NCAA at 75 - College Basketball
9. UCLA, 1969
Just think about this for a second: Lew Alcindor played four years at UCLA, three years with the varsity team. The man who would become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar got to be a college senior. That's impossible to imagine, isn't it? But it also offers the easy explanation for the Bruins' title. Combine the mastery and brilliance of John Wooden with the talents of Alcindor and how doesn't UCLA win a national championship? This team won without second-team All-American Lucius Allen, who was suspended for the 1969 campaign and went on to become the No. 3 pick in the NBA draft. It didn't matter. In the national championship game, Alcindor scored 37 points and pulled down 20 rebounds, and UCLA became the first team to win three consecutive national titles. At the time that seemed like a pretty significant accomplishment. Who knew there were four more to come? -- Dana O'Neil
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