Small-town Raleigh marveled at '74 State team

Raleigh was different in 1974.There were few restaurants in town, no places to buy bagels and plenty of spots to get sweet tea. No one talked about living Inside the Beltline because, well, most people did.

Public schools had only recently been integrated. Raleigh felt small, and was, a state capital that rarely made national news. Meanwhile, Durham and Chapel Hill felt worlds away.

College basketball was different then, and not the national passion it is now. The sport was dominated by UCLA and coach John Wooden, and who knew how long that would last? Fans here loved ACC basketball but the league had won only one national title, by North Carolina in 1957.

Then came in 1974 – and Raleigh became the epicenter of a story that would change college basketball. Duke was amazing in 1992, and North Carolina was phenomenal in ’82. But State was unique, in its talent and its time. The fading films and black and white photos still evoke an amazing team that remains the ACC’s best.

David Thompson, of course, was surreal. Everyone remembers his ability to leap and grab Monte Towe’s alley-oops, but when you see him on film again you’re stunned at how quickly and accurately he shoots. Give him a three-point line and a chance to dunk and he’d be unbelievable. He remains, hands down, the most talented player to grace an ACC court.

Thompson’s impact extended beyond the court. Polite and thoughtful, he was admired by whites still adjusting to watching blacks on their ACC teams. The love Thompson and his teammates shared was an important symbol in a society still learning to sit side by side.

Thompson wasn’t the team’s only star. Just watch the replay of the 1974 ACC championship game, when State beat Maryland in an epic struggle, and you’ll be jarred at how good Towe was.

Towe was State’s 5-foot-7 point guard, and it’s easy to think he was a product of the talent around him. But Towe fired in 25-foot shots that would count three points now and handled the ball with grace and speed. He’d easily be one of the best point guards in the ACC today.

And Tommy Burleson, at 7 feet 4, remains one of the league’s great centers. He was superb in big games, torching Len Elmore in that ’74 ACC final and matching up with Bill Walton in the Final Four showdown with UCLA.

There wasn’t much happening in this state back then, and thousands of fans went to Reynolds Coliseum to watch N.C. State practice before the game was played in Greensboro.

I remember the day of the UCLA game clearly - the waiting, the enormous anxiety as tip-off approached. Sports Illustrated wrote there wasn’t a plow turning across North Carolina that day. I couldn’t believe my mother went shopping while all of us on my street in Raleigh huddled around our television and waited for State-UCLA.

The game was the colossal struggle you’d expect. But we were aghast when State fell desperately behind in overtime, and one of my friends couldn’t stand it and ran outside to shoot baskets in the driveway.

I remember the exhilaration we felt as the Wolfpack roared back, and I rushed to the door and screamed outside, “Hey! WE’RE COMING BACK!!!”

And so State did.

State’s win that day changed the sport. UCLA won the national title one more time in 1975, but the dynasty was dead and college basketball entered a new era in which it became a national passion.

I went on to be a student at Carolina in 1982, and then covered the 1992 Duke team as the beat reporter for The News and Observer. As marvelous as those teams were, the ’74 State team was better.

I spoke once on the phone with Wooden about how much he admired that Wolfpack squad.

Through the phone from California came the deep, rich voice of Wooden saying that in life, you need love and balance.

In basketball, he said, you need balance and quickness.

The Wolfpack, Wooden said, had both.

They had a love for each other, too. That emotional connection was evident when Thompson, head bandaged, returned to Reynolds Coliseum after a nasty fall in an NCAA game.

So 34 years have passed, and I’m a little, uh, grayer and heavier than in March of 1974. But the deluge of votes in WRAL’s Sweetest 16 confirms what I’ve always believed – in 1974, N.C. State had the best team to ever play in the ACC.