Word: alcindor
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There is a growing suspicion among at least 20 college basketball coaches that they have just wasted two whole years working furiously on their defenses and doodling the name Alcindor on the backs of old envelopes. It was heartbreaking enough when Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr., the most sought-after high-school basketball player in the U.S. two years ago, decided to pass up their scholarship offers and go to U.C.L.A. instead. It was worse when the coaches checked their schedules for 1966-67 and discovered that they would have to meet him in person. Now Lew Alcindor...
...Stopping Alcindor (pronounced Al-sin-der) is obviously a necessity for any team that has designs on the N.C.A.A. championship-this year, next year or the year after. The question is how. One coach suggested raising the height of the baskets from 10 ft. to 12 ft.; that proposal was discarded when it was found that Lew can leap up and nearly touch the top of the backboard-13 ft. above the floor. Another coach facetiously plugged for sinking the baskets into the floor like golf cups. "That way," he said, "it should at least take him longer to reach...
Three on One. No such disaster for Vic Bubas, the coach of Duke's No. 7-ranked Blue Devils. Bubas had scouted Alcindor all through his freshman season at U.C.L.A., and had a different plan. He also had a veteran team; All-America Guard Bob Verga and two other starters were back from last year's squad, which won 23 out of 26 games, wound up No. 3 in the nation...
...idea was simple: keep Lew from getting to the ball. It worked, too-sort of. Three Duke players stuck to Alcindor like Siamese quadruplets, and he scored only 19 points all night. Of course, that left only two Blue Devils to guard Alcindor's four teammates, who popped in 69 as U.C.L.A. walloped Duke...
...last week everybody seemed willing to pronounce Alcindor "unstoppable" and "the best college center in history"-everybody, that is, except his own coach, John Wooden. "Lew has a long way to go," said Wooden. "He may be as agile as Wilt Chamberlain was at this stage in his career, but he still isn't as agile as Bill Russell." Adds Assistant Willie Naulls, who played with Russell on last year's pro champion Boston Celtics: "Lew is just a boy. He's barely 19, still growing and far from maturity...