🏀 The Night Bama Shocked UCLA

[planomateo]

In wake of “Bear” Bryant’s death, Bama hoops toppled the No. 1 Bruins

by Jimmy Creed

The news reached Wimp Sanderson as his basketball team practiced on January 26, 1983.
In the midst of preparing to play No. 1-ranked UCLA in Pauley Pavillion in two days, word came that larger-than-life Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant had died. And for Sanderson and his players, just as for thousands of other Alabama faithful that day, time stood still.

Surely it couldn’t be true. Surely legends like Bryant didn’t die. Surely they just walk off into a beautiful sunset to wait for us on the other side. But it was true. Bryant was gone. Suddenly Tuscaloosa, the state of Alabama and the entire football world was in deep mourning.

Sanderson gathered his players together to break the news. Then his thoughts turned to more practical matters. Would the Crimson Tide still travel to Los Angeles for its matchup with one of college basketball’s most storied programs? Sanderson didn’t know for sure, and he had to find out.

Read more here...

 

[sean]

excellent story!

 

[TUSKtimes]

I remember that one and I recall Bobby Lee Hurt, Eddie Philips, Buck Johnson, Ennis "Enimo" Whatley and a host of other great Sanderson players would regularly take your lunch money, at your place.

 

[rick4bama]

Great read!

 

[#80]

Those were some good times I was a student on campus then and I went to every home game. Buck going up against Barkley and Whatley was a wizard with the ball. And Wimp thundering up and down the sideline in a Plaid jacket.

 

[alabama mike]

If I remember correctly, it was a late night game on TV, which was still rare back in those days. Coach Sanderson had his young men playing with a lot of emotion and pride. One thing you could always count on with Coach Sanderson is that his teams defended well!

 

[252BAMA]

I am still pissed off at Anthony Grant for not recognizing that team when Bama played UCLA in Tuscaloosa on 12/28/2014. What in Bama basketball history is bigger than that team going to Pauley Pavilion on the day the school buried Coach Bryant, and beating the #1 ranked UCLA Bruins!?

 

[TUSKtimes]

I am still pissed off at Anthony Grant for not recognizing that team when Bama played UCLA in Tuscaloosa on 12/28/2014. What in Bama basketball history is bigger than that team going to Pauley Pavilion on the day the school buried Coach Bryant, and beating the #1 ranked UCLA Bruins!?

He was much to busy working on his offensive gameplan to consider it.

 

[252BAMA]

If I remember correctly, it was a late night game on TV, which was still rare back in those days. Coach Sanderson had his young men playing with a lot of emotion and pride. One thing you could always count on with Coach Sanderson is that his teams defended well!

Defense was the difference in that game. Mark Farmer completely shut down Stuart Gray their 7' center. That was Mark's first start, and would be the first of eleven in his Bama career. Little known is that Bama was 11-0 in his starts. Primarily because with Bobby Lee Hurt moved to Forward, outside of Chapel Hill, NC when Dean Smith would start whoever with MJ at Forward, there was not another pair of forwards in the nation better than Hurt and Buck Johnson.

 

[252BAMA]

He was much to busy working on his offensive gameplan to consider it.

I would have attended that game. Sitting very proudly with my Son-in-Law, Mark Farmer.

 

[TUSKtimes]

I would have attended that game. Sitting very proudly with my Son-in-Law, Mark Farmer.

I was being facetious in the extreme. Grant struggled mightily with his offensive concepts. In fact, it often reminded me of something in-between mud wrestling and a tractor pull.

 

[252BAMA]

I was being facetious in the extreme. Grant struggled mightily with his offensive concepts. In fact, it often reminded me of something in-between mud wrestling and a tractor pull.

Oh, I knew to what you were referring. He is a defensive minded coach. Didn't have enough sense to turn the offense over to an offensive minded coach.