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Message: [QUOTE="FfldCntyFan, post: 5013191, member: 71"] John Wooden was an all time great coach but his overall legacy does have some questionable items to mix in with the good (in sort of chronological): [LIST] [*](Bad) He ran the program at UCLA for roughly a dozen years before making the tournament [*](Bad) It took another five years before he won it all for the first time [*](Good) With his first championship squad (Hazzard/Goodrich/Erickson, back to back) he introduced the 2-2-1 press to make it difficult for the opponent to slow down the game (no shot clock). An up-tempo pace of play greatly benefitted his team’s talents. [*](Good) For his next run of champions he assembled what could easily be argued as the best multi-year starting lineup ever (Alcindor [Jabbar], Shackleford, Warren, Allen) without assistance (Kareem claims he first met Sam Gilbert during his sophomore year) and began a seven year run of titles. [*](Bad) Basically every star that played for UCLA under Wooden post 1967 benefitted from Sam Gilbert, whether he was planning on attending with or without Gilbert’s influence. [*](Good) Regardless of how he ended up with the talent, his work in practices, stressing preparation and fundamentals, led his teams, with massive individual talents, to put team play first and perform almost to script while constantly sharing the basketball. [*](Bad) On the flipside of the time spent on preparation, he did almost no coaching during games. While this had little impact for the bulk of the seven year run plus the bulk of the 1973-1974 season, he sat still during the closing minutes of the first loss any of his then players were involved in at the collegiate level, when the blew a late double digit lead at Notre Dame, then limped through the final couple of P-8 games and eventually lost in OT in the national semifinals to NC State. [/LIST] [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach