Carolina, No. 1 in the national polls, and Kansas, the No. 2 team with
ideas about proving the polls wrong, meet tonight at 9 for the national
championship. Michigan State and San Francisco play for third place at 7 p.m.
A sellout crowd of 10,500 in Municipal Auditorium, which thought it perhaps
had seen it all after watching the triple-overtime Tar Heel victory,
discovered in the nightcap it hadn't seen anything yet.
Kansas put on one of the finest basketball shows ever seen in this storied
cage palace, and as each Kansas regular left the court late in the game he got
a rousing ovation. Kansas shredded Frisco's famed defenses and three times in
the first half had eight-point leads before blowing the game wide open in the
second half. Before the second half was four minutes old, KU had a 12-point
lead and late in the game turned it into a rout.
The opener, however, was a classic of suspense in which the Tar Heels from
the tobacco belt proved they belong here and in which Lennie Rosenbluth proved
he rates as an All-America.
Rosenbluth hit four of his 31 oints on his first two shots in the third
overtime to lead Carolina to its 31st straight victory, longest single-season
streak in collegiate history.
The regulation game ended at 58-58, the first overtime at 64-64 and the
second overtime at 66-66. The crowd probably couldn't have endured another one
like that, so Kansas obliged and put the nightcap away in a hurry.
Wilt Chamberlain, who also proved again he's the genuine article as an
All-America, scored 32 points to lead the Jayhawks, but he had to share honors
with Maurice King and Gene Elstun. King played one of his greatest games and
scored 13 points, and Elstun got 16.
Frisco cut an eight-point Kansas lead to four points with a spurt in the
last minute of the first half and went out at intermission trailing, 38-34.
But Wilt, Elstun and King made the first points of the second half to build
the lead to 12 points, and kansas was home free with its 24th victory of the
season against two defeats.
San Francisco, the defending two-time national champ, just couldn't match
Kansas, which combined a zone defense and a fast break with devastating
effect. Very often, it was Wilt who was on the scoring end of the break.
The defeat ended Frisco's string of 11 straight NCAA playoff victories
which produced the two straight national titles, and also ended the Dons'
dream of becoming the first team to win three in a row.
Rosenbluth and Carolina had to win a double-overtime game from Maryland to
build their perfect record this season, and they had what it took when they
were carried into the third overtime period against Michigan State in the
opener.
Carolina by that time was playing without three of its regulars who had
fouled out. Joe Quigg went out in the regulation game, and Bob Cunningham and
Pete Brennan followed in the overtimes.
But Rosenbluth was left, and he was just about enough. He hit the first
time he got the ball and after Michigan State came back to tie it for the last
time at 68-68, Rosenbluth hit what proved to be the winning bucket on another
of his long jumpers.
Tommy Kearns added two free throws to pad the Carolina lead to four points
and then Bob Young was spotted all alone under the basket by a Rosenbluth pass
and laid one in to make it a 74-68 and it finally was all over.
The game lacked by one overtime tying the record for endurance in NCAA
playoff action. Canisius last year downed North Carolina State, 79-78, in four
overtimes in a first-round NCAA game in Madison Square Garden.
No more than two points ever separated the two teams in overtime play until
Carolina blew it open in the third one.
During the whole affair, there were 21 ties and 24 lead changes.
The Tar Heels were forced to come from behind the biggest lead either team
had all night when the Spartans went out in front, 54-49, with 5:40 left in
the regulation game. Carolina did it, however, as Rosenbluth hit the last six
points for Carolina in the game.