25th Anniversary of NC State's last ACC Tournament Win!

This past week NC State University celebrated it's 125th anniversary. Today, Thursday March 8th the ACC Men's Basketball tournament starts with NC State taking on Boston College for a chance to make the NCAA tournament field. Each NC State win will bring this years team closer to a tournament bid. I realized that the last time NC State won the tournament was when the university was celebrating it's 100th anniversary...25 years ago!! My files are more organized than they have been and I was able to pull the images fairly quickly from that tournament which took place at the Capital Center in Landover, MD.

There were some famous names attached to that tournament and it is hard for me to comprehend how it was that long ago. NC State went up against Duke in the first game as the 6th seed and prevailed against the Blue Devils 71-64 in overtime against such players as Danny Ferry, currently VP or basketball operations of the San Antonio Spurs, and Quin Snyder who is currently an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Mike Giomi, a reserve played often behind Charles Shacklford.
In the regular season, State had won both games against semi-final opponent Wake Forest and Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues.


State prevailed again against the Deacons 77-73 with Charles Shackleford leading the Pack with 17 points and Bennie Bolton sccoring 16 points. State then advanced to the title game against UNC who was undefeated against ACC teams that season.



In the last seconds of the UNC game Vinnie Del Negro had a chance to win the game, but was fouled on the play. He sank both free throws to provide the winning margin 68-67.














NC State made the NCAA tournament that year and their first round opponent were the Florida Gators coached by former NC State coach Norm Sloan and assisted by former playmaker Monte Towe. Florida had another assistant coach that year that was a former Wolfpack guard. Can you name him? He's now an assistant coach with the NY Knicks. Unfortunately, led by future star Vernon Maxwell, Florida overcame a 9 point second half deficit and scored 17 unanswered points to end NC State's title hopes.