The building didn't bear his name until after his death four years later.

But 38 years ago today on Dec. 2, 1967, Boilermaker Athletic Director Guy "Red" Mackey was a very proud man. His brand-spanking new basketball arena was the talk of the college basketball world as his Boilermakers took on mighty UCLA in the Dedication Game to the new $6 million facility.

"Red used to think basketball was something you did between the end of football season and spring football," said Bob King, who was an assistant coach at the time. "Boy, he did things right getting that building completed and for that first game ... it was a spectacle like no other. I remember people saying there were over 17,000 fans (the recognized capacity is 14,123) there that night and I think they were right."

Fans, many of whom were dressed in coats and ties for the special event, filled the aisles as the local fire marshal must have taken the night off. Indiana Governor Roger Branigin, a Lafayette native, was in attendance along with just about every living Purdue All-American basketball player dating back to the glory days under Coach Ward "Piggy" Lambert.

There were so many story lines to the game. It was the much anticipated college debut of sophomore guard Rick Mount (freshmen weren't eligible to play until 1972), the first big-time high school basketball athlete ever to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Boilermakers were a preseason pick to win the Big Ten thanks in part to returning co-most valuable players from the year before, swingman Herman Gilliam and the diminutive, (he stood just 5-foot-10) but dynamite guard Bill Keller.

And then there was UCLA. Its coach John Wooden was one of the Boilermaker All-Americans who took part in pregame ceremonies. His UCLA team was on a 34-game winning streak, and the trip to West Lafayette was just a whistle stop on its track to a fourth national title in five years.

The Bruins were loaded and were headlined by 7-1 (or so the program read) junior center Lew Alcindor. College basketball had outlawed the dunk prior to the 1967-68 season due to his inside dominance during the Bruins 30-0 season the year before. The Bruins had other great talent in forward Lucius Allen and guard Mike Warren (who later starred in the television series "Hill Street Blues") to name a few. But Alcindor versus Mount was the headliner of the game and brought the national media and made the game ticket a high-priced commodity.

And the man responsible, at least in part, for dealing with Alcindor (later named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was also making his college curtain call, 7-0 center Chuck Bavis, a high school standout in his own right from Garrett, Ind.

"While attending summer school preceding the UCLA game, I remember working our fannies off just for that game," said Bavis earlier this week from his home in Fort Wayne. "My dream of playing against Alcindor and UCLA wilted during the pre-game warm-ups. Due to the new rules, they couldn't dunk in warm-ups, but I made the mistake of glancing back at the UCLA end and caught a glimpse of "Mr." Alcindor taking the ball to the top of the backboard and dropping it through the basket while doing their lay up drill. My heart started pounding 90 miles-per-hour and never stopped until after the game. I was a legitimate seven-feet tall, but while standing next to Lew for the opening tip I felt more like a very short 6-0. I've always maintained he was about 7-4."

Bavis, with substantial inside help from talented 6-6 senior forward Roger Blalock, did a great job on Alcindor. He held him to 17 points, as five of his seven baskets came on offensive rebounds. "Big Lew" did manage 19 rebounds.

"Coach (George) King put us in a 3-2 zone and it was effective slowing him down," recalled Blalock, who now serves as a senior associate athletics director at Purdue. "We actually got him frustrated a time or two, so much so that he said a few things to me when I was going down the court. Kareem wasn't as physical as he was in the NBA, but he was still pretty unstoppable. We slowed him, but we didn't stop him, that is for sure."

The game was a classic from the get-go.

Allen scored the first basket ever in Purdue Arena. Then, as if to provide an example of the Boilermakers' bottled-up energy, Gilliam tallied the first Purdue field goal by launching an 18-foot missile that was so far off target it rocked the backboard glass … and caromed in.

Mount, who was playing with an aluminum plate in his shoe after breaking his foot four weeks earlier, hit his first four shots of the game. After he scored his ninth point of the contest, Purdue had a 33-26 lead, the biggest deficit Alcindor and company had experienced in 31 games as collegians.

"The place was electric like no time probably before or since, and it had an impact on how we played," said Blalock who grabbed a team-tying high seven boards along with Bavis and Gilliam, though the Boilermakers were outrebounded 49-36.

Allen subdued the throng with three straight baskets just before halftime to give the visitors a 45-41 lead at the break. In the second half left-handed cornerman Lynn Shackelford started connecting on some long-range bombs as the visitors built a comfortable 60-48 lead. The Bruins looked like they might cover the 15-point spread predicted by the oddsmakers.

UCLA maintained a 67-55 advantage with four minutes left, and the raucous crowd might have been ready to surrender. The Boilermakers, however, were not.

UCLA had some rare ball-handling problems and when Mount scored his 27th point on a jumper from the left side, the Boilers trailed just 71-68. The 6-3 Gilliam, who tragically passed away of a massive heart attack on April 16 of this year, was one of the most athletic players ever to wear a Purdue uniform. His incredible running hook shot over the outstretched arms of Alcindor ranks to this day as one of the greatest shots ever made in the building. It also pulled the home team within one at 71-70.

With the Arena crowd laying the foundation for its tradition of deafening noise, the Bruins committed their 21st turnover. Mount was fouled at the 29-second mark by a frustrated Edgar Lacey. The Bruin forward was slapped with a technical foul for his outburst in opposition to the call.

Wooden admitted after the contest that he was most surprised that Purdue was able to make his team surrender its composure late in the game. There weren't many teams in those days that could make the Uclans (as they were called in those days) sweat, let alone come un-glued.

Unfortunately, Mount missed the front end of the one-and-one, but nailed the forthcoming technical free throw (only one shot in those days) to knot the score at 71. In the huddle during the ensuing timeout, King instructed his Boilermakers to run the clock down before attempting the shot.

Mount took a 17-foot jumper with about five seconds left, but the ball rimmed out and fell into Alcindor's hands. Bill Sweek received the outlet pass at midcourt, dribbled a couple of times and let it fly from NBA three-point range. Swish. Sweek's only basket, with two seconds left, gave the Bruins a 73-71 win.

"George (King) told us in the huddle to take the last shot as late as possible so that we would still have overtime if we missed," recalled Keller yesterday from his home in Indianapolis. "But how can you blame Rick? It was a shot in the flow of the offense that he would make 95 times out of 100, so it was the right shot to take."

"The shot was in the flow of the offense, so I didn't think twice," said Mount earlier this week from his home in Lebanon. "It didn't go in, but the enduring thing from that game and that team wasn't that we didn't win. It was that we brought a level of high expectation to Purdue basketball from the beginning of that building that has lasted a long time.

"I know I am proud of that, and I am sure my teammates are as well."

In something you don't see every day in the national polls, following the loss the Boilermakers actually jumped in the rankings from out of the top 20 to seventh in the Associated Press listing. The team finished 15-9 in 1967-68, but the following season blossomed into the school's first trip to the Final Four.

George King, who served as Purdue's Athletic Director for two decades and now lives in Florida, still says UCLA was the best college team he ever saw. He regrets his teams weren't at full strength in losses to the Bruins in the Dedication Game and in the national title contest a year later.

"Rick put on a great effort despite having a broken foot," King said of his star guard who scored a game-high 28 points on 11-of-28 shooting from the floor. "I was really disappointed we weren't at full strength at times against them.

"Still, despite all the hype and hoopla of that game, it lived up to its billing. It was one of the greatest college basketball games you will ever see."

Thirty-eight years later, it still seems that way.

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