Six weeks ago, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the browser history on Kevin Keatts’ computer showed visits to moving companies.
Now, the N.C. State Wolfpack coach is probably due for a celebratory appointment with his financial planner, considering the provisions in his contract that are about to kick in.
“…after questions about the longevity of his tenure beyond this season, Keatts has now led his team to a historic run and locked himself in for the foreseeable future in the process,” says 247sports.com. “With the two years added, Keatts' contract now has six years remaining with a total base annual income of $17.6 million over the life of the contract.”
The money is obviously nice, but beating UNC in the ACC tournament final, then Duke to go to the Final Four? Priceless.
Let's Look Back
Twelve months ago, the Wolfpack was +15000 to win a national championship this season, and those odds remained steady until Christmas. They got as high as +50000, when things started to turn around, to the point the Pack arrives in Phoenix at +350.
N.C. State went into its conference tournament as the tenth seed, before winning five times in five days to become ACC champs, the lowest seed ever to win the tournament, and matching UConn’s five wins in five days to win the Big East in 2011.
As March Madness began, 14 teams were considered by oddsmakers more likely to be crowned champions than N.C. State, very similar to the school’s most famous team.
More than 40 years between visits
That 1983 team, the subject of a 30 for 30 episode, is memorable for the dramatic and then comedic ending of the championship game, a horrible air ball that turned into a game-winning sort of alley oop, followed by coach Jim Valvano’s crazed run around the court, “looking for somebody to hug.”
Valvano was only in his third year at the helm in Raleigh, having been hired nine days after Mike Krzyzewski arrived at Duke, both of them beginning their careers in the shadow of Dean Smith, just down Tobacco Road at UNC.
Valvano, who looked and sounded like the New Yorker he was, had already been successful on the much smaller stage of Iona, and was a proven coach.
And talker. What a talker.
“Valvano says he has already learned that "beating North Carolina is not life and death, it's more important than that. If Carolina played the Russians, half the state would be rooting for the Russians," said the Sports Illustrated story on Valvano’s hiring, which also included his memory of leaving his Italian neighborhood to go to college. “When I left home to go to Rutgers, which is 40 miles from New York, my mother packed me food. That's true. When I left, my whole family came—everybody was crying, there were long phone calls, and when we drove over, we packed blankets in the car in case we had to sleep on the way.”
Unlike this year’s NC State team, the 82-83 Wolfpack didn’t sneak up on anybody, beginning conference play ranked 19th in the country.
Their second conference game was against Virginia, second in the country and a team the Wolfpack's seniors had never beaten, in large part because of the presence of 7’4” Ralph Sampson, the Zach Edey of his day (though Sampson was national player of the year three times).
But this year was expected to be different, with N.C. State led by senior captain and shooting guard Dereck Whittenburg. That is, until Whittenburg – after scoring 27 points in the first half – landed on the foot of a Virginia player, breaking his own foot.
In the absence of their alpha male, the Wolfpack struggled and was 17-10 record entering the ACC Tournament.
N.C. State beat Wake Forest by one point in their quarterfinal matchup, and North Carolina in overtime in a semifinal, setting up a rematch with Virginia, which had beaten Duke by 43 (!) and Georgia Tech by 31 en route to the final.
Needing to win to ensure a berth in the NCAA tournament, which had not yet expanded to 64 teams, N.C. State won 81-78, Whittenburg clinching the victory with two late free throws.
1984 March Madness
Valvano’s team entered the tournament +2500, with 15 teams considered better bets, including the Houston Cougars at +350.
N.C. State opened play against 11th seed Pepperdine. If you ever get a chance to visit the Pepperdine campus, don’t miss it. It’s incredible. But the Waves then, as now, did not inspire much fear.
Complacent, the Wolfpack actually had to rally to force overtime before finally winning in double OT. Imagine if you had beaten Ralph Sampson and then lost to a school that offers course credit for surfing.
State then edged UNLV by one and handled Utah to advance to the regional final against, somehow, Virginia.
Sampson missed a shot as time expired and N.C. State survived, 63-62, to go to the Final Four.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the national semifinals was that zero backboards were shattered in the matchup between the Houston “Phi Slamma Jamma” Cougars and the Louisville “Doctors of Dunk” Cardinals.
Even Valvano labelled the semis “the A game and the jayvees,” the latter “an interminable 67-60 bore,” as the sage Curry Kirkpatrick of SI described the Wolfpack win over Georgia in the first half of the doubleheader.
11 Future Pros
In the thin air of almost-mile-high Alburquerque, the Louisville-Houston dunk fest was so exciting even the fans got lightheaded.
Louisville was a very good team, with all five starters eventually playing in the NBA.
Houston, though, had six future NBA players on the roster, including two you may have heard of, Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
In the last 12:37 of a 94-81 win, the Cougars had ten dunks, including six in a row.
“I've never seen anything like it in a real game,” said Louisville’s Scooter McCray.
Given the disparity of their semifinal results, the Cougars were seven-point favorites over N.C. State in the final, the oddsmakers perhaps aware of the importance of foul shooting and coaching. (That’s called foreshadowing).
In 1983, the shot clock and the three-point shot were yet to come to the tournament (some conferences experimented with the three earlier that season).
Valvano didn’t invent the strategy of intentionally fouling opposing players to put them on the free-throw line and prevent the opponent from stalling, but he embraced it.
Risky, sure, but not so much against a team that was dogshit from the line, like Houston, 61 per cent on the season, 57 per cent during the tournament and 10 for 19 in the championship.
After scoring 94 points in their semifinal win, Houston was held to just 25 in the first half of the final and trailed by eight. Perhaps more worrisome, Drexler was whistled for four fouls in the first half, begging the question, why was he in there with three?
In the second half, Cougars coach Guy Lewis focused on getting the ball to Olajuwon (good idea) and Houston outscored the Wolfpack 17–2 in the first ten minutes of the half to take a 42–35 lead.
But for some reason, the 5,100-foot altitude seemed to affect Olajuwon the most, and he was removed from the game so he could take oxygen.
Lewis decided to slow the game down to rest Akeem, but that took Houston away from its freewheeling strength and let Valvano extend the game by fouling.
N.C. State outscored Houston 17–10 over eight minutes and tied the game at 52 with 44 seconds left, coming out of a Wolfpack time out, Valvano having drawn up a play for Whittenburg to take the last shot.
Finally, a Lewis decision worked out, sort of, as his switch from man to a half court trap forced State to freelance.
With five seconds left in regulation, Whittenburg heaved the ball in the general decision of the hoop from 35 feet away, not really getting it that close. However, under the basket were Olajuwon and N.C. State center Lorenzo Charles. Olajuwon hesitated, maybe worried about being called for goaltending, maybe exhausted, but there was no hesitation by Charles, who caught the ball and dunked it in one motion.
The place went bananas and N.C. State was the national champ.
In his two games at Albuquerque, Olajuwon had 41 points and 40 rebounds, and was named Most Outstanding Player, the last player from a losing team to win the award.
After the game, Valvano was asked his opinion of the host city.
"How did I like Albuquerque? Albuquerque is the greatest city the Lord ever made. My wife is going to be pregnant—she doesn't know this yet—and I'm going to name the kid Al B. Querque."