Championship - 1974 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament

1974 ACC Men's Basketball Championship

Greensboro, North Carolina

March 9, 1974

Maryland Terrapins vs NC State Wolfpack

NC State was the top ranked team in the country and had won 31 consecutive conference games coming into the championship game. Maryland was playing in their 3rd consecutive ACC championship game. North Carolina won the tournament in 1972 and NC State was the winner in 1973. No team had ever lost three consecutive ACC championship games. NC State had it a bit easier coming into this game. Maryland had to play two games to get to the championship. NC State finished the regular season first in the conference and only had to play one game in the tournament prior to this one.

I had never seen this game before but I had heard about it. At this time only the conference champion, the winner of the conference tournament, got to go to the national tournament. It was games like this that led the NCAA to change the rules and include teams that didn't win their conference championships. 

Maryland got a lead early in the first half. NC State did not give up and stayed competitive despite the deficit. The Terrapins pushed their lead up to 11 points. The Wolfpack cut into that lead a number of times and each time Maryland managed to come back and push the lead up to about 11 points. Eventually NC State started to turn things around and cut the Terrapins lead down to nothing when they took a 1 point lead. Maryland came back and took the lead again but it was a bit closer for the rest of the half. Maryland managed to push their lead up to 7 put at the half it was 55-50 in the Terrapins favor.

The first half was very energetic. Maryland was dominant in the early going but NC State woke up after Maryland stretched the lead out to 11. The second half was no different. Maryland took the lead early but they didn't get ahead by more than 5 points.

The video of this that I found on YouTube is flawed and towards the end of regulation some of the game is missing and the last 10 minutes are silent. This was from an era when there were no on screen graphics showing you the score, at least not in ACC basketball. This made it very hard to tell what the score was or how much time was left in the game. Up to this point where the audio disappeared I was relying on the announcers for that information.

The game went into overtime. Maryland had a chance to win it. They were down by one, 101-100. The Terps had the ball with less than a minute to go in OT. They looked like they were playing for the last shot but then NC State stole the ball and the Terrapins had to foul. NC State scored two free throws and was up 103-100. Maryland didn't have much of a chance at that point but once again the NC State defense stopped the Terps. Time ran out with the score 103-100.

NC State went on to win the NCAA tournament. It was the school's first NCAA national championship. The Wolfpack stopped UCLA in the Final Four. The Bruins had won 7 consecutive and 9 of the past 10 NCAA tournaments.

This game was the end of the season for the Maryland Terrapins. They did not play in a post-season tournament, despite finishing the regular season ranked 4th in the nation. The rules for the NCAA tournament changed in 1975 to allow teams, that didn't win their conference, entry into the national tournament.