The Best Game Ever: How Frank McGuire's '57 Tar Heels Beat Wilt and Revolutionized College Basketball
The 1956-57 North Carolina Tar Heels started the season as a group of basketball transplants at a football school. They ended the season as one of the most famous teams in college basketball history.Frank McGuire assembled a team cut in his own image - they were brash, they were talented, and they were of course, from New York. McGuire believed he could relate more closely to New York players, so he established the famed Underground Railroad from New York City to Chapel Hill. He believed the talent he recruited would pay dividends with a possible championship run during the 1958 season; instead, they made their magical run one season ahead of schedule.The team of swaggering Tar Heels played just eight games at home during the 1956-57 season. But it didn't seem to matter, as they went on the road and won a series of heart-pounding games. Five points at NYU. A double-overtime win at Maryland. Five points at Wake Forest. A two-point scrape against the Deacons in the ACC Tournament.Throughout the miraculous run, the players maintained an impossible air of calm, always punctuated by All-America Lennie Rosenbluth announcing in the post-game locker room how many games were left in the undefeated season.Before his prediction could come to fruition, the Tar Heels had to survive the most intense Final Four ever. Carolina needed triple overtime against Michigan State and triple overtime against the legendary Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas squad.That game was The Best Game Ever. And they might have been the best team ever.