1983 NC State Championship game

[McCall72]

Sports wise, probably the greatest night of my life. I can still see myself at 10 years old going crazy in the den with the rest of my family. Won in typical dramatic NC State fashion!

[LordHugenstein]

The best NCAA Basketball moment of all time!!! This team. . that played as a TEAM was undermaned. . undertalented. . .but were better coached and had more heart than anybody!!! No egos. . . just TEAM. . TEAM. . TEAM!! The 1985 Villanova team, 1995 UCLA team and 1997 ARIZONA teams were much the same. . . team ball. . . good coaching. . .no egos. . . =championship!

[cfoster81]

RIP Lorenzo Charles. Even though I may be a Terp fan, but I have a lot of respect for State and especially the 1982-83 National championship team. That game, including the finish, will live on forever and rank among the greatest NCAA tournament games of all time, even up there with the 1982 and 1985 title games.

[knight6]

RIP Lornezo Charles. greatest ending in NCAA title history. have a great time with Jimmy V in heaven.

[ncsu1717]

Best basketball game ever! R.I.P. Lorenzo were not gonna forget you.

[antnantn]

Zo (Lorenzo) was such a humble guy, even after winning the game, he never even came forward for an interview....he's in heaven with Coach Jimmy V. celebrating! Good job Zo, and God bless both you and coach....

[freetobe08]

Lorenzo Charles, the hero of the game, passed away on June 27, 2011 in a traffic accident.

[marcomariaz26]

Short-shorts... lol...

[fastlane22]

This was the first basketball game I ever watched. Little did I know as a 7 year old, I was wacthing one the greatest games in college basketball history. My thoughts and prayers go out to the Charles family over his tragic death today. 

[sctvhound]

RIP Lorenzo Charles. He died today in a bus crash.

[wizeman5974]

Houston Cougars: so close in making 3 straight Final Fours in a row ('82-"84) and lost to the eventual national champion in each year. Such heartbreak for them, but what elation for NC State. Them and Villanova in '85, the two biggest underdogs to even win a national championship!

[pamwiles]

Why is anyone talking about Laetner's shot. It has nothing to do with our win. Our win is ranked as the 10th all time upset in Sports EVER! Nothing will come to close to the excitement of this game. At the of the regular season we were 17-10, we finished at 26 -10. AWESOME!

[reidcorey69]

im 31 so i barely remember this c... PACK WILL BE BACK we r gonna shock the world with r new coach just see and we will be elite again

[TheLegacyofWrestling]

this run by State honestly made up for all of those years that State choked in the NCAA Tournament.

from the early '50s to 1990, there was no doubt that NC State was one of the giants in College Basketball.

[TheNcstate1983]

greatest college basketball game ever played. fuck billy packer!

[sportsfan1119]

I don't even watch nc state but when I saw this I was in awwwww!

[McCall72]

Absolute bedlam at my house in Charlotte, NC that night!

[coatesdj]

Jimmy Valvano running around not knowing what he was supposed to do? That was just unspeakably beautiful. I guess that once in a blue moon the little guy manages to pull it out, and this was one of those times.

[QkaBacher]

1 person quit.

[helpogrowth]

I have free grow taller secrets....

Watch my videos.

[thetheRedundant]

When people wonder why I'm so obsessed with sports, it's because of moments like this one.

[kirkindog]

Hakeem (Akeem At The Time) Olajawon's Inexperience As A Basketball Player (He Had Only Been In America About 2 Yrs) Cost Houston A Chance To Take This Game To Overtime Because He Failed To Block Out His Man (Lorenzo Charles) Who Was Wide Open For The Winning Dunk. Still Hurts Almost 30 Yrs Later.

[rocksmeller99]

notice players wearing real shorts, not the dresses they do today.

[xNAFoRcEzZ]

@rocksmeller99 notice players wearing miniskirts not the normal shorts we wear today.

[MrBennetzen]

That has got to be the greatest alley-oop I have ever seen!

[jtizz711]

what an amazing coach. and a great man. he said us. it was never about him. it was about the team. the team won it. GO PACK!!

[rocksmeller99]

@jtizz711 May he rest in peace and God bless him and his family! It was great when they beat U.Va. and the Tar Heels also. I just got through listening to Chris Cross' "Allright", which CBS used as the tourney musical montage that year!

[rocksmeller99]

@jtizz711 I kept my Red Pack Soda for years and finally drank it about 5 years ago. still good. I think it was Cheerwine.

[westholmes2001]

I made a mistake on what Packer said. I said "THEY WON IT...ON THE DOT!", it should be "THEY WON IT...ON THE DUNK!"

