WOW!! What an amazing morning of attention for the NC State Basketball program!!
We’ve got two “REQUIRED” items for you this morning to go with everything else on the main blog and a ton of great threads on our message forums (click here)
First is the following video from NCAA.com is a MUST SEE for everyone!!
Second is this this article on CBS Sports from Tony Barnhart – ‘After long lapse, coach Gottfried makes N.C. State relevant again’
Draw near, dear children, and I will tell you a story that you’ll find hard to believe.
Once upon a time, long before you were only a gleam in your mother’s eye, North Carolina State was the dominant college basketball team, not only in the state of North Carolina, but the ACC as well.
Yes, I know. In your lifetime all you have ever known is the dominance of Duke and North Carolina. Mike Krzyzewski has been at Duke forever, or at least it seems that way, and has won more games than anybody else. Dean Smith retired at North Carolina in 1997 and Roy Williams eventually picks up the baby blue mantle and they just keep rolling. It’s hard to believe there was ever a time when red was the dominant color — or even a relevant color — in the Tar Heel state.
But that time did exist.
Everett Case came to N.C. State in 1946 after winning four Indiana state high school championships and turned North Carolina into a basketball crazy part of the world.
N.C. State won the first three ACC tournament championships (1954-56). In an effort to keep up, Duke would eventually hire a Case disciple, Vic Bubas, as coach. North Carolina would go to New York and hire Frank McGuire in 1952 because its boosters were tired of losing to N.C. State.
And we were off and running.
N.C. State has won 10 ACC tournament championships, second only to Duke (19) and North Carolina (17). The Wolfpack won the national championship in 1974 with David Thompson, Tom Burleson, and Monte Towe and then won another one with Jim Valvano’s miracle team of 1983.
But here is the present reality of N.C. State basketball. The Wolfpack hasn’t won an ACC Tournament since 1987. It hasn’t been to an NCAA Tournament since 2006. The glory years of the Wolfpack are now far, far, away.
On Friday, however, first-year coach Mark Gottfried took a big step toward making N.C. State basketball relevant again as the Wolfpack beat fourth-seeded Virginia 67-64 in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament at Philips Arena.
