UCLA Not Best College Basketball Program of All-Time

by Keith
(South Bend, IN)

If the criteria is championships, UCLA is the clear winner. But that is only one part of college basketball. Further, to use NBA draftees as a criteria for a college basketball program's greatness is short-sighted. There are plenty of student athletes who go pro--and even excel in those ranks--who came out of schools that did not have stellar basketball programs.

No, the criteria needs to be several items in order to establish an overall best program. All time wins, overall winning percentage, longevity across the years, and so on should be the way to decide which program is the overall best.

As a side note (since you put Kentucky into the evaluation), a Wooden coached UCLA team never won against a Rupp coached Kentucky team. Check the UCLA website for all their seasons and you will see Wooden is 0 and 3 against Rupp.

Wooden's first--and only--win against Kentucky was after Rupp retired when he beat Joe B. Hall's Kentucky team. You will also see that Kentucky holds the edge on UCLA over the years (6 and 4). Then, prior to wooden, UCLA was not a contender in college basketball. They have never paralleled Wooden's tenure.

To be sure, UCLA is like the Roman Empire of college basketball. But Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, and several other universities are true dynasties. These schools and a few others have maintained the dominance they had before Wooden took over at Westwood long after Wooden retired.

Don't get me wrong. Wooden is undoubtedly the best college basketball coach ever. But UCLA is not the best program ever.

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Mar 25, 2011
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Wooden the what?
by: rusoviet

All one had to know about Wooden was his refusal to ever confront Sam Gilbert and his (Gilbert's) tenacles on the UCLA program. Proof was the year after Wooden retired Gene Bartow was stunned at Gilbert's access and what came with it. When he confronted Gilbert, Gilbert threatened Bartow's life.

This was not an idle threat - Gilbert was a bagman for the mob. He personally arranged the financing used for the construction and mgmt. of the main casino 'The Bicycle Club' in Bell Gardens-CA.

When Gilbert was finally being readied for indictment he died within days of the indictment being handed down by the US Fed So. FL District. His son took the full hit.

Wooden claimed his conscience was clean per Gilbert - sure it was I mean Gilbert took one look at 'woodie' and knew there was no problem from gramps aka Saint John The Divine. They even named a church in Manhattan Island after him or was it for JFK?

Saint's bore the hell out of me especially since most are frauds - Wooden the fraud.

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