1957 TITLE GAME

By JOE GERGEN   For The Sporting News

The mismatch was deliberate.

There wasn't anyone on the North Carolina team capable of looking Wilt Chamberlain in the eye without standing on a ladder, so Tar Heels coach Frank McGuire decided to challenge the 7-foot center's pride instead of his muscle.

It resulted in perhaps the single-most unforgettable sight in Final Four history.

This was only the start of the evening, but it set the tone for the most fascinating, most compelling and most bizarre championship game in the annals of the NCAA Tournament.

If Carolina couldn't stand up to Chamberlain and his Kansas teammates physically, the Tar Heels would attack them psychologically. After mulling the consequences of playing against the most overpowering individual in college basketball, McGuire decided to send out Tommy Kearns to jump center.

Kearns, it so happened, was the shortest Carolina starter: 5-11 in his sneakers.

"I told him if he jumped high enough," McGuire said, "he might reach Wilt's stomach. You're not going to get the tap anyway, so why waste a big man?

"Wilt looked freakish standing there, so far above our man."

That was precisely the idea, to embarrass the sophomore who had led the nation in intimidation in his first varsity season. Such was the force of Chamberlain's presence that Kansas, 24-2 entering the title game, was favored to win the championship even though Carolina was undefeated in 31 games, was ranked No. 1 and was better manned at every position but one.

Where Chamberlain was concerned, one against five seemed to be pretty good odds.

Only the previous night, after the East Regional champion Tar Heels survived in three overtimes against Mideast champion Michigan State, Midwest winner Kansas had demolished Far West survivor San Francisco, 80-56.

Granted, the defending NCAA champion Dons were without Bill Russell, yet the scope of the beating administered to a sound defensive team was awesome to behold. The Jayhawks had lost only twice all season, dropping road games at Iowa State and Oklahoma State, and had won earlier NCAA Tournament games against Southern Methodist (in overtime) and Oklahoma City.

The circumstances in this game favored Kansas.

Not only had Carolina encountered nothing like Chamberlain all season, but the game was scheduled for the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, a short drive from the Lawrence campus. For all Dick Harp's agonizing over living up to the expectations of Chamberlain's arrival, the former aide to Phog Allen seemed to have one hand on the championship trophy in his first season as a major-college head coach.

In speaking to his team, McGuire deliberately fed the growing Chamberlain legend.

"I said he was so good," McGuire recalled, "maybe we better not show up. I said he might stuff some of them through the basket with the ball. I said we didn't have a chance unless our entire team defensed him at all times, and he'd still probably beat us so bad it would be embarrassing to go home.

"Of course, I was kidding them, and they knew it, but it was psyching them up and loosening them up at the same time. Like, hey, let's not take this seriously, it's only a game. But they were gung-ho."

All McGuire's starters were New York City-area kids, personally recruited by the dapper, silver-tongued coach who had directed St. John's to the title game against, again, Kansas five years earlier.

The steady parade of metropolitan standouts to Carolina became known as McGuire's "underground railroad." The joke was that they had built a Southern terminus of the New York subway system in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Regardless of what uniform they wore, the Tar Heels had inbred New York cockiness.

"We're a chilly club," Kearns said of the Tar Heels, who seemingly would have been emotionally drained after their 74-70 escape against Michigan State in a game in which Carolina's Lennie Rosenbluth scored 29 points and converted two third-overtime steals into field goals. "We play it chilly all the time.

"I mean, we just keep cool. Chamberlain won't give us the jitters like he did to all those (other) clubs."

But just in case, McGuire selected Kearns for the opening tip against Kansas. It was a comic master stroke that ridiculed the Jayhawks' major asset and brought smiles to his own players.

"Hey, McGuire," yelled one amazed fan, "you giving up already?"

Not a chance.

"That tipoff took the edge away from Kansas," decided Rosenbluth, the 6-5 consensus All-American who finished the season with a 28-point scoring average. As it developed, Kansas was almost as concerned with Rosenbluth as Carolina was with Chamberlain. The Jayhawks opened in a box-and-one defense, with four players in a zone and one shadowing Rosenbluth. It was a mistake.

After Rosenbluth scored the first two points of the game on free throws, Carolina center Joe Quigg stepped to the corner, hoping to draw Chamberlain outside. Chamberlain stayed close to the basket, so Quigg, a 6-9 junior and the weakest outside shot on the team, popped in a one-hander. He did so again the next time he touched the ball and Pete Brennan's basket and free throw boosted the Tar Heels to a 9-2 lead.

