Fall of the Bruin Empire

Richard Nixon was one of the most sports-minded presidents to ever occupy the White House.  Being a sports fan was his one recreation, and his tenure in office corresponded with a dramatic era of change in American sport.  The American Football League merged into the National Football League; Title IX became law and led to the creation of women’s sports; and, according to J. Samuel Walker and Randy Roberts in "The Road to Madness: How the 1973-1974 Season Transformed College Basketball" (UNC Press, 2016), the National Collegiate Athletic Association dramatically revised college round ball. 

College basketball had been an immensely popular sport for decades.  In the 1950s its attendance figures were on par with those of professional baseball.  Its popularity grew in the 1960s for the same reason that the National Football League overtook Major League Baseball—television.  (The professional version of the game would not move to the forefront until the 1980s, when the National Basketball Association finally got decent television coverage.)  Despite growing media interest in the college game, Nixon turned a blind eye to the sport even though a California school—the University of California, Los Angeles—was dominating play during his years in office, and his administration was littered with UCLA alumni.  He did send UCLA center Bill Walton a congratulatory telegram.  Walton, who’s politics were almost 180 degrees opposite of Nixon, kept the telegram framed on his wall, enjoying it in a perverse way.    

The fact that UCLA was located in the second largest media market in the country helped generate interest in the game. Under the leadership of coach John Wooden, the Bruin Bears had won 9 of the last 10 national titles.  At the start of the season, UCLA was in the process of setting a record of 88 consecutive wins.   Wooden set the gold standard that other coaches were trying to best.  Walker and Roberts offer accounts of how programs across the country were trying to compete with UCLA.  The University of Maryland and North Carolina State University both tried and failed, losing games to the Bruins early in the season.  Maryland lost by a frustratingly close margin of one point.  The University of Notre Dame finally broke UCLA’s winning streak on January 19, 1974. 

Then, as now, the national championship tournament was the culmination of the season.  In 1974 the tournament took only 25 teams; conference champions and a select number of independents.  The National Collegiate Athletic Association had already decided to expand the tournament to 32 teams.  The NCAA rejected a proposal that the tournament invite schools that had finished in second place in their conferences.  The result of this decision was that a lot of good schools never got into the tournament.  The Atlantic Coast Conference had three teams in the top ten of the Associated Press poll, but only conference champion North Carolina State went to the tournament.  It was also close for UCLA, as it found itself in a do or die situation in the last game of the season against the University of Southern California.  Whichever school won took the Pacific 8 Conference title and went to the tournament.  UCLA won, but faltered in the tournament, facing the NC State Wolfpack in the national semifinals.  The game drew 27 million television viewers and UCLA lost.  The championship game drew an even larger audience on television and NC State beat Marquette University.  Three months later, the NCAA decided to invite the conference second place team to open up the competition, including more schools and generating higher television ratings.  UCLA’s domination of college basketball was hardly over.  The Bruins won the tournament the next year, but the games were generating even bigger television ratings numbers.    

This book is a lot like college basketball itself.  It is interesting at first, and picks up speed as you keep going.  The argument that the season transformed college basketball is there, but the authors could have advanced it more.  Opening up the tournament to more teams probably made it harder for a school to dominate like UCLA.  The coverage of the post-season tournament is nothing short of riveting.  Walker and Roberts give due attention to the conference tournaments and early tournament games, and, given the authors' detailed reporting,  it's easy to understand why people consider the ACC title game between Maryland and North Carolina State to be the greatest game in conference history.  Since few of us probably remember the outcomes of the regional semifinals and finals, there is a lot of, "They-lost-to-who! How?" type reactions. 

In short, this book is a fun read just in time for March Madness 2017.