Maryland
YouTube Gold: NC State vs. Maryland In The 1974 ACC Tournament Finals
If you sat around with a table full of ACC fans, including some who have been around for a good while, and you discuss the best ACC games ever, it won’t take too long to get around to the 1974 ACC championship game between Maryland and NC State.
Both teams were led by young, dynamic coaches in Lefty Driesell (Maryland) and Norm Sloan (NC State).
Driesell promised to make Maryland the UCLA of the East and in 1974, it looked like he just might. He had a brilliant team with Len Elmore, Tom McMillen and Durham’s own John Lucas.
But Sloan had put together a once-in-a-lifetime team with 5-5 Monte Town, 7-4 Tom Burleson and, most of all, 6-4 Shelby native David Thompson (NC State’s SID had a ball, putting out photos like this)
Many people believe that that ACC Finals was the best game ever played. Fittingly, it went to overtime, where the Pack won 103-100.
Incidentally, near the end of this video the audio goes walkabout and the video is a bit erratic too. But you still get the idea of the greatness and intensity of this particular game and era. It was truly a classic.
