Welcome to our Historic Hoops series, where we offer a guide to historic places related (at least tangentially) to a televised men’s or women’s NCAA basketball matchup each week throughout the 2015-2016 season. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or simply stuck watching with your significant other, we’re here to assist your viewing experience with some historic context beyond the hardwood.

This week’s matchup: Utah vs. UCLA

Time: Thursday, Feb. 18, 10:00 p.m. EST

Channel: ESPN2/ESPN3

Venue: Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion, Westwood Village, Los Angeles, CA

Opening Tip: Though the Bruins and Runnin’ Utes are unranked, both were Sweet 16 teams in the Big Dance last year. Now they find themselves in need of key victories to win over the selection committee, especially with a strong Pac 12 field. Of course, there is no finer venue for hoops than the legendary Pauley Pavilion, home of Nell and John Wooden Court.

Fast Break:

Edmund W. Pauley Pavilion opened in 1965, after legendary coach John Wooden’s second of 10 national championships at UCLA. It was designed in a utilitarian Modernist style by Welton Becket, whose resume also includes the Cinerama Dome, Capitol Records Building, and Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.

While Pauley underwent a significant renovation in 2012 to expand seating capacity to 13,800, the arena’s original concrete shell and iconic V-truss roof structure remain intact.

Pauley Pavilion is at once a premier hoops destination, and a monument to the humble, no-nonsense philosophy of the “Wizard of Westwood.”

3 Points:

• The first basketball game at Pauley featured the Bruins freshman squad against the two-time, defending champion varsity team. The freshman won 75-60, led by a promising kid named Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar). Needless to say, it was a sign of great things to come.
• Pauley Pavilion has hosted a slew of events from the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, to the 1984 Olympics, to the 1988 presidential debate between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. (Side note: Today, Gov. Dukakis teaches at the UCLA School of Public Affairs.)
• Coach Wooden attended almost every UCLA home game until his passing in 2010. His seat, located at Section 104, Row B, Seat 6, is the only seat in the house colored gold instead of Bruin blue.

Buzzer Beater: This game has some great ties to our nation’s civil rights history. Jackie Robinson lettered in four sports at UCLA (baseball, basketball, track, and football) and would go on to break Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. That same year, Wataru “Wat” Misaka was drafted by the New York Knicks to became the first non-white player in the National Basketball Association. His alma mater? Utah, where he helped the Utes to their only national championship in 1944.

And-1: We stay in the Pac-12 this week as Arizona State visits #17 Arizona at the 1973 McKale Center in Tucson on Wednesday, Feb. 17 on ESPN2 at 9:00 p.m. EST.