YouTube Gold: Nothing Could Be Finer Than Defeatin’ Carolina In The Finals

In 1976-77, Dean Smith had been the coach at UNC for 16 years and had long since established himself as one of the best coaches in college basketball. He had been to the Final Four in 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1972.

When the U.S. basketball team allegedly lost to the Soviets in 1972, Smith was given the job of winning gold back in 1976, and he succeeded. There was a bit of controversy when he took four of his own players, but in the end he was right: the U.S. had been taking essentially All-Star teams and the other national teams had been together for years. Smith also took ACC rivals Steve Smith from Maryland, Kenny Carr from NC State and Tate Armstrong from Duke. Those guys all knew how Smith’s schemes worked.

The U.S. got a bit of a scare from Puerto Rico, but in the end won gold. We’ll come back to that.

In 1977, Smith had a pretty good team and a great backcourt with Phil Ford and Walter Davis. John Kuester also started. Up front, the Tar Heels had Tommy LaGarde, Mike O’Koren, Jeff Wolf and the late Rich Yonaker, who was among the most-mocked Tar Heels in Cameron history. Trivia: the mocking “airball” chant was invented in Cameron when Smith tried to hold the ball for the first half in the 1979 visit and went into the locker room down 7-0 after Yonaker missed everything.

Coming off the Olympics, UNC had a lot going for it, not least of all the sensational Ford, who remains the best point guard in UNC history. However, that team had multiple injuries and honestly, it was a surprise that it got to Monday night in the championship game.

When they got there, they met Marquette, memorably coached by Al McGuire, who had earlier announced that 1976-77 would be his final season.

A key player for McGuire: point guard Butch Lee.

Lee had contended with Smith and Ford the summer before in the Olympics. He had wanted to play for the U.S. but ended up playing for Puerto Rico, and he hit 15 of 18 of his shots against the U.S., with P.R. losing 95-94.

Lee would get his revenge in March in the Omni in Atlanta as the Warriors (Marquette’s nickname at the time) beat UNC, 67-59.

McGuire went out on a huge high, with his classic line about seashells and balloons. He went on to a very entertaining broadcasting career. Much like his coaching style, McGuire left the heavy work to others and ran almost entirely on charisma.

In broadcasting, as in coaching, he made it work. He was a very unusual man.