BOZICH | Memories burn 50 years later for Greatest U of L-UK Game Never Played

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Even 50 years later, it remains the Greatest Game Never Played:

Louisville vs. Kentucky for the NCAA men's basketball championship — a Dream Game canceled two seconds before it was guaranteed.

"We were disappointed we didn't play Kentucky because we really thought we were the best team in country," said U of L guard Phil Bond.

"Junior (Bridgeman, a Louisville star) and I used to talk about it all the time," Kentucky guard Jimmy Dan Connor said. "He'd tell me Louisville would have won. I'd tell him we would have won. But we both agreed the game should have happened."

"Every time I look at my hand, I see a finger that should have a championship ring on it," said U of L reserve Billy Harmon. "We wanted to play them so bad because we knew we would run them off the floor."

"I wanted it to happen really bad," said former Courier-Journal sports editor Dave Kindred. "I'd been crusading for Kentucky to play Louisville for years but I knew they were not going to schedule them.

"Then there they were, both in the Final Four. It was like a dream."

A dream denied for considerably more reasons than the free throw Terry Howard missed for the Cards in the final 20 seconds, a free throw that Howard has regularly been asked about for 50 years.

"Years after it happened, I stopped for dinner at a restaurant at a small town out in the state (Morristown, Howard said), and seconds after I sat down, a couple of guys came over and asked, 'Aren't you the guy who missed the free throw?' " he said. "I thought, 'You've got to be kidding me.' "

Kentucky did its part to arrange the game with gusto, dispatching an overmatched pre-Jim Boeheim Syracuse squad, 95-79, at the San Diego (California) Sports Arena on Saturday, March 29, 1975. A week after upsetting top-ranked and unbeaten Indiana, the Wildcats rolled, getting 24 points from freshman Jack Givens, 14 from Kevin Grevey and a dozen from Connor.

"We were really playing well," Connor said. "We thought we could match up with anybody."

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Bozich & Crawford

But the team the Wildcats would meet in the Monday night championships game would not be anybody. There were two choices.

One would be UCLA, riding out the final moments of its incredible dynasty. The Bruins (26-3) were in determined pursuit of the program's 10th national title in 12 seasons under their unflappable coach John Wooden.

The Bruins were a two-point favorite over fourth-ranked Louisville. The Cards were winners of 11 straight while rolling to 27 wins in 29 games for Denny Crum, one of Wooden's former assistants.

Nationally, the conversation was about UCLA even though fans would not learn that Wooden would shock the world by announcing his retirement in the news conference after the semifinal game.

Blessed by the dominant inside play of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe and Bill Walton, Wooden won seven consecutive titles from 1967-73.

North Carolina State toppled the Bruins in the 1974 national semifinals. The world wondered if Wooden, 64, could score again without an unstoppable big man like Abdul-Jabbar or Walton on his roster.

Kentucky vs. Louisville?

Howard can explain how little that meant to the people in Southern California.

"They must have thought we were the same team because they scheduled Kentucky and Louisville to practice at the same time at the same gym," Howard said. "Coach Crum and (UK coach Joe B.) Hall had to work it out.

"We practiced first and I remember Kentucky stayed around and watched part of it. We were really loosey goosey. We knew what we could do and we didn't care what they saw.

"When they started to practice, coach Hall wanted us to leave, so we did."

What meant little to Californians meant everything to Kentuckians. The Courier-Journal dispatched six writers and four photographers to chronicle the game. The C-J flew 300 newspapers to San Diego every day that weekend. Kindred, an award-winning Hall of Fame columnist, drove to the airport, claimed them and played paper boy, distributing them to hotels for hometown fans to read.

Why?

This was 1975. Kentucky and Louisville had not played since the 1959 NCAA Tournament. Crum arrived from UCLA in 1971, signed Bridgeman from East Chicago, Indiana, and Allen Murphy from Birmingham.

That was the same year that Hall recruited Mr. Basketball from four area states:  Connor (Kentucky), Mike Flynn (Indiana), Grevey (Ohio) and Bob Guyette (Illinois).

Crum did not understand why Kentucky would not play Louisville. Crum also did not understand why people believed Kentucky's freshmen were better than Louisville's.

Kindred and Dick Fenlon of the Louisville Times banged their typewriters for a UK-U of L game. Neither Hall nor UK president Dr. Otis Singletary considered budging. No reason to recognize Louisville. Not happening. So Kindred and Fenlon beat the drum even louder.

"Joe said something once about Denny Crum and his bugle corps," Kindred said. "Privately people said it was never going to happen and why didn't we just shut up about it."

Then the NCAA revealed the bracket for the 1975 tournament, leaving the teams four victories from playing for the title. For Kentucky, it would be the program's fifth championship but first under Hall. Louisville had not won an NCAA title — and would not until 1980.

