From stars being made to dynasties on the wane, here's the college scene and a little more of amateur hoops.
North Carolina State wins
the NCAA tournament. En route to a 76-64 win against Marquette in the
championship game, the Wolfpack defeats the powerhouse that is UCLA
80-77 in double overtime. N.C. State's record for the season is 30-1.
The Bruins' loss to the Wolfpack is one of four that
season; the first, against Notre Dame Jan. 19, brings their 88-game
winning streak to an end. The Fighting Irish, playing at home, overcome an
11-point deficit in the last 3:30 to win 71-70.
The next two are on consecutive nights: Feb. 15 against Oregon
and Feb. 16 against Oregon State. The Bruins hadn't practiced on a
Sunday before, but there's a first time for everything, and that time is Feb.
17.
Bill Walton wins three of the five
outstanding player awards he had swept in '72 and '73 (namely: UPI, U.S.
Basketball Writers' Association, and the Naismith Award). At the end of his
time at UCLA, his total is 1,370 rebounds. He has 398 in '73-74 and averages
19.3 points per game, but those marks aren't as high as the ones for his
sophomore and junior years.
Instead of giving Walton the outstanding player award for a
third time, the AP and the Helms Foundation both choose David Thompson
of N.C. State. Thompson averages 26.0 points per game this season with 245
rebounds (7.9 per game). He is also the Most Outstanding Player of the Final
Four, with a .514 field goal percentage, a .786 free throw percentage, 17
rebounds, and 49 points in two games. Walton and Thompson tie for the Helms
Foundation award according to the '91 Information Please Sports Almanac;
Sports-Reference.com says Thompson alone won it.
In fact, Thompson is the runner-up for the AAU's
prestigious James E. Sullivan Award, covering all sports.
The consensus All-America team is as follows: Walton,
Thompson, Keith Wilkes (later Jamaal Wilkes) of UCLA, John Shumate
of Notre Dame, Marvin Barnes of Providence.
Who is the Coach of the Year? UPI says Digger Phelps
of Notre Dame, the USBWA and the AP say Norm Sloan of N.C. State, and
the National Association of Basketball Coaches says Al McGuire of
Marquette. In '75, all of those awards will go to Indiana's Bobby
Knight.
Indiana, despite being good enough to be ranked No. 9 in
the AP poll, does not make the NCAA tournament, but the Hoosiers do win the end-of-season
Collegiate Commissioners' Association tournament, narrowly defeating Tennessee
and Toledo before dominating USC in the finals.
Larry Fogle of independent, 14-12 Canisius
leads the NCAA with 33.4 points per game, or, by another set of standards, it's
William Averitt of 8-18 West Coast Athletic Conference member Pepperdine
with 33.9.
Barnes has 597 rebounds in 32 games, the top NCAA mark for
that category. He had 571 in 30 games the year before, but finished second on
the leaderboard.
The per-game rebound leader, for the second time in a row,
is Kermit Washington of American, a 16-10 Middle Atlantic Conference
team. His average was 19.8 last season and an even 20.0 this season.
Al Fleming of Arizona
finishes the season with a .667 field-goal percentage, tying Kent Martens
of Abilene Christian in 1972 and Lew Alcindor of UCLA in 1967,
the former two having attempted exactly 204 field goals each and the latter
having gone 346-for-519.
Lute Olson, future Iowa and Arizona coach, coaches
this year at Long Beach State after a year at Long Beach City College.
He takes over for Jerry Tarkanian, who will begin the first of many
years at UNLV next season.
Speaking of Long Beach State, the 49ers' home winning
streak ends at 75 sometime in '74. Their 94-84 loss to San Francisco
ends a run that began in 1968. Another home-court winning streak begins this
calendar year: the UNLV Rebels' 72 times defending their home.
Duke leads by eight with 17
seconds left in the March 2 game against hated rival UNC, a much
mightier team against which the Blue Devils have put up a fight. The Tar Heels
rally back, culminating in a long shot by Mitch Kupchak. Duke goes on to
lose in overtime, having fallen apart. Pete Kramer's free throw in the fourth period would
have been the difference.
Purdue wins the NIT with a 97-81 win
over Utah in the final. The Utes' Mike Sojourner is the
tournament MVP.
Morgan State wins the College
Division (later known as Division II) title.
Alcorn State, a future NCAA
Division I school, loses the NAIA final to West Georgia.
Lloyd Free, later to be known as
World B. Free, is an NAIA All-American. The Guilford guard also makes
second team AP Little All-America.
This is the first year that freshmen are eligible for
varsity teams.
In the school's last year before the shuttering of its
doors, Englewood Cliffs College (N.J.) sets a record Jan. 20, losing to Essex
County Community College by 143 points. The victorious Wolverines also set
a record with their 210 points, with the official scorecard and game ball going
to the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Immaculata University wins
the AIAW title for the third year in a row in the third edition of the women's
tournament.
OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE GAME
Moses Malone leads Petersburg
High to a second consecutive state championship in Virginia high school
basketball. His 896 points in 25 games (for an average of 35.8) is a
single-season total-points record that will stand for 19 years. Malone's career
scoring average of 27.2 remains one of the best in state history.
The Soviet Union wins the FIBA championship in San
Juan, Puerto Rico. Yugoslavia finishes second in this tournament, which
is the last of the quadrennial world championships with a round-robin to decide
the champion instead of a single final game.
