Post 6 of 1973-74: Reliving the NC State Wolfpack's Title Run
Returning Players and Promising Recruits
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: As the 50th anniversary season of NC State’s men’s basketball team winning the 1974 NCAA Championship progresses, my book—1973-74: Reliving the NC State Wolfpack’s Title Run—is being published in its entirety throughout the 2023-24 season on this website. You are invited to read the book in this space, or, if you want to jump ahead to read how NC State played each game, or if you need a gift for a NC State Wolfpack basketball fan, please purchase a paperback or hardcover edition. Click these links Paperback or Hardcover for the best source to buy a copy of 1973-74: Reliving the NC State Wolfpack’s Title Run.
The book, which I published in 2015, contains 94 chapters of actual game stories in the Technician, the NC State University student newspaper, some written by me and others penned by other staff writers. The game accounts are preceded by a Dedication; Foreword; a short story; and, Introduction. At the end of the book, there’s an Afterword; a Postscript: Interview with David Thompson; an Overtime: The Stuff of Memories; Acknowledgements; player and team stats; and, season results. This book is a different kind of narrative, putting you into the season as it happened. Enjoy!
POST 6: Returning Players and Promising Recruits
The foundation of State basketball
The foundation of the 1973–74 championship started when Tommy Burleson chose to matriculate at State. His decision to attend State was instrumental in David Thompson’s arrival a year later. Tommy was a freshman in 1970–71 and not much more than a tall man on the court, playing only on the freshman team. In his junior year, he played to a level everyone, including Coach Norman Sloan, had wished and hoped.
In 1971–72, as a sophomore, Burleson lagged behind senior center Paul Coder much of the season. Coder had the fire and experience; Tommy, gangly and unpolished, needed to add a little weight to his skinny frame and hone his basketball skills. The same season, Thompson played on the freshman squad and performed at a higher level, more like a seasoned college player. He was the real deal, and everyone, especially the students, knew it.
The freshmen team played prior to the varsity games. Students were admitted by showing student identification cards, lining up in front of Reynolds Coliseum at least two hours before the freshman games to secure front-row, side-court seats. Rarely did anyone stay seated to watch David Thompson, along with Monte Towe and others, dominate the opposition. And, sometimes, once the freshmen were finished, the crowd thinned a little. The varsity was just 16–10 overall and 6–6 in the ACC that season.
The freshmen lost only one game that season, an away game at North Carolina. In the return bout at State, in Reynolds Coliseum, Thompson, who fouled out with 10 minutes to go in the game, scored 48 points in the Wolfpack payback, 75–45 (yes, 3 fewer points than Thompson scored). After that game, State students spilled onto the court, raising Thompson to their shoulders to carry him on victory laps around the court.
In 1972–73, the probation year, everything clicked for the Wolfpack. The team came into focus. Burleson played up to his junior potential. Thompson flourished in an up-tempo, inside-outside game. The supporting cast included Monte Towe at the point and Joe Cafferky at the second guard position. State was 27–0 and seemed very much on a mission that season to do what it could to diminish the NCAA penalty. Thompson and Burleson played in the World University Games after the season. Prior to the 27–0 run, in the summer of 1972, Burleson was a member of the USA Olympic team that was cheated out of a gold medal.
As the 1974–73 academic year started, Ken Lloyd, the Technician sports editor, reviewed the previous year in State sports in a late August issue of the Technician. About the basketball team, he wrote the following:
In basketball, as has been said before, 27–0 tells it all. Coach Norm Sloan’s cagers were touted before the season as being good, but everyone knows UCLA is the only team in the country that is supposed to go undefeated. Well, the Wolfpack, led by the incomparable David Thompson, stumped the critics and doubters by rising to the occasion repeatedly and mowing down opponent after opponent on the way to the ACC title. On more than one occasion, the Pack had to make miraculous comebacks to pull the game out of the fire. State wound up second in both polls to UCLA.
Thompson wowed everyone who saw him, and even many who didn’t, on his way to becoming a consensus All-American while only an 18-year-old sophomore. Towering Tom Burleson joined Thompson on the All-ACC team while dapper Sloan grabbed ACC coach of the year honors and was runner-up to the legendary John Wooden of UCLA for the national award.
The only point to dim the glitter of the basketball season was the one-year probation on the program. But with all but two of the top 11 players returning, State’s chance at the national title may come this year.
With the 11, there were 6 recruits, 4 freshmen with impressive high school credentials, and 2 junior college transfers, who were being counted on to immediately figure into Norm Sloan’s game plan.
New recruits promise to add to already strong Wolfpack
Reprinted from the Technician, October 24, 1973
By Jim Pomeranz, Staff Writer
Football season is only half over, but if you pass by Carmichael Gym just about any afternoon around 4 or 5 o’clock, you may get the impression that football was over long ago. As of October 15, basketball season all over the country got underway.