Kentucky did its part against the Orange. Instead of remaining at the arena to watch, Conner said the Wildcats retreated to the team hotel.

"The players were fine with Louisville winning," Connor said. "We would have enjoyed playing them."

Louisville had 45 minutes to get it done. The Cardinals came within two seconds of making it happen.

The game was a classic. A two-point underdog, Louisville raced to a 37-33 halftime lead. The Cards stretched the lead to 59-53 with less than six minutes to play but the Bruins scored the next six points, forging the game's 14th tie.

Two free throws by Bond put the Cards in charge by 4 points with 1:06 to play.

"We had it won," Harmon said.

Until they didn't. A bad pass by the Cards' Wesley Cox against the UCLA press followed two free throws by Dave Meyers and preceded a rebound basket by Marques Johnson for the game's 16th tie at 65.


The Cards turned it over. UCLA missed. Bridgeman air-balled a shot from the left corner at the buzzer.

Overtime.

The Cards took the lead on a three-point play by Murphy and held it until the final two seconds. Everybody dwells on the free throw that Howard missed with the Cards ahead, 74-73, and 20 seconds to play.

But that means they fast forward through Murphy missing one of two free throws with 3 1/2 minutes to play, Bridgeman leaving a turnaround 10-footer short on the baseline and Murphy missing the first of two free throws again at 2:20. Four points gone -- on a day when the Cards also committed 22 turnovers.

With a little more than a minute left, Cox scored on rebound. Two free throws by UCLA's Myers tightened it to 74-73.

Only 50 seconds remained when Bond drove the ball in front of the Louisville bench. Crum asked for timeout. He put Howard back in the game. Making free throws at winning time, while Louisville burned the clock in the era before the shot clock, was Howard's specialty.

"I helped us win several games that way," Howard said.

In this game the ball found Howard three times. It went from Bond to Howard to Bridgeman to Howard to Bill Bunton and back to Howard.

Howard remembers the words he heard coming from the UCLA bench.

"Coach Wooden was up yelling, 'Don't foul Howard! Don't foul Howard! Don't foul Howard,' " Howard said. "I heard it very clearly."

Calling the game on the radio, Kentucky play by play voice Cawood Ledford set up the reason for Wooden's advice after Bruins' guard Jim Spillane fouled Howard, sending him to the line with 20 seconds left.

Speaking to his sidekick Ralph Hacker, Ledford said, "Ralph, you look it up for me, but I don't believe Terry Howard has missed a free throw all year."

"Terry Howard has hit on 28 of 28," Hacker said.

You know rest of the story. In a bonus situation, Howard puts Louisville up three by making both shots. Forget a three-pointer to tie it. That shot did not exist yet in the college game. One free throw would have given Louisville nothing worse than a tie.

But a miss?

Harmon said that he believes God intervened and knocked the basketball off the rim to ensure that Wooden would win another title in his farewell game.

"It had to end that way," Harmon said. "That was Coach Wooden."

Howard said he has not watched one second of any video replay of the game but has never forgotten the flight of the basketball.

"I shot it perfectly," he said. "It hit the back right and then the front left and then the right side again. It was going down and then it popped out. It was in the bucket."

Until it wasn't.

The Bruins grabbed the rebound, advancing the ball to center court before Wooden called timeout. With three crisp passes, UCLA worked the ball from left to right. The plan was to find Richard Washington on the right baseline. And the plan worked the way the plans of Hall of Fame coaches are supposed to work.

Washington rose and buried a 12-foot turnaround the right baseline.

UCLA 75, U of L 74 — with two seconds left.

"And, gosh, I don't know, the Cardinals have played so very, very well," Ledford said. "They are in jeopardy now. I think they deserved a better fate."

The ending was equally cruel. Murphy, who scored 33 points in an epic performance, fumbled the inbounds pass, just outside mid-court. He grabbed it in time for a desperate heave that landed considerably left and short of the backboard.

The Wildcats would get the Bruins, who secured their 10th national title in Wooden's farewell game, 92-85, on Monday night. The Cards had already returned to Louisville.

But UCLA's national championship was a footnote. In this state, that 1975 Final Four will always be remembered for the Greatest Game Never Played.

"We had a really good team and they had a really good team," Bond said. "I just wish we would have gotten our shot because I think we would have won the game."

"It hurt," Harmon said. "I'm still sick about that game."

"It just wasn't meant to be," Howard said.

Sports Coverage:

PORTAL TRACKER | Kelsey adds another shooter: Virginia's McKneely commits to Louisville

BOZICH | Why Duke, Houston, Florida, Auburn will — and will not — win the NCAA men's title

BOZICH | Who will break our record 9-season Final Four drought? Kelsey, Pope or DeVries?

Copyright 2025 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.