John Wooden - UCLA Bruins - Greatest Coaches

Vote for the Top Coach here . Greatest NCAA College Basketball Coaches of All Time: UCLA's John Wooden Unarguably one of the most storied and successful college basketball coaches of all-time, John Wooden was born in Indiana in 1910. Throughout his high school and college basketball playing careers, Wooden was an All-American. After WWII Wooden began coaching college basketball first for Indiana State in 1946. That first year, Wooden’s Sycamores would receive an invitation to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball’s national tournament after winning the conference title. However, because of the NAIB’s ban of African American players, Wooden would not accept the team’s invitation to the championship. Following this incident, the policy would be changed and the following year, Wooden would lead his group all the way to the finals, however here they would fall to Louisville. Heading West from Indiana, Wooden would begin his legendary campaign at UCLA. Often called, the Wizard of Westwood, Wooden would coach the Bruin squad from 1948 to 1975. Here, he extended his coaching record to over 80% and an overall collegiate record of 671 wins and 161 losses. After 15 straight winning seasons under Wooden, UCLA would finally win their first NCAA national title. That would be far from the last. The team would repeat in 1965, before going on a seven-year streak beginning in 1967. By the end of Wooden’s career as UCLA coach, he would lead the team to an unheard of 10 national championships. No other men’s college coach has won more than four national championships, and no other program has won more than 7, as of 2007. If that wasn’t enough, Wooden was at the helm for four perfect 30 and 0 seasons, and a run of 38 straight victories in the NCAA tournament. This span of UCLA success was marked by the presence of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar), and then Bill Walton, two of the greatest college players of all-time. Scripted by Derek Allen

Mojo Supreme | March 7, 2008

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