THE BIGGEST WINNER : Wooden’s Run: a 10-0 Record in Title Games

The NCAA basketball tournament may spark a flood of memories for John Wooden, but he has no desire to turn back the clock.

“I don’t miss it at all,” the retired UCLA coach said. “Maybe I had enough of it.”

Wooden, 77, had more coaching success in the NCAA championships than any college basketball coach before him--and quite likely more than any who will follow.

In one of the most impressive reigns in sports history, Wooden’s Bruins won a remarkable 10 NCAA championships during a 12-year stretch between 1964 and 1975, including seven in a row. Since then, no team has won two in a row.

The 50th NCAA Final Four basketball championship will be held April 2 and 4 in Kansas City, where Wooden won his first title, and when it’s over, Wooden’s teams will have won fully one-fifth of all title games ever played.

Although Wooden doesn’t regret that he no longer is involved in the tournament, he enjoys his memories of the Bruins’ trips to the Final Four.

“There are certainly a lot of memories there,” he said. “We played in 10 championship (final) games and won them all. We lost twice in the semifinals, once by two points (72-70 to Cincinnati in 1962) and once in double overtime (80-77 to North Carolina State in 1974).”

Wooden is every bit as proud of some of his squads that didn’t win the national title.

“The first time we lost in the tournament (in 1962), and I am about as proud of that team as any I ever had,” he said. “At the beginning of the season, we weren’t very good and we kept improving. The game went right down to the wire, and they made a basket right at the end.

“We came such a long way, and sometimes that gives you as much pride as winning.”

Although a trip to the Final Four was almost a given for UCLA, with such stars as Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, Wooden points out that the Bruins won in a variety of ways.

“Each of our NCAA championship teams were distinct, each had a particular character,” Wooden said. “We won five NCAA championships with Bill and Kareem, and we won five without them.

“I think we won once with the youngest team (in the tournament), once with the least experienced team, once with the shortest team. Some of the other players who weren’t as well known stand out in my mind, too.”

He mentioned centers Doug McIntosh (1964-’66) and Ralph Drollinger (‘74-’76) and forward Kenny Washington (‘64-’66) as players who shined for the Bruins in NCAA title games.

“I think some of my most pleasant memories were when some player that wasn’t expect to contribute very much came in and did a fine job for us,” he said.

Wooden’s unprecedented success at UCLA did not come overnight. He became the school’s head coach in 1949 and it wasn’t until 25 years later that he won his first NCAA title.

Asked what advice he’d give coaches heading into the tournament, Wooden said: “I think I made mistakes early, before we finally won, by working players too hard and forgetting how we got to where we were.

“I added some new things, things that weren’t necessary. You need to keep them tuned up, but not work them too hard leading up to it. You don’t need to add new wrinkles.

“I’ve said before that I think basketball is a rather simple game that coaches complicate.”

Asked if he agreed with observations that the NCAA tournament was wide open this year, with no clearly dominant teams, Wooden said: “I think there are a lot of good teams this year, but none of what I call ‘very good’ teams.

“Usually there are four or five very good teams, proven teams, but I don’t think that’s true this year. The two most consistent teams I’ve seen are Arizona and Temple, which also have the best records.

“I saw Duke and North Carolina, and neither looked like championship caliber. Although those teams are known for discipline, they really didn’t play with discipline.”

Wooden said he doesn’t like some aspects of the current NCAA tournament format. “I don’t like the 64 teams. I would like to see every Division I school in it. It would be just one weekend and then you would have a field of 64,” Wooden said.

Wooden also advocates splitting up the money among all the schools, giving each something like $53,000 for each round they play in, which would mean that the winner would get approximately $450,000. Indiana received more than $1 million for winning the tournament last year.

“I’m certainly not for any more games. I think they’re playing too many games now for college students,” Wooden said. “They play every day of the week, every time of the day, whenever television wants.

“And all the timeouts--sometimes it takes 10 minutes to play the final two minutes of the game--destroy the flow of the game.

“I think all that is bad for the game.”