Fact Friday 177 - Remembering UNC Charlotte's Historic Run to the Final Four

Happy Friday!

The 1977 Final Four is the high-water mark of Charlotte 49ers men's basketball and still a point of pride for Niner Nation. This post revisits how coach Lee Rose and Cedric Maxwell led a young program from a Sun Belt title to Atlanta, and the last-second loss to Marquette that kept the 49ers out of the national championship game.

Since this is our 177th Fact Friday, we went looking for something from 1977, and nothing from that year beats this.

From newcomer to NIT finalist

Charlotte was still new to big-time college basketball in the mid-1970s. When Lee Rose took over as coach in 1975, replacing Bill Foster, he toughened the schedule with road games at Maryland, Texas Tech and N.C. State. The 49ers went 21-5 in 1975-76 but were left out of the NCAA Tournament, so Rose flew to New York and talked his way into the last spot in the NIT. Charlotte knocked off San Francisco, Oregon and N.C. State before losing to Kentucky in the final.

The 1977 run

Four starters came back for 1976-77, the 49ers' first season in the Sun Belt Conference, led by senior center Cedric "Cornbread" Maxwell, with freshman guard Chad Kinch joining the lineup. Charlotte went 25-3, won the conference and earned a spot in the 32-team NCAA Tournament. The 49ers beat Central Michigan in overtime, then Syracuse and Michigan, to reach the Final Four in Atlanta alongside North Carolina, UNLV and Marquette.

Three seconds short

In the national semifinal, Charlotte climbed out of an early hole to tie Marquette at 49 with three seconds left. Marquette answered with a full-court pass to Jerome Whitehead, who went up over Maxwell for the layup, and the officials ruled it beat the buzzer. Marquette won 51-49 and went on to beat North Carolina for the national title. Rose later recalled that Carolina coach Dean Smith told him, as they crossed paths on the court, that Maxwell had been fouled on the play.

What came after

Maxwell scored 123 points in that tournament, more than any other player, and the Boston Celtics drafted him 12th overall that June. He won two NBA titles in Boston and was MVP of the 1981 NBA Finals. The run put a young university on the national map, and it's still the only Final Four in school history. The team came back together at Halton Arena in 2017 to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

Want more on Maxwell's NBA career and the story behind his nickname? Read about him on Wikipedia.

Until next week!

Email me at hi@704shop.com if you have interesting Charlotte facts you'd like to share or just to provide feedback!

Source:

"How an underdog basketball team continues to inspire... 40 years later," Pat James, Charlotte Observer, February 24, 2017.

“We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.” – Frederick Douglass