The first round of the greatest playoff in sports is just 60 minutes away, but Longhorn Road Trip has your fix in the meantime. For the last nine days, we’ve been counting down the greatest finishes in NCAA tournament history, and today we reach the end of our list. Jim Valvano‘s Wolfpack of NC State met the University of Houston in the 1983 NCAA finals, huge underdogs against a Cougar team that had won 26 straight coming into the championship. With 44 seconds left, NC State had the ball in a tie ballgame. Without the modern shot clock, the Wolfpack was able to work the ball around in a Four Corners set, although Houston’s Clyde Drexler came within inches of stealing the ball for a possible game-winning fast break. After another near-steal, Dereck Whittenburg threw up a desperation heave with four seconds to go that completely missed the iron. But Lorenzo Charles was in the perfect position, catching the airball in time for a championship-winning putback dunk. The video here starts with a little over a minute to go, but it’s worth it to watch the whole thing. The impatient folks who want to cut to the chase can skip to the 2-minute mark of the video. |
4 Responses to “Top Ten March Madness Buzzer Beaters – Number 1”
on 20 Mar 2008 at 11:49 pm # Joe Husky Fan
Thanks for not putting up Rip Hamilton’s 1998 buzzer beater in the sweet sixteen, Huskies vs. Huskies, http://youtube.com/watch?v=8osYBQ0jI70 . UConn had three layup chances. That shot changed the fate of University of Washington coach Bob Bender. He was a fired a few years later after never again coming close to that successful season. Interestingly enough UW hasn’t had a good year since losing to UConn again in 2006 on another final shot.
on 21 Mar 2008 at 12:03 am # Jzimo
Nice to see people actually read this blog.
on 21 Mar 2008 at 12:54 am # Ryan
Don’t want to bring back any bad memories for you, UW Joe, but we had that game at #9 on the countdown. Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately in your case — we couldn’t embed the video in the page, so only a link was provided. I remember how frustrated I was watching that game, so I can only imagine how bad it was from the UW perspective. I still hate Khalid El-Amin to this day.
on 22 Mar 2008 at 2:33 am # Jzimo
Sadly I think I know this guy. And he goes to texas to.
I thought maybe you had readers all over the worlds. But alas, no such luck.