The Wolfpacker

March-April 2022

The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports

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MARCH/APRIL 2022 ■ 47 center Mike Dempsey, all 6-foot-7 of him, might have scored more, but the team's offense was predicated on one rule for him: "Don't shoot the ball." Both Thompson and Stoddard aver- aged more than 13 rebounds a game. Quite simply, it was a team too good to coach. "When they are that good, all I had to do was just stay out of the way," said 83-year-old Art Musselman, who coached the 12-player, supercharged roster with the help of fellow varsity assistant Eddie Biedenbach. "I can't say we had much to do with it. They were just the greatest group of talent that I had ever been around. Their demeanor towards each other and the respect they had for one another were special. "They knew all they had to do was play as hard as they could and play well together, and no one could touch them." Both Musselman and Biedenbach re- cently chuckled at their good fortunes of coaching a team that won 15 games with a 33.4-point average margin of victory, mainly because they realized early on that the enormous talent on the floor was not what made them special. "There were just no egos with them," Musselman recalled. "They didn't care who was getting the attention, who was getting the press or who was doing what. They knew how to win, they liked each other and they just went out and played." That team chemistry remains today. In their third game, they scored 157 points against Isothermal Community College, still the most ever scored by an NC State men's or women's varsity or junior varsity team. Thompson had 54, a total he eclipsed his senior season with 57 against Buffalo State. They did suffer a loss, a 95-83 de- feat at Chapel Hill, with Tar Heel varsity head coach Dean Smith sitting on the row behind his freshman team's bench. Three Wolfpack players fouled out of the game, and Musselman lost his tem- per at the officials. Thompson nearly broke his hand punching the locker room door in frus- tration and told his teammates that night that he would never lose to the Tar Heels again. And he didn't, at least not until the last game of his senior year in the 1975 ACC Tournament final af- ter already notching two ACC titles, an NCAA championship, three ACC Player of the Year awards and one National Player of the Year honor. His real revenge, however, came in the Tar Babies' return game at Reynolds, when he scored 49 points, the rest of the team scored 50 points and they won 99-73. Immediately after that game, the varsity beat No. 3 UNC, the first of nine consecutive victories head coach Nor- man Sloan's team had over Smith's Tar Heels. "We were so upset about losing to them in the first game, I had this elabo- rate game plan that I worked up on this coffee table I had in my house," Mussel- man said. "I had all kind of plays I was ready to use. "Before the game, I went in the locker room and they were so pumped up, so ready to play, all I had to do was let them loose. We were ahead by 30 at the half, and we would have scored 100 points on them if David didn't foul out with five minutes to play." The Wolflets, as they were called, played one final game together, beat- ing Wake Forest to claim the Freshman Big Four championship, their first title together. "A lot has been written about Da- vid Thompson, but there's no way to put him into words," Raleigh's News & Observer wrote after the second UNC game. "There have been many great basketball players in the Big Four. But there's never been anyone who can do the things he can do. Some players jump well. Thompson comes closer to flying than any human has a right to do. "He violates the three-second rule while he's still in the air. He makes more moves with his shoes off the ground than Muhammad Ali does with his feet planted. Thompson is the type who will soar in for a spectacular basket and then intercept the inbounds pass at mid- court." Many people remember the fresh- man team drawing as many or more fans as Sloan's varsity team. It's certainly a squad that, a half century later, has grown to mythic proportions. " We h a d g rea t c rowd s u p p o r t ," Thompson said. The team was not just a playground for Thompson, Towe and Stoddard, who were part of the seven-player recruit- ing class Sloan brought in that season. It also had a pair of guard prospects from Ohio in Craig Kuszmaul and Mark Moeller; forward Leo Campbell from Gary, Ind.; and dual-sport star Mike Dempsey of Greensboro, a pitcher taken four times in the Major League Baseball Draft. More players were added by open try- outs on campus, including Biedenbach's Head coach Art Musselman said of his team, "They were just the greatest group of talent that I had ever been around." PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS " There were just no egos with them. They didn't care who was getting the atten- tion, who was getting the press or who was doing what. They knew how to win, they liked each other and they just went out and played. " Head coach Art Musselman

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