Best UCLA basketball players ever: Bruins all-time starting 5

PG – Gail Goodrich

The son of a star USC Trojan, Gail Goodrich almost didn’t end up playing for the Bruins. He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps but UCLA, led by Coach Wooden, showed him more love and interest when they were recruiting him and so he ultimately choose to play for his father’s rival school.

One of the reasons that the Trojans weren’t after Goodrich was his lack of size. Technically, he wasn’t a pure point guard but at 6-foot-1 and with the name who will come on the next slide — his best fit on this mythical team is as the point guard. Part of the reason is that Goodrich was one of the best ball handlers of his era and also possessed good court vision as well.

However, what he was known for, both in college and later in the NBA, was his ability as a scorer. Goodrich helped UCLA win its first two national championships and in the second he scored 42 points to upset Michigan, which was a record until Walton put up 44 in 1973. He left as the Bruins all-time leading scorer with 1,690 career points. His scoring average skyrocketed in his junior and senior seasons where he averaged 21.5 and 24.8 PPG respectively after only scoring 10.4 PPG in his first season with the varsity team.

On the first national title team, the Bruins went 30-0 becoming the first UCLA team to go through an entire 30-game season undefeated. He was a consensus All-American, two-time member of the all-conference team, two-time NCAA Final Four All-Tournament team and the Bruins retired his number 25 jersey in 2004.