North Carolina State University Athletics
No. 5 Wolfpack Rolls to Sugar Bowl Title
12/29/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 29, 1973
BY TIM PEELER
NEW ORLEANS, La. Could this be the first of several championships for NC State’s basketball team this season?
The fifth-ranked Wolfpack (6-1) expended little energy Saturday night in dismantling Memphis State in the title game of the Sugar Bowl Basketball Classic at the New Orleans Municipal Auditorium, leading from tap to buzzer.
David Thompson played his best game of the season so far, scoring 34 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Nineteen of his 30 points came in the first half. Thompson scored 60 points in the two games to win the four-team tournament’s Most Valuable Player award. Sunday night, he made 12 of his 24 field goal attempts and 10 of his 12 free throws, as the Tigers tried to push him off his game.
He wasn’t the game’s top scorer, however, as Memphis State guard Bill Cook netted a career-high 33 points to lead his team’s guard-oriented attack. The Tiger’s guards, 6-5 Cook and 6-3 Dexter Reed, tried to use their height to establish a backcourt advantage over 5-5 Monte Towe and 6-1 Moe Rivers.
But Rivers had 16 points and five assists, while Towe contributed 12 points and four assists. Towe joined teammates Thompson and Burleson on the All-Tournament team, along with Cook and LSU-New Orleans freshman guard Warren Booker, who scored 30 points in his team’s 81-80 overtime victory over Villanova in the consolation game.
The Tigers (8-3) were more effective in getting the Wolfpack frontcourt into foul trouble, and the Wolfpack needed every bit of the cushion it built early in the game, when Thompson and Towe scored eight consecutive points to break an 8-8 tie. Memphis State never got closer than six points the rest of the way.
Wolfpack center Tommy Burleson, after a slow start, was outstanding in the game, scoring 20 points and grabbing 15 rebounds, as the Wolfpack posted a 55-40 rebounding advantage. Burleson was limited in the latter stages of the game after being hit with his fourth personal foul midway through the second half. Wolfpack forwards Tim Stoddard, Phil Spence and Steve Nuce all fouled out of the game.
The Tigers pulled within 71-65 midway through the final period, but Memphis State’s Bill Laurie was hit with a technical foul and the Pack pushed its lead back to double figures.
State has now won the last three tournaments in which it has participated.
Last year, when the Wolfpack finished the season with a perfect 27-0 record, it won both the Big 4 Championship and the ACC Tournament title, but was not eligible to compete for the NCAA title because of NCAA probation.
This year, the Pack is eligible again and both the NCAA East Regional and the National Finals are in the state of North Carolina, at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh and the Greensboro Coliseum, respectively.
And NC State head coach Norm Sloan set this year’s schedule to acclimate his team for tournament competition, from the six-game exhibition tour of the state in the preseason to the Sugar Bowl event to next weekend’s fourth-annual Big 4 Tournament in Greensboro.
The Pack will open the tournament against North Carolina, the first time since the inaugural event in 1970 that the two old rivals faced each other in the opening round.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
