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Fifty years later, UCLA of the East may have finally arrived.
When Maryland hired the late Lefty Driesell away from Davidson College, someone remarked that the Terrapins could become perennial national champions like John Wooden’s Bruins who were in the process of winning 10 NCAA titles in 12 years.
The theory was that if Driesell could recruit top ten teams to tiny Davidson, imagine what he could do at Maryland of the ACC, then considered by some the best basketball conference in the country.
Lefty said he liked that UCLA of the East pronouncement and didn’t dissuade anyone supporting his program from using it.
Driesell did sign great high school recruiting classes with the likes of Len Elmore and Tom McMillen, and in 1974 he might have had the second-best team in the country. The Terps lost the overtime thriller for the ACC tournament title to David Thompson and N.C. State, which went on to upset UCLA and then Marquette for its first NCAA championship.
It was the days when only one team from each league was allowed into the-then-not-so-Big Dance. The closest Driesell came to the Final Four was when his ranked Davidson teams lost in the Elite Eight to Carolina in 1968 and ’69.
UConn may be on its way to becoming another UCLA-type dynasty. The Huskies’ second straight national championship sets them up to have their own unbeatable entry.
Danny Hurley has entered the conversation as best coach in the country after a lifetime in the shadow of big brother Bobby and his father Bob Sr., known as one of the best prep coaches for many years.
The younger Hurley son rose from mid-major coaching obscurity to take over a UConn program that had already won four NCAA crowns.
Hurley doesn’t have one dominating big man like Wooden did with Lew Alcindor (later Kareen Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. But UCLA did win five championships with teams that looked like what Hurley has created.
He is reputedly an excellent tactician, which is evident by how the Huskies play unselfishly on offense and hard on defense. And now he can recruit star high schoolers or transfers from anywhere by saying, “Come and help us win more Big East and national championships.”
His 2024 team was made up that way, with talented and tough kids who outclassed their opponents over the last half of the season. A great example of that is senior Tristen Newton, the MVP of the Final Four and leading scorer with 20 points in the 75-60 win over Purdue Monday night.
Newton is from El Paso, Texas, who starred for three seasons at East Carolina before he entered the portal and listened to Hurley’s sales pitch.
Newton is one example why it is hard to pick the best player on this UConn team, which has three starters back and looks to be the new Beast of the East.
Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
