Readers: There’s one ‘best moment’ in ACC tournament history, and it isn’t even close
Both teams knew what was at stake when N.C. State and Maryland took the Greensboro Coliseum floor that March night in 1974.
The winner would be the ACC champion. But the winner also could be the national champion, to be decided on the same Greensboro court a few weeks later.
The Wolfpack was the No. 1 team in the country, undefeated in the ACC that season and with its only loss to UCLA, winner of seven consecutive NCAA titles. Maryland was ranked fourth, 23-4 for the season and fresh off a 105-85 dismantling of North Carolina, then ranked No 6, in the ACC tournament semifinals.
The Wolfpack, coached by Norm Sloan, had David Thompson, the national player of the year, center Tommy Burleson and point guard Monte Towe. The Terrapins, with mercurial coach Lefty Driesell, had guard John Lucas, center Len Elmore and forward Tom McMillen in their lineup.
The result would be what many agree was the best basketball game in ACC history, possibly college basketball history, given its brilliance of performance. The Wolfpack would survive and advance — a term not yet commonly used but applicable — with a 103-100 overtime victory in an ACC tournament championship game that left everyone in the coliseum exhausted and limp.
The Wolfpack, to be sure, celebrated and cut down the nets. But there was as much relief as satisfaction with the realization that one giant hurdle had been cleared and the Pack was moving on, its season still alive — only the ACC champion went to the NCAA tournament in those days.
Nearly 50 years later, people still talk about the game with a certain reverence. In an N&O reader poll conducted in advance of the 2023 ACC Tournament in Greensboro, it was voted the most memorable moment in tournament history.
A breakdown: NC State vs. Maryland, 1974
Billy Packer, who died in January at age 82, was courtside, calling the C.D Chesley broadcast with the late Jim Thacker.
“It was the finest college game I’ve ever seen,” Packer said in an N&O interview in 2014. “Considering the level of competition, because of what the game meant, because of how it changed the history of the NCAA tournament, the fact that it was played with juniors and seniors of great abilities, because of the games they had played before that game and the incredible buildup to it, it was the best.”
The Terps had a near-perfect start, hitting 12 of their first 14 shots in taking a 25-12 lead.
“It’s the only time I had cotton in my mouth,” Sloan would later say. “Maryland had a great team and was playing a great game.”
Maryland led 55-50 at halftime and would shoot 61% in the game. The Terps had the ball at the end of regulation with the score tied, but guard Mo Howard passed up a shot with the 7-2 Burleson – listed at 7-4, he always has said he’s 7-2 – in his path.
Trailing 101-100 with two minutes left in the overtime, the Terps again held the ball for a last shot but Lucas turned it over with a poor pass – a miscue that still haunts the Durham native. Towe then hit a pair of free throws to seal the victory.
“We beat the second-best team in the country,” Sloan said to reporters after the game.
Burleson, beaten out by Elmore for a spot on the All-ACC’s first team and not happy about it, responded with the game of his life, scoring 38 points. Thompson had 29.
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“At some point near the end, I looked at Jim (Thacker) and, ‘I don’t want this game to end,’” Packer said in the 2014 interview. “He asked why and I said, ‘Because someone is going to have to lose it and I don’t want either one of these teams to lose.’”
How the game changed college basketball
The game did help change college basketball. Beginning in 1974-75, the NCAA expanded the tournament field from 32 to 48 teams and allowed more than one school from a conference to be selected.
The Wolfpack returned to the Greensboro Coliseum two weeks later, after winning the East Regional in Raleigh that had its own indelible moment — Thompson flipping over the shoulder of teammate Phil Spence trying to block a shot and crashing to the floor at Reynolds Coliseum.
It was a scary moment and Thompson was taken to a hospital, but he later returned to Reynolds, his head bandaged, to everyone’s relief. Thompson was fine by the next week. The Pack went to Greensboro and defeated UCLA 80-77 in two overtimes in the national semifinals — another classic — and then Marquette to claim the school’s first NCAA championship.
But first there was Maryland, and an epic game
Distant runners-up in fan voting
1975: UNC-State
It was the end of the David Thompson era at N.C. State as North Carolina, led by freshman Phil Ford, topped the Pack, 70-66, in the 1975 championship game. Thompson was injured the day before against Maryland in the semifinals, and labored through the title game, but Ford, who had 24 points, teamed with Walter Davis to lift the Tar Heels to victory in Greensboro.
“I went out of the Maryland game with full body cramps,” Thompson said in an N&O interview in 2015. “Obviously I wasn’t at 100 percent but I still played as hard as I could.”
Ford’s speed and quickness were too much for the Pack, and the Rocky Mount native became the first freshman to be named tournament MVP. The Tar Heels were headed to the NCAA tournament, denying the Wolfpack, the 1974 national champs, a chance to repeat and a third consecutive ACC title.
“Phil had a fantastic game,” Thompson said. “They spread the court and went to the Four Corners, and Phil Ford in the Four Corners was almost a victory in itself. I hated to lose to Carolina, but I’m not ashamed to have lost to a great guy like Phil and a great team.”
1982: UNC-Virginia
Everyone settled in at the Greensboro Coliseum to see No. 1 North Carolina play No. 3 Virginia, believing a repeat of the State-Maryland classic from 1974 might be possible. Instead, it became a slog of a game in the second half as the Tar Heels pulled out a 47-45 win that had the fans loudly booing at the end.
The first half was exciting, fast-paced. But with Virginia in a zone, and 7-4 center Ralph Sampson in the middle of it, UNC turned to the Four Corners spread with a 44-43 lead and nearly eight minutes left in regulation. The Heels never took another shot from the field.
“We were just trying to win, and did,” UNC coach Dean Smith told reporters after the game.
UNC won the national championship in New Orleans, with freshman Michael Jordan hitting the winning shot. But the ACC slowdown between the two heavyweights — Sampson vs. Jordan and James Worthy — would help bring about the advent of a shot clock in college basketball a few years later.
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
