall and it could have been "heartbreak city." Didn't happen, but we know the Caretaker is busy with game tapes figuring out what went wrong. Meanwhile, the team continues to learn, mature, and build character through adversity.
Isn't that what it's all about?
Go Bruins!
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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Great Timing.
This is a perfect example of what we’ve been talking about.
A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. John Wooden
No time to panic
Man do I remember that weekend! I was in my 3d year at UCLA and I was stunned for at least a week after that. I watched both games in ‘74 and thought that the players were just going through the motions and expecting to win because of the 4 letters on their jerseys. They didn’t play with a sense of urgency and at times seemed bored. I sensed the same thing yesterday in watching the Arizona game, however I loved how we fought back from 25 down to cut it to 9 with and we had our chances if we hadn’t missed some key shots. Coach Wooden’s ‘74 team did recover from that lost weekend and made the Final Four. I believe Coach Howland’s boys will bounce back from the disappointment in the Desert. They will need a big injection of energy from the freshmen. JH needs to dominate a game to prove the preseason press clippings were right about him. DG needs to step up big to upgrade our rebounding and inside scoring. With their quickness, I’d like to see ML and JA pressing the ball more.
hey all
this was a crazy weekend for me, between taking a friend to the emergency room with a split head, having my car backed into, and bailing another friend out of the local jail, UCLA ball was definitely on the back burner for me these last couple of days.
From all I’ve heard and read, and now seen via Tele’s high/lowlight packages, it seems like a tough loss at St. carried over to Tuscon. After reading Nestor’s thoughts post Arizona, I knew it must of been ugly, and while the stat sheet doesn’t necessarily show the lack of intensity, the turnovers were glaringly bad.
anyway, just wanted to say hello, and lets keep our heads up, I really do look forward to seeing how we respond to the gut check. I think we’ll come back with some fire.
hopefully i can be a bit more active in the community after initiation in early march, but for now Go Bruins!
O.A.
Horrible memory
bruin75 will remember the circumstances of those losses. The 1974 Bruins were by far the best team in the country, UCLA was seven-time defending national champion, and the team was coming off that storied loss to Notre Dame, in which they gave up the last twelve points of the game, that broke an 88-game winning streak. So the Oregon weekend was a complete shock to the system.
A little more than a month later, the Bruins would lose the game Walton can’t forget, in the semifinals at Greensboro, to a North Carolina State team they’d beaten by 20 on a neutral court a few months earlier.
That team’s weakness was at point guard. Tommy Curtis was good but couldn’t hold a lead, and Coach hesitated to play the talented but out-of-control sophomore, Andre McCarter.
This year, we’re suffering from too-high expectations. The ‘74 team didn’t lose two top-five draft picks (that would be the ‘70 team, which happily had Sidney Wicks and won a lot of close, tough games). The ’74 team didn’t rely on freshmen—or first-year starters, since freshmen weren’t eligible—for a starter and three important subs. We’ve known all along that this was a work in progress. The highs—SC, Notre Dame—have been super, and we have to expect the occasional low.
These guys will take us as far as they can. Sit back and enjoy the good times, try to ignore the bad, and let’s see if CBH can pull them through again in March.
I remember that too.
That and the loss to ND that stopped our win streak were my two darkest days of Bruin basketball.
I may work with the Waves, but I'm still a Bruin!
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