You might never have heard of my old school UCSB back in 1990, but did you know they beat a great team (with a rep like current day Kentucky or Duke) that had just won a NCAA chip and was on a 52 game win streak? That's big right? That's 1990 UCSB vs UNLV, it was David punching Goliath straight in the mouth, knock out style.
I'm in proud to relate that my friend and fellow Gaucho, Carrick DeHart, did it on a bum ankle, scoring 24 points that game while playing lock up defense. Do you get the importance now?
Who was the assistant coach of UCSB at the time? My old PE teacher, Ben Howland, yeah the former UCLA coach. I remember B-Howland telling us crazy John Stockton stories, the importance of setting devastating picks, those were the days, so yeah, I can tell this dang story.
This win in 1990 has to be considered one of the greatest upsets of all time that occurred in college basketball. Larry Johnson, this #1 player in the country, 1/2 man, 1/2 superhero of a nasty great player, think of him as the Lebron of his day.
He takes his UNLV from Las Vegas to the resort town Santa Barbara to smash on the poor little Gaucho squad. Why do I love UCSB’s Thunder Dome? It's an arena so loud, crazy, and enthusiastic, that ESPN said it was the #2 best place to play only behind the Cameron Crazies of Duke at the time.
#Thunder Dome forever
Yup, that game was legend, a nasty blemish for a team looking to win 53 straight times. Why is it worth knowing about?
UCSB was supposed to fall like dogs but they ended up winning 78-70 and gave that special finger as they said "bye bye" to the national champs. Us Gauchos told them “Come back another day”. UCSB, yeah, were the big dogs that day in 1990 Fosho.
Me, E-Woods, you need to know I used to ball with dudes up at Santa Barbara, they were my brothers back then. Adrese Jones, Lucius Davis, my dudes could ball, but they never got respect...until my big bro Carrick DeHart put down this smack down.
Carrick tells it in an excerpt of a Presidio Sports story, "We had a great group of guys and a great group of guys before that who set the tradition."
C-DeHart only averaged 15.9 ppg that season but he played on a really bum foot. He still locked down a Lebron-like player in Larry Johnson, so in E-Woods’ mind, Carrick might as well have averaged 159 points a game to me.
DeHart said the Gauchos never doubted they could win that game. “We enjoyed working together, we enjoyed being together. We enjoyed representing the people who enjoyed what we were doing."
Dick Vitale was heard that night by a UCSB player yelling "Upset City!"
That's dope, that's what's up, that's worth writing about, and it's worth reading about.
See the video, feel the excitement, wish you were there, because you know I wish I was back in that special Gaucho moment....right now.
