[ad_1]
Thirteen years earlier, Lefty Driesell made a famous comment at his introductory news conference about his lofty aspirations for Maryland that would forever link the two programs. For better or worse, no one let him forget it.
“I feel Maryland has the potential to be the UCLA of the East Coast or I wouldn’t be here,” Driesell, who was coming off back-to-back trips to the Elite Eight with Davidson, told reporters on March 19, 1969. “I’m leaving a team I feel could have won the national title next year. But here I think we can win it more than one year.”
Three days later, John Wooden’s Bruins won their fifth title in six years.
Maryland won the NIT in Driesell’s third season. The next year, with the Terps 20-5 heading into the ACC tournament, Driesell had a message for those who questioned why his team hadn’t accomplished more.
“We’re doing the best we can but it took John Wooden something like 15 years to get a national champion,” Driesell told reporters. “It takes time to build up tradition. If people think we thought we were going to do it quickly, they were kidding themselves.”
Driesell acknowledged that he had invited criticism and created unrealistic expectations with “the ‘UCLA of the East thing.’”
“I really never said that I would make Maryland the UCLA of the East,” he said. “I said that Maryland should become the UCLA of the East. Someday I think this school will be the UCLA of the East, even if I’m not here. But you can’t expect too much too soon.”
In 2013, Driesell said he didn’t even come up with the quote, which would follow him throughout his career. He claimed it came from Jay McMillen, who starred at Maryland 1964-67. McMillen’s younger brother, Tom, the nation’s top high school basketball recruit, would commit to Maryland over North Carolina in 1970. During his 2018 induction speech at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Driesell joked that he was “kind of drunk or something” when he said it. “But we were pretty good,” Driesell added.
Driesell and Maryland got their first crack at UCLA on Dec. 1, 1973 at Pauley Pavilion.
“If we could beat UCLA, the fanfare and publicity would be far greater for us than if we won the national championship,” Driesell told reporters ahead of the matchup. “I’ve told the team that if we win this game, people will remember us a lot more than if we win a national championship. I just figure you don’t get an opportunity like this too much in your life to stop a winning streak like they have.”
Top-ranked UCLA increased its winning streak to 76 games with a rout of Arkansas the day before it faced Maryland. The Terrapins gave the Bruins all they could handle, but a turnover by John Lucas in the final seconds preserved UCLA’s 65-64 win. A photo of Len Elmore defending Bill Walton was featured on the cover of “Sports Illustrated” the following week.
“I thought we played as well as any team I’ve ever coached,” Driesell said. “I’m not happy but I don’t feel that bad right now.”
Both teams were ranked in the top five when UCLA came to College Park for the Maryland Invitational the next year. UCLA’s Dave Meyers scored a career-high 32 points and Marques Johnson scored 11 of the Bruins’ final 15 points against a three-guard Maryland offense in an 81-75 win.
“While UCLA went about everything in a very businesslike manner, the Maryland players appeared ready to crash through the nearest wall before the game began,” The Post’s Paul Attner wrote.
“I could sense that they were more worked up than we were,” Meyers said. “They were trying to beat a tradition. All we wanted was to win a game.”
It would be six years before UCLA and Maryland scheduled another home and home series. In December 1981, the Bruins routed the Terps, 90-57, at Pauley Pavilion. Driesell and the Terps would get their revenge — in double-overtime — on Dec. 23, 1982.
Ben Coleman scored 27 points and Adrian Branch added 26 in Maryland’s 80-79 win in College Park. Freshman Len Bias started for the Terps, but missed all five of his field goal attempts.
“When a guy whups you the first time, you want to whup him the second time,” Driesell said afterward.
“After two overtimes and years of frustration for Lefty Driesell, Maryland finally has beaten UCLA,” ESPN’s play-by-play man, who referenced Driesell’s “resounding boast” upon being hired, said after the final horn sounded.
It didn’t make the next day’s paper, but Chaminade shocked Ralph Sampson and No. 1 Virginia in Honolulu later that night.
Maryland and UCLA have played four times at neutral sites since their last game in College Park. UCLA defeated Maryland in the Wooden Classic in Anaheim in 1995, and Maryland downed UCLA in the Puerto Rico Shootout three years later. The Bruins stomped the Terps, 105-70, in the second round of the 2000 NCAA tournament. Their most recent meeting was in 2007, when Kevin Love’s double-double led UCLA to a 71-59 win in the semifinals of the CBE Classic.
[ad_2]
Source link