Wilbur Johns was an American men's college basketball coach and athletics administrator. He was the head basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), prior to John Wooden, serving from 1939 to 1948, and guiding the UCLA Bruins to a 93–120 record in nine seasons. Johns was also the school's athletic director following from 1947 to 1963. He is a 1985 inductee to the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame. He died at his home at age 63 on July 14, 1967.

John Robert Wooden was an American basketball coach and player. Nicknamed the "Wizard of Westwood", he won ten National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national championships in a 12-year period as head coach for the UCLA Bruins, including a record seven in a row. No other team has won more than four in a row in Division I college men's or women's basketball. Within this period, his teams won an NCAA men's basketball record 88 consecutive games. Wooden won the prestigious Henry Iba Award as national coach of the year a record seven times and won the Associated Press award five times.