The 1977 final 4 was in Atlanta's Omni my senior year. Few remember UGA was the host and you could get tickets. This was before the NCAA learned they could gouge their fans and double dipping after receiving hundreds of millions from the networks. Marquette beat UNC Charlotte on a Duke Kentucky 1992 type full court last play of the game shot. This was not over-hyped as both teams made the mistake of not being in the ACC (so it does not matter). Dean Smith suffered a key injury to Phil Ford against UNLV. Ford was limited against Marquette in the championship fina. It was a different day. Short shorts were on the court. Carolina fans wore ties to the game and politely spit their Redman in a stadium cup and clapped like it twas a tennis match (balancing those cups I guess). UNLV fans dressed in stereotypical fashion like Telly Savalas, had perms (unlike Telly) silk shirts, chest hair and gold chains flying, UNC-Charlotte had Cornbread Maxwell, and that about sums up their basketball history. The fans mixed in as a big community college did not fit the scene. Marquette was a media darling. Coach Al McGuire hyped the crowd as he was who I think a lot of pro wrestler promoters took lessons from. He won his last game and cried on the bench as a national champion. He parlayed that into millions talking about this one game for over 20 years as a TV analyst for CBS college basketball.
See UNC - Charoltte come up short on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5u8JuNltiw
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