bobknightfan
Banhammer'd
Since it was so long ago, the unlikely 63-59 loss to Duke in the 1960 ACCT final game doesn't mean much to most board posters, but for me.....even 57 years after it happened....it remains as WF's most disappointing basketball loss. The Scoreboard Game will always be in the mix due to the circumstances (8-point lead with 52 seconds to play, scoreboard call, technical foul in the last minute of overtime, etc)...but that 1975 team wasn't going anywhere, anyway. It would have likely lost the next day. I believe that the 1960 team though....but for a last minute scouffle involving Dave Budd in the semi-final against Everett Case's Wolfpack that was reminiscent of Coach K's tactics against Chris Paul at Durham in 2005....could well have gone on to become WF's first team to reach the Final Four. At that time you only had to win 3 games to get to the F4 and the Deacs were red-hot.
By the end of the 1960 season WF was a powerful team with four double-digit scorers in seniors Dave Budd & George Ritchie and sophs Len Chappell & Billy Packer. Chappell was a future ACC POY & All-American and Budd & Packer both made All-ACC during their careers at Wake. Sharp-shooting junior Alley Hart from Kinston was the 5th starter. There was also a solid bench with seniors Charlie Forte & Twig Wiggins and soph Tommy McCoy. The Deacs entered that ACCT final game as co-ACC regular season champs with UNC (12-2 records) and riding a 10-game winning streak. They had already destroyed Duke, who finished 4th in the ACC at 7-7, by 17 & 19 points during their two regular season games. When Duke upset Carolina in the first semi-final game, I felt...like most WF fans....that the tournament was ours. Then came that last minute fight in the next semi-final game between Dave Budd and NC State players who had been trying to get him into a fight for the entire game until he finally snapped. Budd had been involved in the infamous brawl with UNC's Lee Shaffer at Memorial Coliseum the previous year and was placed on probation by the conference with the stipulation that if he was in another fight he would be suspended. Nobody knew until his suspension was lifted a couple of hours before Saturday night's final game whether or not he would be allowed to play....or how he would be received by the fans if he was.
I still remember listening to the opening introductions on the radio (no TV for that game) when after a smattering of boos, Budd received an extended standing ovation from the fans. Bones McKinney has famously stated that this event "turned our team into a bunch of pussycats". Bones said that we could have beaten Duke easily without Budd...and I think he was right. In Vic Bubas' first year at Duke they were not yet the powerhouse that they would soon become with players like Jeff Mullins, Jack Marin, Art Heyman & Bob Verga, etc. As I said, they finished only 7-7 in the ACC that year and had to beat South Carolina in the #4/#5 nightcap of the opening round to even get to their huge upset of Carolina the next night. For some unexplained reason, though, Wake went completely flat after that standing ovation for Dave Budd. Maybe it was overconfidence. Maybe it was an off night (for example, George Ritchie, who had scored 27 points against the Blue Devils just two weeks earlier in an 83-64 win at Cameron, was only 3 for 16 from the floor). Maybe it was an early indication of what a great coach that Vic Bubas was going to become. Most likely it was a combination of all of those things. At any rate, I truly believe that this game may have prevented WF from reaching its first Final Four in the school's history.
By the end of the 1960 season WF was a powerful team with four double-digit scorers in seniors Dave Budd & George Ritchie and sophs Len Chappell & Billy Packer. Chappell was a future ACC POY & All-American and Budd & Packer both made All-ACC during their careers at Wake. Sharp-shooting junior Alley Hart from Kinston was the 5th starter. There was also a solid bench with seniors Charlie Forte & Twig Wiggins and soph Tommy McCoy. The Deacs entered that ACCT final game as co-ACC regular season champs with UNC (12-2 records) and riding a 10-game winning streak. They had already destroyed Duke, who finished 4th in the ACC at 7-7, by 17 & 19 points during their two regular season games. When Duke upset Carolina in the first semi-final game, I felt...like most WF fans....that the tournament was ours. Then came that last minute fight in the next semi-final game between Dave Budd and NC State players who had been trying to get him into a fight for the entire game until he finally snapped. Budd had been involved in the infamous brawl with UNC's Lee Shaffer at Memorial Coliseum the previous year and was placed on probation by the conference with the stipulation that if he was in another fight he would be suspended. Nobody knew until his suspension was lifted a couple of hours before Saturday night's final game whether or not he would be allowed to play....or how he would be received by the fans if he was.
I still remember listening to the opening introductions on the radio (no TV for that game) when after a smattering of boos, Budd received an extended standing ovation from the fans. Bones McKinney has famously stated that this event "turned our team into a bunch of pussycats". Bones said that we could have beaten Duke easily without Budd...and I think he was right. In Vic Bubas' first year at Duke they were not yet the powerhouse that they would soon become with players like Jeff Mullins, Jack Marin, Art Heyman & Bob Verga, etc. As I said, they finished only 7-7 in the ACC that year and had to beat South Carolina in the #4/#5 nightcap of the opening round to even get to their huge upset of Carolina the next night. For some unexplained reason, though, Wake went completely flat after that standing ovation for Dave Budd. Maybe it was overconfidence. Maybe it was an off night (for example, George Ritchie, who had scored 27 points against the Blue Devils just two weeks earlier in an 83-64 win at Cameron, was only 3 for 16 from the floor). Maybe it was an early indication of what a great coach that Vic Bubas was going to become. Most likely it was a combination of all of those things. At any rate, I truly believe that this game may have prevented WF from reaching its first Final Four in the school's history.
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