"I don't think anything ever meant as much to me as playing UCLA and one of John Wooden's best teams for the national championship," Bartow said in 1993. "We were able to go right through the press." At halftime, the game was tied 39–39. Bartow added, "I felt very good at halftime, very good. But to win, we also felt we had to control Walton. We couldn't let him dominate the game. Obviously, we didn't do a good job of that. Bill Walton probably had one of the best games anybody ever had in the history of college basketball."