I haven't heard anyone on tv mention the dynamic of Larry Brown coaching against UCLA this week. Everyone talks as though Kansas was Larry Brown's first college gig, but it was actually at UCLA in 1980.

He was a great young coach who had been with the Nuggets a few years among other places (had played at UNC under Frank McGuire and Dean Smith). In '80 UCLA struggled with a young team, and got an 8-seed in the West. In the 8 vs 1 game they upset DePaul (and avenged their loss to the Blue Demons in the 1979 Elite-8 (DePaul was a cool team back then, definitely used to root for them too along with eastern indies)). Their 2 top scorers were "Rocket" Rod Foster and future HOFer Kiki Vandeweghe (uncle of current tennis star Coco Vandeweghe who won an early round match the other day at Indian Wells).

Anyway, the went on a run and made the finals, losing a great game to Louisville. Good storyline was that Denny Crum was a disciple of John Wooden. Also, it had been a relatively long Final Four drought for UCLA from 77 to 80.

UCLA had a lot of hot dog in them back then, so most people in my area rooted for Louisville. Also, Louisville had just beaten Iowa (Ronnie Lester and Steve Crafcisin), who had pissed off of bunch of us early Big East fans by beating Syracuse and Georgetown in consecutive games. As i mentioned one other time, the Hoyas led by 16 in that Elite-8 game vs Iowa. Grrrrrr. UCLA had beaten Purdue, who was led by the great big man Joe Barry Carroll. (Carroll was drafted by Golden State in 1980 with the #1 pick. They had gotten the pick by trading the Celtics both Robert Parish and their first-round 1981 pick, which turned out to be Golden Gopher Kevin McHale.)

So Louisville was our hero that year for knocking off both Iowa and UCLA. Of note was that Louisville made 3 Final Fours in 4 years, in 80, 82, and 83. And in 81 they were eliminated on a last second full court shot by Arkansas's US Reed.

Anyway, NBC had the game back then so Dick Enberg and Al McGuire did the game, at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. High drama, great storylines. This built upon the previous year's Bird-Magic final of high drama in the college hoops final.

This was i think the first year that a theme song was used in the tourney. Anyone remember Kenny Loggins' song "This Is It"...? They must've played that continuously that final weekend. You know how "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac reminds everyone of Bill Clinton? Well the infrequent times i hear "This Is It" (good tune by the way, featuring Michael McDonald in background vocals) reminds me of Dr Dunkenstein, Rod Foster and Larry Brown's Bruins.

Anyway, 1980 was an excellent year for hoops and i'm surprised no one has discussed the Larry Brown SMU-UCLA game dynamics... maybe cuz it ended up being vacated. He would be great to interview, must have a ton of great stories.

I think the big interview day is the day before the game, so that'd be Wednesday.

This goes back to what I said in the other threads about the TV execs having their hands somewhat on this, as this was quite possibly a made-for-TV matchup. It may also be why they were slotted here and not in the play-in round as they deserved (well, they deserved another fate but that's another story).

And I wonder how he felt when he was the Sixers coach facing the Pacers, among his other NBA stops.

Wow, Billy Jack, what a memory.

I remember that Iowa team that lost to Louisville in the final 4. Iowa was still coached by Lute Olsen at that time. Olsen of course would later leave Iowa to finish his hall of fame career at Arizona. I just think Olsen hated the Iowa weather and needed to get back to sunshine of the southwest.

Interestingly enough, UCLA's current coach is also a ex-Iowa coach, although Alford took a little detour through New Mexico on his way from Iowa to UCLA.

Its an interesting pattern. In the last 50 years, 4 former Iowa head coaches have ended up as head coach at a PAC school after leaving Iowa voluntarily without getting fired.

1980 was One of the Best years for Basketball. Sure there were fewer games to reach the National Championship games but Dang You faced nothing but the Best teams out there every tournament game. Murderers Row. Griff, Had Boston been able to have picked Him, might have been near the top All Time NBA favorite players. Utah, although a really good Team just couldn't deliver a large Marketable national interest. But Boston did strike Gold anyway with Kevin McHale.

(03-16-2015 09:49 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  This goes back to what I said in the other threads about the TV execs having their hands somewhat on this, as this was quite possibly a made-for-TV matchup. It may also be why they were slotted here and not in the play-in round as they deserved (well, they deserved another fate but that's another story).

And I wonder how he felt when he was the Sixers coach facing the Pacers, among his other NBA stops.

As often as Brown has changed jobs, it would almost be a surprise if he didn't have a connection to a tourney opponent.

(03-16-2015 09:49 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  This goes back to what I said in the other threads about the TV execs having their hands somewhat on this, as this was quite possibly a made-for-TV matchup. It may also be why they were slotted here and not in the play-in round as they deserved (well, they deserved another fate but that's another story).

Yes sir -- we tend to forget that the "Tourney" is a "made-for-TV" event, and get caught up in "this team 'deserves' to get in because they were 32-1 playing in a Texas Valley League", and forget -- this is a TV event in which the networks are selling ad time slots.

Those "ad time slots" require the tourney to draw "eyeballs", and what draws in those eyeballs are either brand names (Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, Indiana) or coaching personalities (Coach Cal, Tom Izzo, Coach K, etc).

Your mid-major powerhouses aren't going to draw the same number of eyeballs as your average P5, unless your school is named "Gonzaga"

UCLA, tainted as they may be (and they ARE), will draw eyeballs, and the secret "media delagate" on the committee likely pushed HARD for their inclusion. And probably due to the scarce number of "brand name" teams from the western US in the field: Arizona, UCLA, Gonzaga, and Oregon -- that's it.

$0.02

---

This "media reasoning" also explains why Kentucky and Duke have EASY paths to the Final Four, and possibly why Villanova got a stacked deck in the East.

But let's not overreact because as I've said in multiple threads while TV has its hands on this to a degree, past Final Four teams George Mason and VCU among others that were controversially selected would have never seen the light of day if this alleged big conference bias were true. It's just a year where the big dogs ruled the roost over the smaller ones.