The record-setting Heels show a lot of heart and close out the regular season in a rough and tumble game at Duke, led by their All-American.
Heels Finish Regular Schedule Unbeaten With 86-72 Win Over Duke;
Rosy Hits 40 To Lead Way
Twenty Four Straight for McGuire's Club
by LARRY CHEEK
Led by the almost unbelievable shooting of All-American Lennie Rosenbluth, North Carolina's courageous Tar Heels fought off an all-out effort by Duke's Blue Devils last night in Duke Indoor Stadium to take an 86-72 win, thus closing out their regular season with a string of 24 straight victories.
The win broke the all-time single season consecutive victory mark of 23 set by the 1924 Tar Heels. It also assured the UNC cagers of remaining atop the national ratings for at least one more week.
Rosenbluth was the fair-haired boy who broke the Blue Devil's backs. The slender senior poured in 40 points, most of them coming in the the game's early moments when they were badly needed.
The game was lifted straight from the pages of Frank Merriwell. Duke jumped to a 9-1 lead, fell 15 points behind at 37-22, trailed by 12 at half, 47-35, then forged back into the lead early in the second half.
With 4:10 to go, Coach Harold Bradley's inspired charges led, 70-69, and UNC fans looked a little down at the mouth. Then Rosenbluth put the Tar Heels back on top with a field goal at the 3:45 mark, and the UNC cagers never trailed after that. With Pete Brennan, Joe Quigg, and Rosenbluth hitting, they quickly rolled up a 14 point final margin over the undermanned Blue Devils.
Duke, playing roughhouse ball all the way, paid the price in the final few moments when they were forced to combat the UNC stretch drive with five key men on the bench via the excessive personal foul route. Four were starters while the fifth was Jerry Robertson, a top reserve. The Blue Devils we called 35 times for fouling, while Carolina drew 23 penalties.
Each team had 25 field goals, but the Tar Heels sank 36 free throws compared to only 22 for Duke. UNC hit 25 of 60 for 41.7 per cent, while Duke had 25 of 74 for 36.4 per cent.
Things looked dark for the Tar Heels in the game's early moments as Duke rolled up 7 straight points before the stiff Carolina cagers could connect. But when Lennie Rosenbluth began to find the range, it was "Go for Broke."
Rosenbluth rolled in 18 of his team's first 22 points to put the Tar Heels up 22-16. From there they stretched the margin to 12 at halftime. But in the second half . Bobby Joe Harris and Paul Schmidt began to hit and the Blue Devils finally took the lead at 59-58 with 10:25 left.
It was a see-saw battle from there until the 3:45 mark when Rosenbluth put the Tar Heels ahead to stay.
The Tar Heels played most of the second half with only one guard, Tommy Kearns, in the line-up. The other backcourt starter, Bob Cunningham, fouled out with 14 minutes remaining on the clock.
N. CAROLINA G F P T
Rosenbluth f 12 12-22 4 40
Brennan f 2 12-14 5 16
Rosemond f 0 0-0 0 0
Young f 3 0-0 3 6
Quigg c 4 2-4 3 10
Cunningham g 1 0-0 5 2
Lotz g 0 3-7 1 3
Kearns g 3 3-7 2 9
TOTALS 25 36-54 23 86
DUKE G F P T
Robertson f 4 0-1 5 8
Miller f 1 0-2 2 2
Newcome f 0 1-2 5 1
Barrett f 1 0-1 2 2
Schmidt f 3 11-12 5 17
Clement f 2 1-2 5 5
Vernon g 5 0-1 0 10
Watson g 0 0-1 3 0
Harris g 9 1-2 5 19
Allen g 0 8-9 3 8
TOTALS 25 22-33 35 72
NORTH CAROLINA 47--39---86
DUKE 35--37---72
[From The Daily Tar Heel, March 2, 1957]
'Somebody Will Knock Us Off;' But Nobody Did
By BILL KING
Coach Frank McGuire proved himself a poor prognosticator last night when his Carolina Tar Heels climaxed an unbeaten season with an 86-72 win over the Duke Blue Devils despite McGuire's constant warning throughout the season that "somebody will knock us off before the season is over."
Yet nobody could have been happier to be wrong than McGuire because as he stated last night following his teams's thrilling victory, "an unbeaten season--that's what the boys wanted. If we lose to Clemson or Virginia in the tournament, then we'll just watch the rest of it from the sidelines. We can relax a little now."
Over in one corner of the Carolina dressing room sat Lennie Rosenbluth, the greatest basketball player in Carolina history. Rosy dropped in 40 last night--"a pretty fair night for him," said McGuire.
"Hey, Lennie," the Tar Heel chieftain grinned, "have you been taking vitamin pills? You look like you're improving."
"Naw, coach," retorted bid Len. "I've been practicing."
Somebody was of the opinion that Rosenbluth had played better than ever in the past four games. To this, McGuire retorted: "Lennie has been playing like that for three years."
McGuire was asked if he thought that the Blue Devils were as tough as Wake Forest Tuesday night. "They were definitely just as tough," he stated. "They wanted to knock us off mighty badly just like everybody else, and they fellows who subbed for the ones who fouled out were just as tough. That's the way it's been all year long."
The smiling Irishman was very happy as he remarked to nobody in particular, "they fooled me. I never thought they could go all the way."--but they did.
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