After our third game of the 1956-57 season, which we won over George Washington in Norfolk by 27 points, we faced our ACC opener at South Carolina in Columbia. Grady Wallace of the Gamecocks was leading the nation in scoring, and they had a well-balanced team.
Although we were favored, we got a good scare and survived in overtime, 90-86. After the game, we had a team meeting and agreed we had to be more intense and physical on the three-game road trip to the Northeast that was coming up.
We defeated NYU at Madison Square Garden and then played two games at the Boston Garden, beating Dartmouth and Holy Cross. By now, we were 8-0 with six wins on the road and two victories at home in Woolen Gym.
Lennie began saying we were going undefeated and would win the national championship. We were ranked No. 2 in the country, behind Kansas and Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain. We all began to believe that if we played as a team, and to our strengths, we had a good chance to go all the way.
We learned, as the current Tar Heels must do, that playing intensely for 40 minutes was the key to every game. We rebounded well and boxed out, which the 2012 team is doing better of late. We see similarities between how physical we played and the Tar Heels in the first half of their wins over N.C. State and Georgia Tech. Carolina can go all the way, too, if the team stays dedicated to the following principles:
Play unselfishly as a team and, like Coach Williams says, share the basketball.
Play intensely for 40 minutes, which has not been the case with big leads in the second half of the State and Georgia Tech games.
Despite being bigger than most teams, we still have to box out and rebound.
Work on their free throws, as that could be costly late in close games.
Carolina plays at Maryland on Saturday, which was our closest call in 1957. We survived in double overtime after Coach (Frank) McGuire actually told us when we were behind late in the game, “You can’t win them all. Be good sports after the game and congratulate Maryland.”
We did not listen to him and tied the game, eventually winning in the second overtime period. After that game, we thought we were invincible. “Only 15 more,” Lennie told Coach McGuire after the game.
No more overtimes, but there would be other close calls along the way.
Pete Brennan was first-team All-America and ACC Player of the Year in 1958, when he led the ACC in scoring and rebounding and was a first-round draft pick of the New York Knicks. Lennie Rosenbluth was first-team All-ACC as a sophomore, junior and senior, was ACC Player of the Year, a consensus All-America and National Player of the Year in 1957, when the Tar Heels finished 32-0 and won UNC’s first NCAA championship in basketball. Both Tar Heel greats have returned to Chapel Hill to live in their retirement years.
We went into the 1957 ACC Tournament on a high after finishing the regular season with a big win at Duke and a 24-0 record, but there was still a lot of pressure because we had to keep winning.
As our 1957 team headed into the final week of the regular season with a 22-0 record, we weren’t thinking about losing a game to take the pressure off going into the ACC Tournament.
After our third game of the 1956-57 season, which we won over George Washington in Norfolk by 27 points, we faced our ACC opener at South Carolina in Columbia.
E-Mail
Print
The WCHL Morning News with Ron Stutts
