Dale Robertson @sportywineguy

A huge anniversary looms Saturday night, folks. 50 years ago UH beat UCLA in The Game of the Century, and there’s zero hype in those 5 words. It really was. Changed college hoops forever. It’s timely to remember that John Wooden ultimately agreed to be a party to the circus — spectacle wasn’t the Wizard’s style — when all parties agreed that UCLA’s young play-by-play man, Dick Enberg, would call the game for Eddie Einhorn’s TVS Network. Enberg, of course, would go on to become one of sports’ most enduring, and endearing, broadcasters before passing away last month at the age of 82, having retired from doing Padres play-by-play just a year earlier. Another name to remember is Ted Nance, the best sports information director ever (and the kindest, based on how he treated a certain fuzzy-haired 18-year-old wannabe sports writer for the Daily Cougar a couple years later). It was Nance and his UCLA counterpart, J.D. Morgan, who convinced Wooden and Guy V. Lewis that a prime-time Saturday night game in the Astrodome, a rematch of the previous spring’s NCAA semifinal won by the Bruins, could do wonders for the game. They were right, and they got a bit lucky, too. UCLA’s defending national champions came in 13-0 and ranked No. 1. The 14-0 Cougars were No. 2. With Elvin Hayes scoring 39 points, UH won 71-69 before a crowd of 52,693. Today, you’ll find at least 100,000 folks in Houston who will swear they were there.