Ask most basketball-savvy Sunflower State fans what they think is the best NCAA basketball championshlp game of all-time and you will probably get a scattering of Michael Jordan’s winning shot for North Carolina or the game between UCLA and Houston. Maybe a few Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) mentions but most will probably bring up Super Mario Chalmers and “The Shot” that got the Kansas Jayhawks into overtime where they ran away from the Memphis Tigers and garnered their third modern-day NCAA Championship.
That shot, that game, that championship certainly ranks right up there, especially if you live in Kansas. For me, though, it still comes in just below the top. My pick for the all-time best championship game happened way back in 1957, between Kansas and North Carolina.
1957, was the first year in which NCAA members were divided into separate competitive levels, University and College. In other words, Big Boys and Little Guys. That Final Four was held in downtown Kansas City in Muncipal Auditorium. The four finalists were Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State and San Francisco.
In the semifinals Kansas ran away from San Francisco 80-56 while North Carolina took 3 overtimes to dispose of Michigan State to set the battle of All-Americans in the championship game. Kansas featured Wilt Chamberlain while the Tar Heels countered with Lennie Rosenbluth. Of local interest was guard Bob Billings from Russell, Kansas, a key playmaker on the 27-2 Jayhawks.
North Carolina was coached by the legendary Frank McGuire who had a pipeline into New York that funneled basketball talent continually to North Carolina. Kansas was coached by Dick Harp who had taken over for long-time legend Phog Allen.
Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium was hosting the Final Four for the seventh time which tied Madison Square Garden in New York for the most hosted championship games. Later, in 1961, Muncipal Auditorium would break that record, a record it still holds today.
I remember listening to the game on radio, frustrated that the Jayhawks could not, did not win the game in regulation. In the first overtime each team scored only one basket. In the second overtime neither team scored (no shot clocks in those days). In the third, and final, overtime, North Carolina’s Joe Quigg made two free throws in the closing seconds and the undefeated Tar Heels had nipped the favored Kansas Jayhawks 54-53, before 7,778 fans in Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium! The two teams had come into the game ranked by the AP as number one and number two and that’s just how it ended.
KU’s Wilt Chamberlain was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, becoming only the fourth all-time to receive the honor while not playing for the championship team.
Though he didn’t say it, Chamberlain was devastated by the loss and after his playing days never returned to Kansas until 1998, when KU lured him back to retire his jersey. Overwhelmed by the crowd support and the long-lasting standing ovation, Chamberlain whispered, “The loss to North Carolina was devastating to me because I felt like I let the University and my teammates down. Now I realize it was just a loss.”
Triple overtime. A one-point loss, not a win. In my books, STILL the best championship game EVER!
Buddy Tabler is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
