I must have had homework to do. That had to be the reason I was not at the old Garden — the one on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets — on Dec. 9, 1967, for the most hyped pro sports debut in this town in, well, in all of time.
Bill Bradley was making his NBA debut for the Knicks after having spent the previous two years studying at Oxford following his graduation from Princeton, for which he played while nearly taking down Cazzie Russell and No. 1 Michigan in the 1964 Holiday Festival at the Garden.