North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: A Season-Long Remembrance of '74 Title
12/5/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. Thirty-five years ago today, NC State began to dismantle a dynasty.
On Dec. 5, 1973, David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Monte Towe and Company opened the 1973-74 season with a closer-than-remembered 79-47 victory over East Carolina at Reynolds Coliseum, the first steps on the path to the school’s first NCAA Championship in any sport.
The season was one of remarkable highlights, and not just for the high-flying antics of Thompson, whose 44-inch vertical leap made him college basketball’s most exciting player.
From the early-season trip to St. Louis to face seven-time NCAA champion UCLA and Bill Walton, where the Wolfpack saw its school-record 29-game winning streak end, to the pressure-packed ACC Tournament, where only one team could advance to play for the national championship, the Wolfpack faced challenges throughout season.
Then came Thompson’s silencing fall in Reynolds in the second-round NCAA game against Pittsburgh, when he trip over teammate Phil Spence’s shoulder while going for a rebound. Less than a week later, with 16 stitches still in his scalp, Thompson was ready for the rematch against the Bruins in the national semifinals.
Down 11 points in the second half and seven points in the second overtime, the Wolfpack rode Thompson’s shoulders to a 90-87 victory that brought to an end the Bruins’ strangle-hold on the sport.
“I’ll say this, our team never gave up,” Norm Sloan said after that game, a prefacing the words made famous by another Wolfpack basketball coach years later.
That game still weighs heavily on the mind of 98-year-old John Wooden, the legendary Hall of Fame coach who led the Bruins to 10 national titles from 1964-75.
“I’ll tell you, I was involved in many, many games,” Wooden said not long ago. “In all my years in the college game, while at UCLA, that North Carolina State game still stands out more than any other to me, because in my opinion, we let that game slip away. We had an 11-point lead in the middle of the second half and we had a seven-point lead in the second overtime, I believe it was.
“That shouldn’t happen.”
In his own professorial way, Wooden means it as a compliment that the Wolfpack unseated his squad, with Thompson leading the way.
“In my opinion, overall, we had a better team, and we lost,” Wooden said. “That isn’t taking anything away from North Carolina State, because they had great players, especially Thompson. But in my mind, to this day, I think we had the better team. And they beat us.”
Throughout this basketball season which will include a rematch on Dec. 22 against Marquette, the team the Wolfpack beat in the championship game GoPack.com will devote this special section to remembering the remarkable 1973-74 campaign, reliving every game with stories, pictures and statistics posted on the anniversary date of each of the season’s 31 games. Access the section from the 1974 button at the bottom of the front page of GoPack.com or the individual stories from the “Headlines” tab on the front page.
There will be other features as well throughout the year, as well, about what is remembered as one of the most talented teams in ACC history, with the incomparable Thompson, 7-foot-4 Tommy Burleson, feisty point guard Monte Towe, two-sport star Tim Stoddard, Raleigh-native Phil Spence and junior college sensation Moe Rivers, among others.
“We were not a perfect team, by any means,” Burleson said recently. “But we were a great team that God had blessed with a lot of talent.”
While some memories of that season have faded, Thompson’s brilliant play has not. His high-flying athletic ability changed the game forever. His career is, in part, responsible for ending the ban on freshman eligibility, bringing the dunk back to the college game and allowing more than one team per conference into the NCAA Tournament.
There remains a strong connection of that team to the current Wolfpack team, since Towe is now an assistant coach on Sidney Lowe’s staff, and Burleson, Thompson, Spence and Mark Moeller are frequently seen in the stands at the RBC Center.
Stay turned throughout the season to this special section on GoPack.com to relive the exploits of NC State’s first national championship team.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
