Here is a great you tube video on the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e31mA5clAgHOFer UH coach Guy v Lewis (deceased), who was a client and friend, told me when the big game in Houston between Lew Alcindor's no 1 UCLA and the No 2 UH Elvin Hayes team was coming up--he knew Hofheinz Pavilion wouldn't hold the crowd. Guy called local business friends and they PERSONALLY rented the Astrodome, and Guy personally paid the insurance premium from his pocket....all were well rewarded, including with a big win and the largest crowd ,ever , to see a BB game.
Many say this was the birth of big stadium /national broadcast College BB.
A college BB network headed by Eddie Einhorn, TVS, helped put together the first regular season national broadcast of college basketball for the Game of the Century between the Houston Cougars and UCLA Bruins in 1968. He later sold his interest in the network and became the head of CBS Sports. The NCAA held tourney rights --so at CBS , Einhorn encouraged the natl tv contract and big stadium move. Their jump to the natl stage, natl tv and the use of big domes is traced to this UH game as its launching point (ie this was the kernel of the idea). Read Einhorn's book "How March Became Madness"-- for all these evolutionary details.
Of course, no 2 UCLA avenged this loss by stomping no 1 UH later in the year at the NCAAs....but the Game of the Century will always be a gem to recall.
