News-Record.com

Further thoughts about "the best Final Four," the subject of our second editorial Friday.

That was, of course, the 1974 NCAA men's basketball championship held in Greensboro and won by the David Thompson-Tom Burleson-Monte Towe N.C. State Wolfpack.

A capacity crowd of 15,829 saw State edge seven-time defending champs UCLA in a double-overtime barn-burner in the Saturday semifinals. Slightly fewer showed up for the anticlimactic final Monday night when State easily defeated Marquette for the title.

Of course, as we noted, it snowed five inches in Greensboro that day -- March 25, 1974.

But, to the point, even with expanded seating of 23,500 for basketball, the Greensboro Coliseum isn't in line to host any more men's Final Fours. They're all scheduled for enclosed football stadiums, where tens of thousands of fans can overpay for seats with a distant view of the court.

There's another reason the Greensboro Coliseum would be out of the running, however.

By rule, the Final Four cannot be played on the home court of any school eligible to compete for the championship. Beginning next season, the coliseum will be UNCG's home court. As long as that's the case, the facility is excluded.

True, UNCG is hardly likely to make it to the Final Four anytime soon, but you never know.

(It's a different bunch of Spartans playing in Detroit this weekend.)

If UNCG ever does achieve that level of basketball success, the moment of glory probably will take place in a football stadium and not in the Greensboro Coliseum.

Greensboro's memories of 1974 will just have to last forever.