Wolfpack Flashback: A Selection Sunday Shocker
The only Madness going on this March is taking place off the court, with the final three days of the ACC tournament and the entire NCAA tournament cancelled in response to the growing coronavirus crisis. With no actual games to report on, SI All Wolfpack is looking back in time to remember some of NC State's best postseason games from the past. Today, on Selection Sunday, we relive a game that got the Wolfpack into the NCAA field and started a postseason run for the ages.
The NC State basketball team came to the ACC tournament in Greensboro last week knowing that it would need to win at least a couple of games to secure a spot in the NCAA tournament field.
It was a similar situation to the one faced by another Wolfpack team 37 years earlier.
Only unlike this year's team, which never got the chance to take care of business, coach Jim Valvano's 1983 team made the most of its opportunity.
Seeded fourth in the eight-team field at The Omni in Atlanta, State squeaked by No. 5 Wake Forest 81-80 in the opening round before outlasting defending national champion and No. 1 seed North Carolina 91-84 in overtime.
That semifinal victory may or may not have assured the Wolfpack their NCAA bid. But just in case, Valvano and his crew took the guesswork out of the equation by winning the tournament championship and the ACC's automatic bid with an 81-78 upset of Ralph Sampson and second-ranked Virginia.
It was a game that saw State jump out to a quick 12-1 lead, then hold off the bigger Cavaliers the rest of the way behind the perimeter shooting of tournament MVP Sidney Lowe, Dereck Whittenburg and Terry Gannon. The trio combined for 45 of their team's points, with Lowe and Gannon combining for seven 3-pointers behind the experimental 17-foot, nine-inch arc.
While the backcourt handled most of the offense, Thurl Bailey provided the defense that held the 7-foot-4 Sampson to just six points in the second half.
''You can never stop Ralph Sampson,'' said Bailey after the game. ''You try to control him.''
With a little help from Gannon, who stripped the ball away from Sampson with 20 seconds to to to seal the victory, Bailey did just that -- shutting the national Player of the Year out over the final 7:48 of the game.
The win and the national championship run it helped launch are looked upon as one of the great Cinderella stories in college basketball history. In reality, though, the Wolfpack started the season as a championship contender and only dropped below the radar when Whittenburg suffered a broken foot on Jan. 12.
It began returning to form when Whittenburg came back and was just hitting its peak when it reached the postseason.
Still, the team may never have believe it could accomplish such great things without the motivation provided by its charismatic leader.
We won because Coach is a dreamer," Lowe said of Valvano that day. "He said something good was going to happen to this club. He tells us his dream and the dreams came true today.''
