Editor's note: Click on this story at yesteryear.idahostatejournal.com to view a 1976-77 Idaho State University men’s basketball yearbook as well as photos of the legendary 1977 game between ISU and UCLA.

    With this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament coming down to the championship, Cinderella teams are long gone. For Cinderella to appear there has to be no real hope of winning, and victories need to come deeper in the tourney.

    First round games just won’t do. She won’t come out of her palace for anything less.

    In 1977, that’s just what happened when the Idaho State Bengals beat the UCLA Bruins 76-75 in their Sweet Sixteen meeting at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah.

     “We expected to beat UCLA” said Jeff Cook, who went on to play eight seasons in the NBA. “To a player, we were confident in our abilities that we could play with them.”

    UCLA star and NCAA Player of the Year, Marques Johnson made no excuses. “They were just better than us,” he said.

     But how could a team that was ranked second in the nation and had won 10 national championships in 12 years, which featured the NCAA national player of the year, and was built on a foundation of eight future NBA players, lose to a team led by a lumbering local kid from Aberdeen?

     It was simple, really. Idaho State University — that night anyway — was the better team.

     The Bengals had last gone to the NCAA tournament in 1959, when Jim Killingsworth replaced Danny Miller in 1971 and brought to Pocatello his no-nonsense style of basketball.

    “Killer did it differently” said Glenn Alford, ISU sports information director from 1967-1998. “He was very structured, very organized and defense oriented. The team knew they had better get along with him.”

     “Killer was great at preparing us for our games,” said Aberdeen native and former NBA player Steve Hayes. “He was confident and that made us confident.”

     With his system in place, Killingsworth traveled the western U.S. looking for the right players to run it, and he wasn’t afraid to use unorthodox means to get them to come to Pocatello.

     “I was considering a lot of schools,” said Hayes. “Utah State and New Mexico showed some interest. Nevada and Fresno contacted me too.”

    Killingsworth realized he needed help in signing the 7-foot center.

     “I got a call from Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus and later Sen. Frank Church” said Hayes with a chuckle. ‘They told me how important it would be for me to stay in the state and play here. That impressed me.”

    Ed Thompson was a standout junior college player from Santa Barbara City College and was considering several California schools.

    “Coach Killer took me to the beach and bought me a milkshake,” said Thompson, who was drafted by the NBA’s Houston Rockets. “He told me about Hayes, Cook and Greg Griffin, so I said, ‘Let’s try it.’”

     Jeff Cook came from West Covina, Calif. Brand Robinson was a Parade All-American from tiny Manhattan, Mont. Stan Klos transferred from St. Peters.

    And Scott Goold came from Highland High School, just down the road in Pocatello.

     “I was considering all the state schools and Wake Forest” said Goold, who today lives in Hawaii. “He let me know that I could either play for a winner or get beat in front of my friends and family every time my team came to town.”

     They played together during the 1975-76 season, winning 16 games while learning their roles on the team. Hayes would become the team’s scorer with help from Greg Griffin. Cook would clean the glass with his rebounding prowess. Brand Robinson would provide insane accuracy from long range. Ed Thompson would pace the team as the point guard, running the offense while controlling the game. Stan Klos gave the team added depth.

     They learned how to be a team that year. They learned how to compete. They believed that Coach Killingsworth would make them champions.

     But their first meeting the following season stunned them.

    “Coach Killer told us that his wife had breast cancer,” Cook said. “He told us he’d be there when he could, and some days he wouldn’t be there mentally. He wanted us to understand that.”

     After the meeting, the team decided they would they would take on the responsibilities of leadership and winning, easing the burden on their coach and refusing to accept anything less than a championship.

     But the season started slowly. Jeff Cook missed several early games with mono and the team struggled to a 3-3 start, losing to Georgia Tech, BYU and Marshall. But the team’s first glimpse of greatness came not in victory but in the loss to the Thundering Herd.

     “We played a tournament in Huntington, W.Va.,” said Alford. “We were down 5 points with 19 seconds left and we tied them and went into OT. Though we lost I thought the team showed real potential.”

     That potential turned into reality when the team returned to Pocatello. The Bengals were nearly perfect the rest of the season, losing only to Weber State 80-73 in route to the Big Sky Conference regular and post-season championships and garnering an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. Hayes led the team with more than 20 points and 11 rebounds per game while Thompson was the assists leader.

     The Bengals played their first tournament game against Long Beach State at Holt Arena, their home court.

    “You can’t imagine how crazy it was having the Bengals play a tournament game at home,” said Alford. “I think part of the reason they were allowed to do that was because we were Idaho State and really, who cared?”

     The game was close until an injury left Jeff Cook writhing on the floor, victim of a blow to the midsection. It took several moments but he was able shake it off and remain on the court. A few seconds later, the game changed.

