Jan 21, 2024 By George Von Benko 6 min read

On Jan. 19,1974 a seismic event occurred in college basketball when a Pittsburgh kid, Dwight Clay, hit a corner jump shot to end UCLA’s 88 game winning streak.

Clay, born and raised in the Hill District in the early 1970s, was a star basketball player at Fifth Avenue High School (now Brashear). He wound up playing his college basketball at Notre Dame at the urging of his mother Mary.

That choice set him on a collision course with history.

It has been 50 years, but Clay is constantly reminded about “The Shot,” which gave the Fighting Irish a 71-70 victory over the Bruins.

“It has lasted 50 years,” Clay offered. “I hear about the shot every week. I go somewhere and someone mentions that shot and that game.”

Setting the scene, UCLA came into South Bend ranked No. 1 and riding a phenomenal 88-game winning streak.

That streak started after a loss to Notre Dame in 1971. The Bruins had gone 1,092 days between losses. In 1974, UCLA was coming off seven consecutive NCAA championships.

“The streak started after a loss to Notre Dame,” Clay offered. “Austin Carr, Sid Catlett and Collis Jones, those guys kind of whet my appetite for Notre Dame when they beat UCLA. I was watching that game on a Saturday afternoon and said wow that’s the place I want to go.”

Notre Dame was a very good team and was right behind the Bruins in the polls.

“We were ranked No. 2 at that time,” Clay said. “We had a lot of confidence going into the game and throughout the course of the game they were getting the better of us, but we still had that thought in the back of our mind, you know let’s go after these guys, the game is not over till it’s over.”

It was also a classic coaching matchup: The venerable Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden, and the brash, young Digger Phelps.

“We had the Digger and they had John Wooden,” Clay explained. “But we had Digger, we believed in him.

“We had some great players: John Shumate, Gary Brokaw, Adrian Dantley, myself and we had Ray Martin, Toby Knight, Bill Paterno, Gary Novak and Peter Crotty,” Clay stated. “We had a good solid eight that we could rotate.”

UCLA was led by the great Bill Walton and an outstanding supporting cast.

The Bruins led at halftime 43-34 and with 3:32 remaining in the game UCLA held a 70-59 advantage when the Irish started their comeback.

“We got back into it with the press,” Clay recalled. “We had a good press team, and Ray Martin came in the game and he was a quick guard out of New York City. We called timeout and we took Novak out and we put Martin in and we pressed. We pressed that last three minutes and the whole team changed. They started turning the ball over. Sometimes teams that press don’t like to be pressed and that came true.”

Brokaw fueled the Notre Dame rally with some clutch baskets. With a series of UCLA turnovers, Irish clutch shots and a steal by freshman sensation Dantley, the Irish trailed 70-69, when Keith Wilkes was called for an offensive foul.

“Brokaw was having a great game,” Clay stated. “Down the stretch Brokaw was having his way with Keith Wilkes, so Tommy Curtis thought he was going to go over and help Wilkes and I started drifting away towards the corner waving my hand to Brokaw. I wished I could have coined the phrase ‘Throw me the damn ball’ before Keyshawn Johnson coined it. I could have made some money off it, but I’m waving my hand, I’m open and Brokaw finally saw me. Brokaw was hot so I can understand he didn’t want to give up that ball, but when he got double teamed he gave it up and the rest is history.”

On the television broadcast, legendary sportscaster Dick Enberg exclaimed “That’s Clay!” when he let the shot go. Walton stood underneath the basket with his arms out, ready for the rebound. There wasn’t one.

UCLA called timeout and missed three shots in the final few seconds – and Notre Dame’s fans erupted.

“They had three shots at the end,” Clay said. “I always joke that they had a tap line everybody on their team had a shot at it.

“That was one of the best crowds of all time. They said when we beat them and the students rushed the court that was one of the first times that type of action ever happened and now it happens all the time. The atmosphere was just so electric.”

Clay was called the “Iceman” because he had a knack for making big shots.

“You got Marquette, you got Ohio State, you got Pitt and the free throws down the stretch with Kansas,” Clay remembered. “We were playing Kansas and it got down to free throws and I made two clutch free throws. So it really started against Kansas when I made the clutch free throws to win the game and from that point on we went up and played Marquette and I hit the corner jump shot and broke their 81-game home court winning streak.”

The Bruins and Irish actually had a rematch one week after the historic game, and UCLA got revenge with a 94-75 victory at Pauley Pavilion.

On the 50th anniversary of “The Shot,” Notre Dame has no plans to honor that moment.

“They dropped the ball,” Clay lamented. “The coaching change, we talked with Mike Brey and he had something planned, but when he left, the new coach, you can’t fault him, he’s got to get his team together. But the athletic department should have done something. Me and my teammates are totally disappointed.”

Clay, 70, got his economics degree in four years from Notre Dame. After his failed NBA tryouts, he went into the working world in Pittsburgh. He worked 21 years in the investment banking business and then 16 years with the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board until retiring a few years ago.

He has officiated WPIAL and City League high school basketball for more than four decades.

The shot lives on. Ten years ago, ESPN immortalized it further with a documentary about the game titled “88 and 1.”

“One of greatest and most important shots ever made in college basketball,” college basketball guru Sonny Vaccaro stated. “You got to go back to that era, it wasn’t like today and there was this kid from Pittsburgh hitting that famous shot.”

“It’s hard for me to believe it’s been 50 years,” Clay stated. “ESPN ranked it No. 4 in great games in the history of college basketball. This game kind of altered NCAA history.”

George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.