From Reserve to MVP: Larry Worsley Had the Run of a Lifetime in the 1965 ACC Tournament

NOTE: This story was originally printed in Stu Coman's "The Wolfpacker" for the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship won by Everett Case-successor Press Maravich and his team. If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

© Coman Publishing, 2015

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH, N.C.—Throughout the 1964-65 regular season, junior guard Larry Worsley made lives miserable for the starters on NC State’s basketball team. As a reserve player, he faced his teammates in practice, often causing them to be on the receiving end of a good chewing out from head coach Press Maravich.

Then, during a magnificent weekend in March at NC State’s Reynolds Coliseum, Worsley did the same thing to Virginia, Maryland and No. 8 Duke, as the second-string forward came off the bench three times to help the Wolfpack win the 1965 ACC tournament championship.

The slow-talking, slow-moving wingman with the behind-the-head shooting motion became the first reserve to ever win the league’s Most Valuable Player Award, a distinction he held for nearly four decades until Duke sophomore Daniel Ewing came along and duplicated that feat against NC State in 2003.

What made that award even more special was that it had just been renamed the Everett Case Award, in honor of the Wolfpack’s Hall of Fame coach who brought big-time basketball to the South and ignited passion for the game in the state of North Carolina that has yet to be extinguish.

Case, who had planned to retire at the end of the season, had recruited and coached every player on the roster. But two games into the season, following a loss to Wake Forest, Case stepped down earlier than anticipated because of health problems, turning the team over to Maravich, his handpicked successor who had once been the head coach at Clemson.

Worsley's 1965 ACC MVP trophy.

Maravich’s style was a little different than Case’s. He liked a pressing defense and a fastbreaking offense. The team without a star—built around frontcourt players Pete Coker and Larry Lakins and guards Billy Moffitt, Tommy Mattocks and Eddie Biedenbach—reeled off 11 straight wins after Maravich took over and won four of its final five regular-season contests.

The Wolfpack finished second to Duke, coached by NC State graduate and Case protégé Vic Bubas, in the final ACC standings. The Blue Devils handed Maravich two of his three losses as head coach, winning by double figures both times. The other setback following Case’s resignation was a one-point loss to North Carolina in Raleigh.

Worsley, a deadly shooter, was comfortable in his role as the team’s sixth man. He knew he was not as effective in a fullcourt game, and he sometimes was hindered by a lack of confidence.

But, boy, could he shoot.

“Coach said many times that he would rather see me shoot from 20 or 25 feet away than from four or five feet away,” Worsley said.

Biedenbach added: “Larry was a great outside shooter and our big men were able to feed him the ball. He could be a deadly shooter. Our guards were good at getting the big men the ball, and they were good at recognizing when Larry was open for the outside shot.”

In the opening game of the tournament, the second-seeded Wolfpack rolled to a 106-69 blowout of the Cavaliers, much to the delight of the home crowd, which always gave the Wolfpack a postseason edge. (The first 14 ACC tournaments were played at Reynolds.) Worsley’s 16 points off the bench was just one of four double-digit totals by Wolfpack players.

The next day, Worsley helped the team overcome a second-half lead by the Terrapins and his 15 points were an important part of the 76-67 victory.

What Worsley did in the finals against the highly ranked Blue Devils, however, was the dream of every reserve who ever dribbled a basketball.

Duke, which won 17 of 18 games at one point in the season, was the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament. The Blue Devils the ACC scoring champion in All-American Jack Marin and were the nation’s highest scoring team. On a neutral court, the title game would have been no contest.

Early in the game, the Wolfpack was in deep trouble: Moffitt picked up three fouls in the first five minutes.

Larry Worsley at Amedo's in 2015

Maravich sent in Worsley, who was emboldened on his homecourt. He became completely unstoppable, even by Duke’s gadget defenses. With Lakins and Coker getting him open shots, Worsley made 14 of his 19 field goal attempts, scored a career-high 30 points and pulled down eight rebounds. Duke’s Hack Tyson, a 6-10 forward, was unable to slow his 6-5 assignment down, even in a box-in-one defense.

“To be honest, the home crowd is what helped me,” Worsley said. “If that game had been in Charlotte or Greensboro, I never would have been able to do what I did. I think that game had a lot to do with the ACC’s decision to start moving it around to other places.”

 But it was more than just an individual effort in a friendly venue.

 “To me, that showed what an unselfish and smart basketball team we were,” Biedenbach said. “Our guys had seen what Larry was capable of in practice, but I don’t think Duke knew much about him.

 “He got the open shots and made them.”

 Worsley had never scored more than 18 points in a game.

“Going into the tail end of the season, I just had all the confidence in the world,” said Worsley, who averaged 7.4 points and 4.0 rebounds as a junior.

 The Wolfpack team celebrated its unlikely championship with Case, the man who turned college basketball in North Carolina into a showcase event. He sat on the sidelines in his wheelchair for the title game, his first public appearance since retiring in December.

NC State's players carry Everett Case to cut down the nets.

Shortly after buzzer sounded on the 91-85 victory, sports information director Frank Weedon prompted the players to go lift Case out of the wheelchair and let him help cut down the nets, an Indiana high school tradition that Case introduced to college basketball when he arrived at NC State in 1947.

Then, the frail and ailing coach presented Worsley with the newly renamed most valuable player award.

“I was the only one he ever presented it to,” Worsley said proudly. “He wasn’t able to attend the tournament the next year, when Steve Vascendak won it and he died shortly after that.

“That’s something that will always be very special to me.”

The Wolfpack traveled to College Park, Maryland, for the NCAA tournament, but lost its opening game to Princeton. It won a consolation game against St. Joseph’s to finish 21-5 overall.

Worsley returned for his senior year the following season, but was never able to replicate his ACC tournament heroics.

“I started the first 13-14 games, but then I lost my confidence,” Worsley said. “We went out and played Tennessee and we had a terrible game (a 65-54 loss). I got benched after that.

“I had lost my confidence and never did gain it back.”

The Pack finished second to Duke again in the ACC standings and lost to the Blue Devils in the tournament finals, in Maravich’s last game as NC State’s coach.

Shortly after that season ended, Case passed away at his home in Raleigh’s Cameron Village from the effects of terminal cancer.

Worsley, 72, graduated with a degree in agricultural economics and returned to his hometown in the northeast corner of the state. He worked as a chemical sales representative serving the eastern half of North Carolina for nearly 50 years, retired and recently went back to work in a similar job.

“I didn’t like just sitting around,” he said.

He still lives in Oak City today. [Worsley died at his home on Oct. 5, 2022.]

Worlsey and his teammates gathered back in February to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of their unlikely championship, a reunion organized by Biedenbach. Some of them hadn’t been back to campus since the day they graduated.

They toured the modern campus, took one last look inside the old configuration of Reynolds Coliseum before renovations began and were recognized at halftime of the NC State-Syracuse basketball game at PNC Arena.

Worsley brought his MVP award, which normally hangs on the wall in his house, with him to share with his teammates one more time.

The 1965 ACC Champions. Worsley in the last player on the right of the second row.