When Lefty Driesell took the Maryland job, he famously - or infamously, depending on your take - promised to make Maryland the “UCLA of the East.”
This was near the end of John Wooden’s incredible run in Westwood and Driesell, it must be said, wasn’t that far off.
He quickly won over Tom McMillan, Len Elmore and John Lucas and several other talented players and only a once-in-a-lifetime NC State team kept Maryland from a date with UCLA (in the early 1970s the NCAA only took one team per conference).
But that wasn’t what nearly made Maryland the real UCLA of the East.