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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    1983 Championship -- NC State vs. Houston, Albuquerque, CBS, April 4, 1983, 9 pm

    Last night, my son (25 years old) and I watched the 1983 NC State-Houston championship game. What a strange experience!

    Rules. No shot clock and no three-point shot! In 1983, the three-point shot was allowed in conference play, but not in the NCAA tournament. This hurt NC State, because they had three guards (Lowe, Wittenberg, and Gannon) who could shoot pretty well. Despite that, NC state was able to mount a comeback in the final minutes using outside shooting. The lack of a shot clock was pretty amazing. No TV timeouts, either! Because the game was played in Albuquerque, at altitude, the players got pretty winded, but there were very few timeouts in which they could get a break. This in theory played to Houston's advantage, because Houston played more players, but in the end it didn't matter.

    Announcers. The announcers were Billy Packer and Gary Bender. Packer was surprisingly tolerable, not going off on the officiating or trying to show how smart he was. Bender was fairly unobtrusive. Great hair, though.

    Shockingly, there was no clock on the screen, except in the final minute. This meant that you had no idea how much time was left in the game or half. Also, there was no indication of team fouls. Every once in a while the announcers would bother to say how much time was remaining, but they didn't do it very often. Even the score was not routinely on the screen, just flashing up after a made bucket.

    Strategy. As everyone knows from the result, Jim Valvano outcoached Guy Lewis in this game. Lewis seemed to spend most of the game chewing on his towel, and looking extremely nervous. Clyde Drexler, one of Houston's two stars (Olajuwon just emerging as a star at that point), picked up his third foul about halfway through the first half (hard to be sure of the exact time, because there was no clock on the screen), but Lewis left him in. The announcers did not seem shocked by this. He then picked up his fourth foul with about five minutes left in the first half, on a questionable charge call. Finally, with about three minutes left in the first half, Lewis took him out.

    With about five minutes to go in the game, trailing by about six points, Valvano started "intentionally" fouling, so that NC state would get to seven fouls. Houston was a poor foul shooting team, with its third-best free-throw shooter shooting 67%. This ended up serving NC State well, as Houston missed a bunch of free throws down the stretch.

    NC State's final possession, starting with about a minute to go, was an absolute dumpster fire. Houston came out trapping the ball in the corner and NC State wasn't prepared for it. For some reason, Valvano had Terry Gannon in the middle of the court, rather than Sidney Lowe, who was a much better ball handler. NC State came close to turning it over several times, until Derek Wittenberg launched that desperation jumper with four seconds to go.

    Attire. Boy, did they have short shorts in those days! And the players were a lot skinnier than they are today.

    Officiating. The officiating seem pretty good, but that may have been because they didn't show endless replays in slow motion and because the announcers didn't make a big deal out of missed calls. Packer whined about a bad goaltending call against Olajuwon for a while; Valvano was livid over a missed goaltend. One of the officials was Hank Nichols ("you can't T me for what I'm thinking, can you Hank?"), who was pretty much the gold standard of officials.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by MChambers View Post
    Last night, my son (25 years old) and I watched the 1983 NC State-Houston championship game. What a strange experience!

    Rules. No shot clock and no three-point shot! In 1983, the three-point shot was allowed in conference play, but not in the NCAA tournament. This hurt NC State, because they had three guards (Lowe, Wittenberg, and Gannon) who could shoot pretty well. Despite that, NC state was able to mount a comeback in the final minutes using outside shooting. The lack of a shot clock was pretty amazing. No TV timeouts, either! Because the game was played in Albuquerque, at altitude, the players got pretty winded, but there were very few timeouts in which they could get a break. This in theory played to Houston's advantage, because Houston played more players, but in the end it didn't matter.

    Announcers. The announcers were Billy Packer and Gary Bender. Packer was surprisingly tolerable, not going off on the officiating or trying to show how smart he was. Bender was fairly unobtrusive. Great hair, though.

    Shockingly, there was no clock on the screen, except in the final minute. This meant that you had no idea how much time was left in the game or half. Also, there was no indication of team fouls. Every once in a while the announcers would bother to say how much time was remaining, but they didn't do it very often. Even the score was not routinely on the screen, just flashing up after a made bucket.

    Strategy. As everyone knows from the result, Jim Valvano outcoached Guy Lewis in this game. Lewis seemed to spend most of the game chewing on his towel, and looking extremely nervous. Clyde Drexler, one of Houston's two stars (Olajuwon just emerging as a star at that point), picked up his third foul about halfway through the first half (hard to be sure of the exact time, because there was no clock on the screen), but Lewis left him in. The announcers did not seem shocked by this. He then picked up his fourth foul with about five minutes left in the first half, on a questionable charge call. Finally, with about three minutes left in the first half, Lewis took him out.

    With about five minutes to go in the game, trailing by about six points, Valvano started "intentionally" fouling, so that NC state would get to seven fouls. Houston was a poor foul shooting team, with its third-best free-throw shooter shooting 67%. This ended up serving NC State well, as Houston missed a bunch of free throws down the stretch.

    NC State's final possession, starting with about a minute to go, was an absolute dumpster fire. Houston came out trapping the ball in the corner and NC State wasn't prepared for it. For some reason, Valvano had Terry Gannon in the middle of the court, rather than Sidney Lowe, who was a much better ball handler. NC State came close to turning it over several times, until Derek Wittenberg launched that desperation jumper with four seconds to go.

    Attire. Boy, did they have short shorts in those days! And the players were a lot skinnier than they are today.

    Officiating. The officiating seem pretty good, but that may have been because they didn't show endless replays in slow motion and because the announcers didn't make a big deal out of missed calls. Packer whined about a bad goaltending call against Olajuwon for a while; Valvano was livid over a missed goaltend. One of the officials was Hank Nichols ("you can't T me for what I'm thinking, can you Hank?"), who was pretty much the gold standard of officials.
    I also watched this game and enjoyed the mess out of it for lots of reasons you stated.

    Watching several of these vintage games, outside of the rules, the biggest innovation is the score and clock on screen at all times. If I stepped away for a moment, I could easily go five minutes without those relevant details in some games. Such a simple thing, having score and time always up there.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Location
    Dur'm
    Quote Originally Posted by MChambers View Post
    Rules. No shot clock and no three-point shot! In 1983, the three-point shot was allowed in conference play, but not in the NCAA tournament.
    I saw this, too, and for a while was very confused. There was a three-point line on the court, but players that sure looked behind the line only got two points for the shot. It took me a good long while to catch on. The announcers finally mentioned it later.

    Gary Bender was a great play-by-play man, BTW. Didn't spend half the game shouting, didn't reinforce Packer when he was fussing over the goal tend, and didn't get in the way of the game. I loved his straightforward approach, which seemed much more common in that era. He and Don Criqui were always two of my favorites.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Lewisville, NC
    Watching the replay; it was amazing how many of the Wolfpack field goals would have been 3-pointers when the rules changed (less so if based on the 2019 lines).

    Terry Gannon and Dereck Whittenburg seemed to take most of their shots from deep, and even Sidney Lowe hit some shots that would have counted for 3. Houston, on the other hand, scored primarily inside and in transition. Hakeem Olajuwon was still developing, but had an awesome championship game with 20 points, 18 rebounds, and 7 blocks; he was affected by the Albuquerque altitude.

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