Seventh Straight

It was embarrassing, to say the least, when experts predicted that the U.S. basketball team would finish no better than second or third in Mexico City. After all, the game is an American invention, and the U.S. had never failed to bring home a gold medal. It had never even lost a game in Olympic competition (overall record: 66-0).

But this year's team hardly ranked with the star-studded squads of the past. Notably absent were the top two collegiate players of last season: U.C.L.A.'s Lew Alcindor, who pleaded pressure of studies, and Houston's Elvin Hayes, who chose to sign a $440,000 contract with the pro San Diego Rockets instead of going to Mexico. The tallest man on the starting five was 6-ft. 8-in. Spencer Hay wood, a 19-year-old sophomore from the University of Detroit. The other starters included a 24-year-old Army captain and a 28-year-old rubber-company foreman. And with only three weeks to prepare for the Olympics, the makeshift U.S. squad hardly seemed a match for taller Russian and Yugoslavian teams that had been playing together ever since the 1964 Olympics.

As it turned out, it was the experts who were embarrassed. The man responsible for the red faces was U.S. Coach Hank Iba, 64, the grand old man of U.S. college basketball from Oklahoma State University. Iba worked so hard at molding his players into a cohesive unit that he lost his voice. They responded by rattling off eight straight victories, including a surprisingly easy 73-58 triumph over Yugoslavia. They also got a big break when the Yugoslavs beat Russia 63-62 in the semifinals--thereby ruling out any confrontation between the U.S. and the favored Russians.

In the finals, it was the U.S. against Yugoslavia again, and at halftime the Americans led by the slender margin of three points, 32-29. Then they cut loose. With young Haywood playing like a dervish, popping in baskets and blocking shots, the U.S. put the game out of reach. By a score of 65-50, the team that was thought to be the weakest the U.S. had ever fielded won America's seventh straight gold medal in Olympic basketball.

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