© Tim Peeler, 2020
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It’s long-forgotten now, but there was a time NC State
hosted a men’s basketball game against High Point College that was played without spectators.
It wasn’t because of illness though, like the current worldwide coronavirus
pandemic that forced NCAA president Mark Emmert today to ban all unnecessary
personnel and family from this year’s men’s and women’s NCAA Championships.
It was because NC State’s home court, Thompson Gymnasium,
was actually condemned by Raleigh officials.
The “secret game,” as the newspapers called it back then, that
followed was one of the seminal moments of March Madness in North Carolina,
even though it was played in January.
The saga began in 1947, Case’s first season, when a Red
Terror home game against North Carolina was cancelled because of too many
spectators. Thousands of students, most of whom were World War II veterans
enrolled on the GI Bill, flooded through the second-floor windows and up
through the basement lockerrooms to see the first of two scheduled games
against the two neighboring rivals.
When fans sat on each other’s laps and crowded into the
aisles, fire marshal W.C. Butts called the game, setting off riots on NC State’s
campus. The Terrors went on to beat the White Phantoms, as Carolina teams were often
called then, in Chapel Hill, 48-46, the first of 15 consecutive victories over
UNC-CH and the beginning of a 24 out of 27 streak against State College’s
biggest rival over the next decade.
That inaugural season, Case’s team finished with a 26-5
record, its first Southern Conference championship in nearly two decades and a
berth in the National Invitation Tournament at New York’s Madison Square
Garden. Case became a hero, even though his team played in a decrepit old gym
that barely held 4,000 spectators.
By the 1947-48 season, interest in NC State basketball was
so high students could only get tickets to half the games and were not allowed
to bring dates, which was problematic because almost all of the military
veterans enrolled in school were already married. No staff, faculty or general
admission tickets were sold for home games after December.
On Jan. 23, 1948, Duke was scheduled to play at Thompson
Gym, but Raleigh building inspector Pallie Mangum and city manager Roy Braden
conducted a surprise inspection the afternoon of the game and decided that it
had to be canceled because the building had inadequate fire exits for more than
1,200 spectators.
The Wolfpack was forced to move its final seven home games that
year to Raleigh’s downtown Memorial Auditorium.
There wasn’t enough time, however, to get the auditorium
ready for the Pack’s next home game, a Friday night contest against High Point
College. The auditorium was built in 1934 to be basketball ready, since the
Southern Conference moved its tournament to Raleigh when seven schools broke
away to form the Southeastern Conference. But the floor had not yet been refinished,
the sidelines and free-throw lines needed to be painted and baskets needed to
be installed in order to play seven unexpected games in February and March.
After telling everyone on campus and in Raleigh that the
High Point game was cancelled, officials from both schools agreed to secretly
play in condemned Thompson Gym, with no fans in attendance. Only a few
reporters and college officials were allowed to see the game featuring Case’s
Wolfpack, the nation’s highest-scoring team.
Red-headed All-America forward Dick Dickey poured in a school-record
29 points and teammate Jack McComas added 23. Case’s Wolfpack ran roughshod over
the High Pointers with a 110-40 victory.
Case’s free-wheeling team made 44 of 97 shots – in front of
no one.
The vagabond Pack weren’t affected by its home-court flux
throughout the season. It was the highest-scoring team in the nation for most
of the season and it earned the school’s first No. 1 ranking in the national
polls. Thanks to a 19-game winning streak from December-March, the Pack
finished 29-3 overall, was a perfect 12-0 in the Southern Conference regular
season and won the second of six consecutive league tournament titles, despite
Dickey being out of the lineup with a case of the mumps.
At least it wasn’t the Covid-19.
It was the highest-scoring game in NC State history until
David Thompson came along three dozen years later. It was also the last game
Case ever coached in Thompson Gym, where he compiled a perfect 18-0 record in
his one-and-a-half seasons at his first home court.
Passed over by the NCAA in favor of eventual
national-champion Kentucky for the eight-team NCAA Tournament, the 1947-48 Wolfpack
accepted its second consecutive bid to the National Invitation Tournament.
Without Dickey, the Pack lost to DePaul in the first round at Madison Square
Garden.
Still, it was the most successful season in NC State
basketball history until the 1972-73 team posted a perfect 27-0 record.
The move to downtown Raleigh lit a fire under school
officials – as Case slyly expected – to complete the shell of the on-campus
coliseum that had been standing dormant since 1941. It didn’t hurt that during
an 81-42 victory over North Carolina at the Pack’s substitute home, students
finished off the game by chanting “We want a coliseum. We want a coliseum.”
Few of the surviving folks at that game would know if Mangum
and Braden, the two elected city officials, were truly looking out for the
well-being of those wanting to see the game, or if they were in cahoots with Case,
a legendary sneak who usually got what he wanted.
What is known for certain, however, is that the palatial on-campus
basketball coliseum the coach was promised when he interviewed for the job the
year before was re-envisioned, expanded on the fly and completed within 18
months of the fan-free game.
Called Reynolds Coliseum, it hosted more spectators for
college basketball games than any other on-campus facility during its 50 years
as the home of NC State’s men’s basketball team, the host of the Southern and Atlantic
Coast Conference tournaments, the Dixie and Triangle Classics and the NCAA Championships.
The home of the Wolfpack Women’s program since 1973-74, renovated and updated Reynolds
will soon surpass the men’s half-century of service.
So, who knows? Wednesday’s decision by the NCAA
to host fan-free tournaments may reinvigorate college basketball, not destroy it.