re: When did you start watching college bball?

UCLA and Lewis Alcindor. John Wooden will never be matched, the Wizard of Westwood was genius leader and motivator.

Stopped when tournament expanded past 64. The game is garbage now.

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UCLA and Lewis Alcindor. John Wooden will never be matched, the Wizard of Westwood was genius leader and motivator.

Stopped when tournament expanded past 64. The game is garbage now.

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UCLA, along with all the PCC programs of those days like Oregon, OSU, SoCal, Stanford, etc., all benefited greatly from being the biggest cheating conference in the history of college sports ... bar none, in ALL sports.

And while I agree, The Wizard was great, he really didn't become great until he started signing great players. He went a couple of decades of not being so great until the entire PCC started cheating their assess off.

Still, I remember vividly watching the Game of the Century in the Astrodome between Alcindor and Elvin Hayes ... Hayes had the advantage of the home court crowd for the National Championship, when Houston upset UCLA in that game.

But every South Carolinian old enough to remember ... we all became basketball fans when Frank McGuire arrived in 1964. I was 12 at the time, just old enough to start knowing and understanding college sports. There was no garage, no backyard, no pasture, that did not have a backboard on a wall or a tree where you did not see kids shooting hoops in this state after McGuire arrived. Which is why we still produce so many players these days ... he changed things in this state on so many levels where college basketball was concerned.

Paul Dietzel arrived a year or two later and football really took off then as well ... 1966.

When I say "took off," with regard to both sports and both coaches, it's because they both built things while here, a new arena, an expanded stadium ... the Gamecock club boomed.

But Wooden was a cheater, god bless him, and much as SoCal dominated in baseball back in those days, and Oregon in track, and SoCal in football ... the PCC was the cheatingest conference in the history of college sports and that's why they were eventually forced to disband, as a conference. Which, of course, led eventually to the formation of the PAC-8.

In the early 90's when the team I like had Robert Horry, Sprewell, Cheatum, Caffey and of course James 'Hollywood' Robinson.

Probably at birth.

I grew up going to Barnhill Arena and most all the home games. I remember my grandfather having ear muffs for my ears when we went. That place was as loud as any in the country.

Same time I started watching other sports, out of the womb. First memory is Laettner.

Good gosh, so many of you are so young.

I've got children older than some of you.

I remember watching college basketball on black and white TVs, with fuzzy pictures and hand held banners on the screen. Where once in awhile they would flash a picture of the scoreboard and clock so you would have some clue about how much time as left.

We were temporarily living in Louisville in '66 and I distinctively remember not only The Baron's Runts that year, and their run to the Championship game, but I also got to see Wes Unseld play, live and in person, several times at Louisville. Those Louisville vs Cincy games back on those days were intense.

For those not familiar with "The Baron" and his "Runts" ... I'm referring to The Baron of the Bluegrass and his "Rupp's Runts." There are probably even some young KY fans around here not familiar with that ... but '66 was a helluva year to be living in the state of Kentucky when it came to basketball. We came back to SC in '67 and McGuire has us ginning by then.

BugaPainTrain7

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When did you start watching college bball?

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I don't.

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But did you walk back and forth to school with no shoes for miles in the snow?

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Up hill both ways,too.

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UCLA and Lewis Alcindor. John Wooden will never be matched, the Wizard of Westwood was genius leader and motivator.

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Remember the game of the century in 1968 between UCLA and Alcindor vs Houston and Elvin Hayes?