Vic Bubas On The Dunk

We’ve been talking about Vic Bubas since he died Monday and here’s a great clip from YouTube with Bubas in 1967 talking about the dunk, which had just been outlawed.

Basically he says people pay to be entertained and they like the dunk and we’re stupid to not have it.

He said the coaches were not consulted and predicted the rule would last one year.

It lasted longer - David Thompson could never legally dunk in college although he took a technical in his last home game just to show people what they had been missing.

The ban lasted until 1976, meaning that college fans never saw David Thompson (other than that one time) or Julius Erving dunk.

And the reason?

It was simple.

In 1966, it was clear that Lew Alcindor, now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was the most dominant player to enter college in years. The UCLA freshmen, ineligible, beat the varsity badly in an exhibition game, 75-60 - and UCLA had just won back-to-back NCAA titles.

It was a naked attempt to limit Alcindor’s dominance. The same things had happened earlier with Bill Russell, who saw the lane expanded to try to force him away from the basket. And when he first got to Kansas, Wilt Chamberlain, who struggled with free throws his entire career, just backed up and dunked from the foul line.

Not for long.

The dunk returned and has been a fan favorite ever since though as Wooden and his contemporary Pete Newell would have told you it still counts just two points.

In fact, in his legendary big man camp, Newell tried to tell a kid just that and the kid said “don’t mess with my game, man.”

“Son,” Newell told him, “you have no game.”