State head coach Norm Sloan has his charges practicing 4 times a week in preparation for the excitement-filled upcoming basketball campaign. Along with home-and-home dates with the 6 Atlantic Coast Conference foes, the Pack faces such noted powers as Purdue, Davidson, and, of course, UCLA, the nation’s number one team for 7 straight years. And if all goes as expected, State may face runner-up Memphis in New Orleans at the Sugar Bowl tournament.
So, the 1973–74 basketball season poses a few challenges for the Wolfpack, and Sloan knows it. “We’ll definitely have to be improved to successfully defend our ACC championship,” he said. “Although we were undefeated last year, we had several close games with conference teams, and they’ll all be stronger.”
But State had a strong recruiting year to replace the loss of forward Rick Holdt and guard Joe Cafferky, though the absence of the two leaders will be felt.
Six players have signed grants-in-aid to attend State and play basketball. “We feel that we’ve had a good recruiting year,” said Sloan, “and we’re very pleased these young men have decided to further their education at NC State.”
Trying out as freshmen will be Bruce Dayhuff of Walkerton, IN, Ken Gehring of Akron, OH, Bill Lake of Carmel, IN, and Mike Buurma of Willard, OH. Junior college transfers Morris Rivers of Brooklyn, NY, and Phil Spence of Raleigh will also be added to the Wolfpack.
“They are all excellent basketball prospects, and we think some of them will be of immediate help,” continued Sloan. But the 1973 ACC Coach of the Year does not know which ones will give quick aid. That will not be determined until “they’re evaluated on the playing floor against college competition.”
Dayhuff, a 6'2" guard, sports the highest scoring average of the 6, with a 29.3 point pace his senior season. Over a 4-year high school career, he averaged 21.2 points and was named to both the Indiana all-star team and to the Indiana Academic All-America 5.
Buurma, a 6'10" center, was such a standout at Willard High that his jersey was retired at the conclusion of his senior campaign. He averaged 23.7 points and 13.4 rebounds last year, and that earned him the UPI Player of the Year Award in Ohio 2-A ranks. He also was voted to the Northern Ohio League all-star team for 3 consecutive years.
Lake was another academic All-America, as well as a member of the Sunkist/Coach & Athlete Top 100 team. He led his high school to 3 straight sectional titles. The 6'11" postman owns a 16.9 career scoring average and an 11.6 rebound mark.
With a shooting accuracy from the field of a fine 55.3%, Gehring, a 6'9" forward, was recently selected to receive the coveted Citizenship Award in the Akron area. He averaged 15.0 points, 13.1 rebounds and 4 blocked shots per game in his high-school career.
Both Rivers and Spence were named to the Junior College All-America squad last season. Rivers, a 6'1" guard, averaged 16 points per game at Gulf Coast Community College in Florida, while Spence, a 6'8" forward, sparked perennial junior college power Vincennes to a 28–5 record. Spence averaged 19.2 points and 15.0 rebounds per game.
Sloan says the practices thus far could not be any better. “Their (the players) condition is great, and their attitude is great,” he commented. “We have great depth for all positions, and this makes for a strong feeling for each other. We definitely have a close-knit team, and this is good.”
However, Sloan does think “practice starts too early. Since it is such a long time before the first game, we will only have practice 4 times a week,” he said. “But we will have 6 intra-squad games to keep us going. These give the new players a chance to learn the system.”
The Red and White games will be played in Charlotte, Shelby, Asheville, Greensboro, Rocky Mount, and Raleigh. The Reynolds Coliseum appearance will be at 5:15 p.m. November 24 after the Wake Forest football game.
The Pack basketball team will once again be centered on 3 outstanding players: David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, and Monte Towe. “Those 3 will definitely be in the starting lineup,” said Sloan.
But after a 27–0 season can State get any better? “We have a better team this year,” said the head coach. “The only way to fail is to rely on last year. This year’s team will have to make their own place.”
Just like last year, Sloan thinks there is no team in the ACC that can go undefeated, even the Wolfpack, because there are too many fine teams. “We have 12 extremely important games,” he said about the conference match-ups. “The team that finishes first in the regular season gets the first place bye in the tournament.”
Many people wonder about the Pack’s chances against UCLA in the St. Louis contest. Sloan ranks that game the 13th most important one all season behind the 12 conference games. “I think it’s fine we have a chance to play such a team as UCLA. But we have to remember it has no effect on the ACC tournament seeding. We will not be uptight about it, and it will not choke us up.”
State opens up the 1973–74 season with an exhibition game against the Athletes in Action on December 1.
Football season is not over yet, but just happen by Carmichael Gym some afternoon and watch the nationally ranked Wolfpack basketball team prepare for what will be a most exciting, action-packed season.
NEXT: Post 7—JV program dropped; Did probation hurt?
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