January 19, 1974: UCLA loses a basketball game. This is a big deal: It hadn't happened in 3 years.
The basketball team at the University of California at Los Angeles had been coached by John Wooden since 1949. In 1962, he got them into the Semifinal of the NCAA Tournament -- what we would now call the Final Four -- for the 1st time. In 1964, he guided them to an undefeated season and the National Championship. He won another in 1965. He won another in 1967, undefeated. He won another in 1968. He won another in 1969. In those last 3 seasons, led by Lew Alcindor, later to change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the UCLA Bruins went 88-2.
Losing the future Kareem didn't stop UCLA: They won another National Championship in 1970. On January 23, 1971, they were 14-0, and traveled to South Bend, Indiana to play the University of Notre Dame. They lost, 89-82. This was a surprise, but not a shock: Notre Dame, although (then as now) far better known for football, was then ranked Number 9 in the country, and had the home-court advantage at the Athletic & Convocation Center.
Wooden got the Bruins to shake it off, and they won another National Championship. In 1972, with a new star center, sophomore Bill Walton from San Diego, they went undefeated and won another National Championship. In 1973, they went undefeated and won another National Championship. A joke went around that "UCLA" stood for "U Can't Lose to Anybody."
On January 19, 1974, they were 13-0, having an 88-game winning streak, the longest in college basketball history, when, again, they traveled to play Notre Dame away. Coached by Richard "Digger" Phelps, and led by a freshman from Washington, D.C. named Adrian Dantley, the Fighting Irish were 9-0, and ranked Number 2. Unlike UCLA's 1968 loss to the University of Houston at a packed Astrodome, this game was not billed beforehand as a "Game of the Century."
Had it been, it would have lived up to the hype. UCLA led by 11 points with 4 minutes to play. But Notre Dame went on a tear, and, with 6 seconds to go, took their 1st lead of the game, 71-70. One last-gasp effort by Walton missed, and the streak was over.
In the event that you should ever meet Bill Walton, never, ever mention this game to him. In his 1993 memoir Nothing But Net, he said it still bothered him. As of January 19, 2022, he is still alive, and he has complained about it many times since.
One week later, on January 26, there was a rematch at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles, and UCLA got its revenge, 94-75. Notre Dame finished the season 26-3, losing to Michigan in the NCAA Tournament's round of 16.
UCLA would get to the Semifinal, then lose to a North Carolina State team led by David Thompson. N.C. State then beat Marquette for the title. Without the graduating Walton, Wooden led UCLA to 1 last National Championship in 1975, and retired, winning 10 in 12 years. No other school has won that many. UCLA has since won an 11th title, in 1995.
Renamed the Joyce Center in 1987, in honor of school administrator Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, Notre Dame's basketball arena is a house of upsets. In addition to the 2 noteworthy wins over UCLA, Notre Dame also upset the basketball team then ranked Number 1 in the nation in 1977 (the University of San Francisco), 1980 (DePaul), 1987 (North Carolina), 1991 (UCLA again), 2012 (Syracuse), and 2016 (North Carolina again).
No men's basketball team has seriously approached UCLA's 88-game winning streak. UNLV, the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has the longest streak since, 45, in 1990 and '91, including the 1990 NCAA Final over Duke, who then ended the streak in the 1991 NCAA Semifinal.
But the women's team at the University of Connecticut now has 2 longer winning streaks: 90 straight from 2008 to 2011, and 111 straight from 2016 to 2018.
UPDATE: Bill Walton was lifted of the burden of having to live with this defeat on May 27, 2024.
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January 19, 1974 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Football season had ended 6 days earlier, with the Miami Dolphins beating the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl VIII. There were 5 games played that day in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks lost to the Phoenix Suns, 112-89 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.
* The Capital Bullets -- in their 1st season in the D.C. area after moving from Baltimore, they renamed themselves the Washington Bullets the next season and the Washington Wizards in 1997 -- beat the Golden State Warriors, 117-90 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.
* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 127-109 at The Omni in Atlanta. Despite the defeat, the Sonics' Dick Snyder led all pro scorers on the day with 41 points.
* The Kansas City-Omaha Kings beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 111-108 at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. Austin Carr, who helped Notre Dame beat UCLA in 1971, scored 31 in defeat for the Cavs.
* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 121-106 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. What former UCLA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a practicing Muslim, thinks of that nickname, only he knows, but he scored 34 points that day.
There were 4 games played in the American Basketball Association:
* The New York Nets bear the Memphis Tams, 103-98 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. Julius "Dr. J" Erving scored 34 points.
* The Virginia Squires beat the Utah Stars, 129-105 at the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.
* The Kentucky Colonels beat the San Antonio Spurs, 103-101 at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio.
* And the Denver Rockets beat the Carolina Cougars, 120-110 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. In anticipation of being admitted to the NBA (which they were, in 1976), and knowing that the NBA already had the Houston Rockets, the Denver Rockets changed their name, effective the next season, taking up the name of the NBA's 1st Denver team, the Denver Nuggets.
There were 6 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The New York Islanders played the Buffalo Sabres to a tie, 2-2 at the Nassau Coliseum.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-0 at the Montreal Forum, a truly embarrassing loss for the Stanley Cup holders.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Los Angeles Kings, 2-0 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 5-3 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* The Detroit Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-2 at the St. Louis Arena.
* And the Atlanta Flames, the California Golden Seals, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.
And there were 4 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The Jersey Knights beat the Vancouver Blazers, 5-4 in overtime at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.
* The New England Whalers beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 5-2 at the Boston Garden.
* The Chicago Cougars beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-2 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago.
* And the Los Angeles Sharks beat the Houston Aeros, 3-2 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.
Also, Arsenal and Manchester United played to a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in Salford, outside Manchester.
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