Originally Posted By: SeaJay
UCLA back in the day was pretty dominant on the college BBall scene with Kareem (then known as Lew) leading the way. Bill Walton's crew was also pretty dominant.
As dominant as they were, the Tournament back then was hardly as competitive as it is today. Back then I don't recall more than a half dozen teams having any chance of winning the whole thing. Today, you might have to include 20-30 teams in such a list. UConn won the Tourney 4 yrs ago and they came in ranked around 25th-30th nationally (a 7 seed). Kareem's and Walton's field only had 32 teams....one less game to play. It was about as competitive as the women's game is today. Much easier for a 1-2 seed to get knocked out early today than it was 45-50 years ago. And these days, a Loyola of Chicago can make a run taking out top seeds along the way...and that was nearly impossible in the old days.