[westholmes2001]

To conclude the story, after Bender found Packer, he asked him, "Where did you go!" and they both laughed about it during the break. Bender stated in his book that Packer's ACC ties and his emotions just got the best of him, which is rare for Packer. After the Charles dunk, you hear Packer say, "THEY WON IT...... ON THE DOT!", and at about 2:49, you hear a headset microphone being dropped, which could be Packer's.

[westholmes2001]

There was a book that was made a while back called Call of the Game, co-written by the CBS play-by-play announcer of the NC State Houston game, Gary Bender. When Lorenzo Charles made the dunk at the end of the game, Billy Packer got so emotionally excited that he jumped out of his seat and ran onto the court. So, Bender had to do the recap of the play on replay. When CBS went to commercial, Bender went onto the court to do postgame interviews and found Packer.

[duzing4ever]

One of the greatest moments in American Sports History. Jimmy V and the Cardiac Pack vs the Phi Slamma Jamma. State being there only because of winning the ACC. To win like they did with what was against them is nothing short of amazing, I read where a columnist wrote that Elephants would win the Indy 500 before State beat houston.

[ace11rothstein]

I'm not a fan or a hater of either team but THERE ARE 2 SECS REMAINING. Houston should've had a chance to tie/win.

[derkommissar1917]

@ace11rothstein In 1983, the clock didn't stop after a made basket at any point of the game. Houston needed to call a time-out after the dunk in order to have a possession, and they were so stunned that no one thought to call one until time had expired. Same thing happened in St. Joe's upset of DePaul in '81. DePaul was so shocked that they let the final three seconds run off the clock and never called time-out.

[ace11rothstein]

@derkommissar1917 didn't know that, thanks. I hate that soccer rules decided the end of this game.

In light of this, great win by NC State.

[pnstate07]

Houston Cougars- best team to never win it all. My mom told me that N.C. State was going to win. I was only 10.

[ThaFunnyGuy]

i'd say the aspect of nc state being an unexpected winner makes this game awesome...but the laetner shot was gorgeous too!

[SFFOOL76]

NC STATE, HOUSTON, LOUISVILLE, & GEORGIA.

Besides this great championship game, the Semi Final between Louisville/ Houston is very famous as well for being a blitzkreig dunk fest.

[Majesticon]

Every team in the Final Four wore red that year. Plus, the host New Mexico wore red also.. weird.

[Majesticon]

Houston almost stole the ball like, 3 times!

[qbsamoa]

wow. Houston had Clyde Drexler and Hakeem the dream. NC State won 2 games by 1 point and 2 games by 2 points that tournament. They beat two #1 seeds, a #3 and a #4. NC State was the #6 seed in their section. Great run

[qbsamoa]

@westholmes2001 you are wrong. they were the sixth seed. where did you find that they were 7?

[westholmes2001]

@qbsamoa I made a terrible brain fart about the seeding. They were a #6 seed in the West region. I thought they were a #7 seed because I thought I had seen in it in a book that I had and completely thought that was right. Therefore, I was was wrong and you were right.

[knight6]

wow. what a pass. lol. great play. nothing beats college basketball. WAY better than the christian laetner shot thing.

[bumblebeemoi]

My friend, that was NOT A PASS, but a missed shot. I'm not a fan of Laetner, but his was incredible

[knight6]

my friend, i was JOKING about that being a pass, and laetner's shot was incredible, but dunking a missed shot at that point in the end of the game to win it by a point is WAY more difficult than what laetner did.

[johnnymichael21]

@bumblebeemoi The actually shot by Laettner was a 15 footer that he could nail in his sleep, the incredible aspect was the inbounds pass down the court by Grant Hill.

[TriciaLynchDotCom]

Awesome every time I watch it!

Go State!!!

[nctarheel26]

i remember watching this game when i was 12 years old...its the greatest game i have ever seen in any sport....

[41htdex]

one of the greatest moments of all time!

[dazzling3136]

shot clock > lame teams holding for the last shot

[NCRedneck25]

NC STATE > houston

[rexchex]

ACC Tourney Hero--THE GREAT ALVIN BATTLE-He owned the three time player of the year, Ralph Sampson. The pregame coaches montage had Guy Lewis and Valvano discussing strategy. THE VERY LAST COMMENT WAS GUY LEWIS "We have our own saying at Houston, 'The team with the most dunks wins the game.'" Well, Thurl Bailey dunked the first basket of the game-the 'great' PHI SLAMMA JAMMA had one Olajuwon dunk in the 1st half-and LO made it NCSU-2 dunks HOUSTON 1! ps.BILLY PACKER CAN SUCK MY BALLS!!!!!!!

