Champions Again

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

It was billed as the rematch of the decade: the University of Houston, No. 1 -ranked college basketball team, against No. 2 U.C.L.A. in the semifinals of the N.C.A.A. championship at Los Angeles. Last year in the same N.C.A.A. round, U.C.L.A. whipped Houston by a score of 73-58 and went on to win the championship. Then, last January, Houston turned the tables with a startling 71-69 midseason upset that knocked the Bruins from the No. 1 ranking and smashed their 47-game winning streak. Now it was Houston with its own 32-game winning streak on the line, and U.C.L.A. was the one thirsting for revenge.

Rematch? Mismatch was more like it. By game time, the odds makers had installed U.C.L.A. as an eight-point fa vorite on the strength of a tougher schedule and no losses since the Houston upset. But no one remotely expect ed anything like the slaughter that followed. Attacking from the first tipoff, Coach John Wooden's Bruins outran, outpassed, outshot, and outrebounded the Cougars. Final score: U.C.L.A. 101, Houston 69.

Five Doubles. When the slaughter was over, the first question was how Houston could ever have beaten U.C.L.A. The second was why the sportswriters could have considered the January game anything but a fluke, a good team catching a great team on a very off night. Without making excuses, U.C.L.A.'s Coach Wooden at the time pointed out that 7-ft. If -in. Lew Alcindor was still seeing double, after an eye injury, that Guard Mike Warren, the team's playmaker, was weak with flu.

Last week Wooden's Bruins were all healthy, and hungry as their name. Every one of the five starters scored in double figures, played with poise, aggressiveness and precision rarely seen outside the pros. There was Alcindor, pounding Houston shots right back at the shooters, sinking soft hooks, seizing 18 rebounds and clearing the lane for the driving lay-ups of Lucius Allen; Mike Warren, brilliant with his passing and playmaking; Lynn Shackelford, killing the Cougars with his left-handed jump shots from the corner; and Mike Lynn, matching Allen and Alcindor with 19 points.

Houston's 6-ft. 8-in. Elvin Hayes, who had pumped in 39 points in the January game, was so closely guarded that he scored only 10 points. His teammates fared no better. Pressed everywhere on the court, Houston threw passes out of bounds, dribbled on the baseline, managed to lose the ball 24 times on mistakes.

It could have been worse. When the U.C.L.A. lead reached an astonishing 44 points with 5 min. to go, Wooden mercifully removed his starters one by one. Alcindor left with 2:04 to play, and raised his long right arm high in the air with the index finger extended to signify No. 1. Who could argue? Said Houston Coach Guy Lewis: "That was the greatest exhibition of basketball I've ever seen in my life."

For U.C.L.A., it meant an unprecedented fourth N.C.A.A. championship in five years--although to make it official the Bruins did have to report for the Saturday night finals, where their superior balance, quickness and experience overwhelmed a game North Carolina team 78-55.

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