Photo by Marcus Edwards, KLC fotos
Cal Athletics: Ten Alltime Memories Forged by Golden Bear Guests - Part 5
Our five-part series reliving memories generated by Cal’s sporting guests concludes with an individual performance that rivals anything achieved by the best player from college basketball’s greatest dynasty and a visit by the equivalent super power in the women’s game.
When East Bay native Eddie House led Arizona State into Haas Pavilion no one could have known that he would equal the most points Lew Alcindor ever scored in a game for UCLA.
Alcindor helped win three of UCLA’s 11 national championships. That’s the same number of NCAA titles Geno Auriemma has claimed with the UConn women.
Then-Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb negotiated a visit by Auriemma and his team for what was one part basketball game and one part hoops cultural exchange. A big weekend.
Eddie House
Photo courtesy of Arizona State Athletics
Jan. 8, 2000: Eddie House scores 61, equals Alcindor
House played at Hayward High but was not recruited by his home-town school. So the explosive guard had plenty of motivation for this matinee game at Haas Pavilion, and he responded with a stunning performance in Arizona State’s 111-108 double-overtime win.
House shot 18 for 30 from the field, made 7 of 10 shots from beyond the 3-point arc and converted 18 of 19 free throws to score 61 points, matching Alcindor’s single-game conference record.
House, who averaged 30 points in four career games against Cal played front of friends and family at Berkeley, has never hidden the source of his high-energy efforts vs. the Bears.
"I've always had a grudge against them and I do not like them to this day for that," House told the Associated Press in 2014. "Every time I played them, I made sure I was focused on hurting them as much as I could. I wasn't selfish and taking every shot, but I did make sure they got some of this business.”
Mike Montgomery, the Stanford coach at the time, said House was virtually unstoppable.
"He shoots the ball as quick as anybody," Montgomery said. "He sprints through cuts. The only thing you can do with House is minimize; I don't think you can take him out."
House's eruption came one month after a dreadful performance against BYU, as he recalled several days after the Cal game in a weekly diary he was writing for ESPN.com.
"I was the talk of the town after going 0-for-16 against BYU a few weeks ago. But I picked up myself and moved on. It made me take a step in the right direction as far as my work ethic," wrote House, who reportedly was in the gym shooting at 5 a.m. the next morning. "I started working a lot harder in practice. I started running a lot harder when we were running sprints, trying to win every race. Just stuff like that, trying to lead by example, get in the gym and work extra hard."
House was voted Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2000 and his league-leading 23.0 scoring average is the Pac-12’s second-highest over the past two decades. Now, after 11 years in the NBA, House is following the fortunes of his son Jaelen, a sophomore guard at ASU.
Geno Auriemma
Photo by John Glaser, USA Today
Dec. 18, 2018: Geno Auriemma brings UConn to Haas
The powerhouse UConn women have featured some of the game’s greatest players, including Diana Taurasi, Breanna Stewart, Rebecca Lobo and Maya Moore. But the program’s consistent headliner is coach Geno Auriemma, winner of 11 NCAA titles since 1995.
Auriemma brought his Huskies to Berkeley, giving the Cal women their first-ever shot at a No. 1-ranked team on their home floor. The occasion was big enough that Gottlieb arranged for “A Chat with Champions,” a one-hour panel discussion the night before featuring Auriemma and Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
During the talk, Auriemma argued against the notion that his team’s dominance hurts women’s basketball. “We’re actually good for the game,” he said. “At some point you’re going to get tired of losing to us.”
Game night attracted a crowd of 10,818 fans — most-ever to watch the Cal women at home — in an early-season battle of unbeaten teams. UConn draped its defense all over Cal star Kristine Anigwe, who was held to 10 points on 5-for-16 shooting, and the Huskies rode double-digit scoring from all five starters to a 76-66 win over the No. 14 Bears.
Auriemma was charming and his team was ruthless. As usual.
Here is Part 1 of our series: Michigan's Tom Harmon & the 1954 state track meet
Here is Part 2: Bill Russell & Wilt Chamberlain
Here is Part 3: Jim Ryun & Lew Alcindor
Here is Part 4: Henry Rono & the 1991 Washington football team
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
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