ACC Basketball: The Story of the Rivalries, Traditions, and Scandals of the First Two Decades of the Atlantic Coast Conference

Prologue

· 1 · PROLOGUE On December 2, 1953, the University of Maryland Terrapins met the University of South Carolina Gamecocks in the first basketball game ever played in the recently formed Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Maryland , a legitimate contender for the league title, was favored to win and the matchup generated little anticipation or excitement. A “near capacity crowd” of about 3,000 attended the game at South Carolina’s University Field House in Columbia; the cost of a ticket was $1.50 for adults and $.50 for children. The fans watched Maryland pull out a hard-fought 53–49 victory . After South Carolina tied the score at 49, Maryland froze the ball for about two minutes before forward Tom Young hit the go-ahead shot with 15 seconds remaining. All-American candidate Gene Shue led Maryland with 19 points, tying him for game honors with South Carolina’s Joe Smith.1 The outcome of the game attracted slight notice. The Washington, D.C., and Baltimore newspapers that covered Maryland as a home team provided only brief accounts. The Evening Star, Washington’s leading newspaper , ran its story on the third sports page. South Carolina’s hometown paper, The State, offered a somewhat longer but hardly exhaustive review. The featured stories on the sports pages in both areas described in detail developments in college football, horse racing, and the pension plan for major league baseball. Although some press reports mentioned in passing that the Maryland–South Carolina game inaugurated ACC basketball, they did not treat it as an especially noteworthy milestone.2 Slightly more than seventeen years later, on January 9, 1971, the same schools met at Maryland’s Cole Field House in College Park. The stakes of the game and the attention it commanded were dramatically different than in 1953. South Carolina, coached by the legendary Frank McGuire, who had led the University of North Carolina to a national championship in 1957, was ranked as the number two team in the nation. Maryland was coached by flamboyant Charles G. “Lefty” Driesell, who had guided tiny Davidson College in North Carolina to national prominence before moving to College Park. In his second season at Maryland, he was anxious to show that his team was on its way to becoming a formidable power in the ACC. 2 · PROLOGUE The matchup between a highly ranked team and a highly ambitious program would have produced excitement and tension under any circumstances . But in this case the buildup for the contest took on elevated proportions because of a brawl that had occurred when the teams had played in Columbia the previous month. On December 16, 1970, South Carolina was cruising to an easy victory when, with 4:52 remaining in the game, two players got into a shoving and elbow-throwing skirmish. Both benches rushed to the aid of their teammates, and a slugfest broke out. As Driesell tried to separate players and stop the melee, he was struck twice in the face by South Carolina forward John Ribock. The fracas continued for about four minutes before police managed to halt the fighting and the referees decided to end the game. “In my 20 years of officiating,” referee George Conley reported to acting ACC commissioner Norvall Neve, “I have never seen every player so involved in a fight.” The final score was 96–70.3 After Maryland left the floor, Driesell was informed that South Carolina athletic director Paul F. Dietzel had banned reporters from the visitors ’ locker room. With bruises on his lip and cheek clearly visible, Driesell defiantly held an informal press conference. Speaking with evident emotion , he called the altercation “a disgrace” and accused McGuire of smiling while “they were going wild out there.” He added, “If I was Frank McGuire, I would not bring my team to College Park.” McGuire responded with his own provocative statements. “I don’t care what Lefty has to say. There are a million Lefty Driesells in the world,” he commented. “You won’t see the day I’m afraid of him.” The following day, Driesell repeated his warning and announced that he might protest the game to try to nullify the outcome. “Hell, there was five minutes left,” he said. “We might have caught them.” More than a month later, long after the ACC declared the shortened game official, Dreisell urged Maryland athletic director James H. Kehoe “to work on getting the South Carolina game, at Columbia, to be judged as no-contest.”4 While the...