Sweet Redemption

Thirty years ago today, Marquette won its only NCAA men's basketball championship when Al McGuire's Golden Eagles defeated Dean Smith's Tar Heels in the final, 67-59. Marquette was led by its stars Bo Ellis and Butch Lee (who was named the tournament's most outstanding player). North Carolina's Walter Davis led all scorers with 20 points, but legendary Tar Heel point guard Phil Ford (a.k.a. The Truth) had a sub-par evening, 3 for 10 from the field for six points.

It was the second final in four years for McGuire and the Golden Eagles - they lost the championship game in 1974 to David Thompson and N.C. State. In '77, they very nearly didn't even make it to the final, winning their semi-final over UNC-Charlotte with a last-second court-long inbounds pass from Lee to Jerome Whitehead, who dunked the ball off the fingers of Charlotte's Cornbread Maxwell.

An uber-New Yorker, Manhattan-born and a player for both St. John's and the Knicks, McGuire broke down in tears and wept in the final minutes of the '77 championship, and then retired immediately after the game, making his last outing one for the ages. Much beloved in the basketball world, he went on to have a second career as a broadcaster before dying of leukemia in 2001.