     “Long Beach threw a cross-court pass and Jeff intercepted it,” said Alford. “He ran down the court and made the most memorable dunk in ISU history. The ball went through the net and bounced hard off of a Long Beach player who staggered for a few moments and then fell onto the press table.”

     “It was a cheap shot,” said Cook. “I guess I did throw it down with something on it because I was playing mad the rest of the game.”

     The Bengals won 83-72 and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, drawing UCLA, without question the most storied and successful program of the era, perhaps of all time. But for the Bengal players, there were no stars in their eyes and no fear in their hearts.

     Well, almost none.

     “I remember beginning warm-ups the day of the game and looking down to the other end of the court and seeing the UCLA players,” said Goold. “My nerves and excitement skyrocketed. UCLA was God back then and we were the smallest school on the planet.”

     “We were excited to play the Bruins but not intimidated or scared at all,” said Hayes. “We compared the rosters, and we thought we matched up really well with them.”

     And Jeff Cook’s mom was so confident that she stopped off in Las Vegas on the way to Provo and placed a $2 bet on ISU, demanding even money even though the Bruins were 14-point favorites.

     The Bengals found out shortly after the tip-off that they could indeed play with UCLA. Though they trailed for much of the first half — though not by much — a couple of things became apparent. Though loaded at guard and forward, UCLA did not have a center that could stay with Hayes and Marques Johnson was indeed the best player in college basketball.

     “I was used to being double-teamed throughout the year,” said Hayes. “UCLA didn’t do much of that, and they didn’t have any big names at center, using mostly Gig Sims.”

     “Marques killed us in the first half, scoring 19,” said Thompson. “Griffin’s job was to rotate and find him, but in the second half we did a great job denying him.” Johnson finished with 21 points.

     Alford was impressed with the patience the Bengals showed in the first half.     

    “We dominated the boards and played great defense,” he said. “We did a good job not letting them get to the basket and forcing them to shoot from the outside.”

     Sensing a major upset, the Marriott Center crowd began to root for the Bengals.

    “Only the UCLA fans weren’t cheering for us,” said Hayes. “It was like a home game with the crowd chanting, ‘Idaho State! Idaho State!’ ”

     Riding the shoulders of the big-man Hayes, who finished with 27 points, the Bengals turned a 6-point halftime deficit to a 8-point lead with just a couple of minutes left in the game. Jeff Cook didn’t think there was a chance his team could lose.

     But UCLA brought out its vaunted press and the game changed quickly.

    “Their press became real to us and quick,” said Thompson. “We had some turnovers. We threw the ball away. That clock couldn’t go fast enough.”

     ISU didn’t have an answer on the floor and turned to seldom-used freshman Ernie Wheeler in hopes that he could break the press.

     Sensing ISU’s desperation, the now confident Bruins began to foul the inexperienced Wheeler. Up by just three points with 51 seconds to go, the Bengals’ hopes rested in the hands of a 69-percent free throw shooter who made just 44 of his attempts all season.

     Turns out it was no big deal. Wheeler stepped up to the line and calmly put a stake through the heart of the Bruin dynasty. He drained two free throws to give the Bengals a 5-point lead and after a quick UCLA bucket, he was fouled and snapped the net two more times to give the Bengals the lead that they never lost.

     “The fans rushed the floor, they just went crazy,” said Thompson. “But we were thinking, hey, we still have more games to win.”

     Bedlam erupted. Reverberating around the rafters of the Marriott Center and cascading back down to the floor was the sing-song chant of:”ISU, ISU!”

     “We were swept away by a river of fans and energy,” said Goold. “We beat the premier basketball program of all time,” Hayes said.

     Stan Klos, who didn’t play in the game, had probably the best quote of the tournament, so good it appeared in a Sports Illustrated story the following week. “They came in fat-headed,” he said. “We’ve got a personality. It’s shy.”

    The Bengals played UNLV the following game and lost 107-90, despite leading at the half.

    “There was no letdown in the UNLV game,” said Thompson. “They were deeper than us and they wore us down.”  

     “There may have been a little bit of a letdown after the UCLA game,” said Brand Robinson. “We had to expend a lot of energy and we weren’t as sharp.”

     But none of that mattered to the ISU fans. They spent the night of the UCLA victory dancing through the hotel and partying with the players. The loss to the Rebels meant nothing. A new memory had been created, perhaps the best the basketball program ISU would ever know.

     “There had to be 2,000 fans at the airport when we came home.” Alford said. “The town fell head over heels in love with the team.”

     It’s been 35 years since the victory over UCLA. Today, the players are men approaching retirement. They are dentists and businessmen and authors and community leaders. And each of them can point back to that special year — and that special game — and say unequivocally that they are better people because of the lessons they learned that season and the city that embraced them.

     “That game made us feel we could achieve anything,” said Thompson. “It made us believe in ourselves.”