The game was almost five minutes old and Chamberlain had scarcely touched the ball. McGuire had instructed Quigg to front the big man, preventing easy passes into the post, while the forwards attempted to seal Chamberlain from the basket. Finally, at 4:48 of the first half, Chamberlain scored.

But Carolina worked the ball for open shots against the zone and kept making them. In fact, the Tar Heels hit their first seven field-goal attempts, widening the gap to 19-7.

Finally, Harp called a timeout, scrapped the box-and-one and ordered Kansas to play man-to-man.

That was fine with McGuire. Now when Quigg went to the corner, Chamberlain moved with him, freeing the inside for the resourceful Rosenbluth. With his shifty moves and wide assortment of soft shots, he took control in the final minutes of the half. He missed only two field-goal tries in the first 20 minutes, scored 14 points and helped Carolina to a 29-22 lead.

The Tar Heels had been successful on 64.7 percent of their floor shots in the first half, and Kansas made a dismal 27.3 percent of its attempts.

"Don't panic," Harp told his team. "Play your game. We'll catch them."

Harp had been a co-captain of Kansas' 1940 tournament finalist and an eight-year assistant to the legendary Allen. It was Allen who had won the nationwide recruiting battle for Chamberlain, but he was prevented from coaching him because he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.

The old man didn't do any favors for his successor when he predicted, "We could win the championship with Wilt, two sorority girls and two Phi Beta Kappas."

The Jayhawks were having trouble enough winning the championship with sophomore forward Ron Loneski and seniors Gene Elstun, Maurice King and John Parker alongside Chamberlain. But Harp reckoned Carolina wouldn't continue to shoot 64 percent in the second half. He was correct.

The Jayhawks closed the deficit within four minutes. Then they inched ahead. The game remained close as both teams waited and waited for an opening. Carolina's hopes appeared to evaporate when Rosenbluth fouled out with 1:45 remaining and Kansas in front, 46-43.

Elstun, a 6-3 forward, went to the free-throw line and missed. A Quigg field goal cut the deficit to one point and, after Loneski threw away an inbounds pass, Kearns was fouled and made the free throw. The score after the regulation 40 minutes was 46-46.

Carolina scored first in the overtime, on a driving basket by Bob Young, Rosenbluth's replacement. Chamberlain matched the basket with a spinning jump shot. Then the Tar Heels tried to hold for a last shot, but Brennan was tied up by Loneski. Kansas gained possession, but Loneski missed the chance at victory.

Neither team scored in a cautiously-played second overtime. Kearns suddenly shocked the crowd at the outset of the third extra period, hitting a basket and two free throws for a 52-48 Carolina lead.

Chamberlain took a pass inside, scored with the Tar Heels draped over him and made the foul shot to complete a three-point play. One of two free throws by King retied the score.

Again, Carolina played for the final shot with little success. Parker, a 6-foot guard, flicked the ball away from Quigg and passed to Elstun, who was knocked down by Kearns. Referee Gene Conway signaled a deliberate foul. Two shots for Kansas. Elstun made only one.

Thirty-one seconds remained. Kearns drove the lane and attempted to spin around Chamberlain. The giant swatted it away but Quigg, trailing on the play, grabbed the ball, went up for the shot and drew a foul. He would have two chances. Quigg had dreamed of winning a big game at the end.

"Only in my dream," he recalled later, "it was a jump shot with no time left."

In this case, the clock was stuck on six seconds.

"Follow through," assistant coach Buck Freeman told Quigg on the sideline, "and end up on your toes."

Quigg finished on his toes both times -- the foul shots sent the Tar Heels ahead, 54-53 -- and Carolina finished on top when Quigg batted away a long, high pass intended for Chamberlain.

The longest game in championship history ended at 12:14 a.m. Carolina time. For the second time in two nights, the Tar Heels had gone three overtimes to win.

They had completed an implausible, undefeated season with their fifth tournament victory. (Carolina's pre-Final Four triumphs had come against Yale, Canisius and Syracuse.)

Chamberlain slumped on a stool in the Kansas dressing room. He had scored a game-high 23 points and accounted for half of his team's rebounds, but one man had not been enough.

"We lost," Chamberlain said. "That's all. We lost."

It was a loss that presaged a career of great individual accomplishment and collective disappointment. He was outdone this time because Carolina had four players in double figure and more help on the backboards, where the Tar Heels outrebounded Kansas, 42-28.

"We had the better team," said McGuire who, as fate would have it, was Chamberlain's coach when he scored 100 points in an NBA game five years later. "We played him, not Kansas. We beat Kansas, not him."