[vajim2]

NCSU BSME

We're the Red and White of State and we know we are the best..hands behind our back, we can take on all the rest...Go to Hell Carolina, did your sister with my niner :) we're the red and white of NC State!  Go State!

[zcarenow]

i wish someone could post the entire 83' semifinal game between houston and louisville. it was a dunkfest!

[SFFOOL76]

type louisville / houston 1983 the whole game is on

[dantrust]

Imagine if Gus Johnson would have called this game!

[kenhackney]

I was a sophomore at NCSU in 1983 and never dreamed after blowing out Wake Forest 130-89 in the regular season finale what was in store.Won the rematch in the first game of the ACC tourney by 1. Then it was Jordan and UNC, Ralph Sampson and UVa.The party had started and got bigger and bigger. I'm proud of my shirt that proclaims "I was at the Brickyard April 4, 1983" Wow, what a game and what a dream! I loved since I experienced 2 NC High School 3A Championships with Dominique Wilkins.Wow!

[MarkatLSU]

Can't overstate how huge of an upset or great of a moment this was. The Houston-Louisville semifinal had been hyped as the real big game and after the Cougars won that going away in a dunkfest, very few people gave the Wolfpack a chance. Excellent job by Valvano too, who outcoached legendary Guy Lewis down the stretch

[comradehio]

This is my favorite moment in NCAA history

[McCall72]

For maybe a younger generation that didn't see this when it happened live, this game was just the amazing finish to a incredible journey that began in the ACC Tournament that year. NCSU by a lot of people's accounts wouldn't have even made the NCAA tourney if they had not won the ACC tournament. They beat several titans just to do that. Then several nail biters all the way to the National Championship game. They wrote that elephants would drive in the INDY 500 before NCSU beat Houston...

[TheSanityInspector]

Well said. After the titanic Houston-Louisville semifinal, State looked like dead meat. What a great game that was.

[SFFOOL76]

Plus the acc tournament as you know was not a cake walk by any means and then their ncaa run they beat talented teams on all different spectrums. It was a miracle ending

[Zaneks2]

Cinderella! I've never seen an elephant drive before but I bet it would be really funny to see one driving 200 mph. No I guess I wouldn't know how incredible this really was since I wasn't born until 7 years after this game. That's probably why I'm kind of confused why NC State had the ball so long at the end. No shot clock violation back then? How bout that? Yeah probably one thing I don't get besides that is why they're shorts are so much shorter than nowadays. Tall guys need tall clothes lol.

[McCall72]

Hands down, the most amazing finish to a sporting event that I've ever witnessed. Charles' dunk, Morten Anderson's FG to send Atlanta to the Super Bowl, and the #3 taking the checkered flag at the Daytona 500 in '98 are my favorite sports moements...

[FilipinoDave]

2:50-2:54 = owned

[oOWrvOo12]

Amazing

Jimmy V Baby

[VideoLonghorn]

that UH player was slapping the floor long after the camera left him

[Sonic8231]

AMAZING!!! Best NCAA moment ever.

[selafay]

Thanks for posting this! It still gives me chills! What an exciting game that was! Right after that game, my friends and I headed to the party at The Brickyard at NCSU. Go Pack!

[dijohn17]

GO STATE!!!

[coasterlover7]

Wow. this is great. A true underdog that comes back to win it in the end on a buzzer beater. How could it get any better than that!

[ThaFlameofATown]

lol @ the guy with the game winning dunk being calm as hell after it was over and everyone was celebrating. I would've lost my damn mind.

[SFFOOL76]

It's okay to be COOL in the moment of your life !

[beaverpitt]

@ThaFlameofATown Thats why he made the dunk, everyone was caught up in the moment except for him. He was the only one who wasn't standing around watching it like it was on TV

[Jersey115]

@ThaFlameofATown And now he's found the ultimate peace. RIP Lorenzo Charles.

[SFFOOL76]

@ThaFlameofATown

I think that is a factor, but I also think he was stunned as hell of what he did. R.I.P. Lorenzo Charles and Jim Valvano

[vmg314]

My Father is U of H I later graduated from U of H. Watched it when it happened at 11 years old. What can I say. I literally cried.

[pavementfiend]

I was at this game as a 7 year old. All I have to say is that my ears rang for 2 days after this.

[cfoster81]

Greatest ending in NCAA history and will forever be a Classic.

[firemn42]

One of the if not the biggest upset and dramatic win in NCAA history.