40 years ago today, March 28, 1977, Marquette defeated North Carolina by a score of 67-59 at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. The win came in Al McGuire’s final game as head coach of the Warriors, and gave the program their lone national championship.
Butch Lee was the team’s leading scorer on that night, collecting 19 points on 6-of-14 shooting to wrap up his NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player honors, while both Bo Ellis (14 pts, 9 reb) and Jerome Whitehead (8 pts, 11 reb) had near misses on double-doubles. Walter Davis was the high scorer for Dean Smith’s Tar Heels, going for 20 points, while Mike O’Koren had 14 points and 11 rebounds for UNC.