NIT History: 1976 Part Two-Kentucky emerges victorious

Kentucky outlasted a twelve team field to win the 1976 NIT. Outlasted is the appropriate word as the Wildcats’ largest margin of victory came in the opening round-a 6 point win over Niagara. For the tournament, Joe B. Hall’s Wildcats won four games by a combined fourteen points.
This was the final NIT contested solely on the hardwood of the ‘World’s Most Famous Arena’. Starting in 1977 the tournament would begin on campus sites before finishing at Madison Square Garden. The first round saw four games as the top four seeds drew byes. After Kentucky opened the tournament with their win over Niagara, Providence defeated North Carolina A&T. Other first round games saw Holy Cross defeating Saint Peter’s and UNC Charlotte eliminating San Francisco.
Quarterfinal contests were not too friendly for the seeded teams. NC State was the lone seeded team to advance with a win over Holy Cross. Kentucky upset Kansas State, UNC Charlotte defeated Oregon and Providence sent Louisville packing.
New York’s , love the underdog crowd, was warming up to Charlotte. The 49ers had the MSG support in a narrow semifinal win over NC State. In the other semi, Providence seemed to have their ticket punched to the final only to fall victim to a last second shot by Kentucky, edging the Friars 79-78.
The championship saw a come from behind effort by the Wildcats as they defeated sentimental favorite UNC-Charlotte 71-67 for the title. Cedric Maxwell, the 49ers’ standout, scored 24 points while grabbing 11 rebounds (both game highs). Maxwell earned Most Valuable Player accolades. Mike Phillips scored 16 points, grabbing 7 rebounds. Senior guard Reggie Warford, scoring all of three points the prior three contests, went for 14 points-most of them when Kentucky was in foul trouble and seemingly on the ropes. Warford later went into coaching and spent several years as a Pitt assistant. Another coaching name of note was Dwane Casey- who contributed six points in the final.
Only a dozen teams were invited as the committee felt the Collegiate Commissioner’s Tournament, for conference runners-up, staged in ‘74 and ‘75 would limit the availability of attractive teams. The CCT was ended by ‘76 but the decision was made for a twelve team field.
UNC-Charlotte was coached by Lee Rose. A year later Rose would have the 49ers in the NCAA Final Four. Two years later he was at Purdue and guided the Boilers to an NIT final. It ended another runner-up for Rose as Purdue fell to Indiana. A year after that he was back in the Final Four. Rose eventually left for South Florida where he finished his college coaching days in 1986 before embarking on an NBA career.
An assistant to Joe B. Hall back then was one Leonard Hamilton, now doing a great job at Florida State.
Safe to say it was Bill Cartwright’s first game in The Garden. The San Francisco freshman center would be back many times in the future, spending time with the Knicks during his pro career. In ‘76 Cartwright’s time at MSG turned out to be brief.
Oregon was in the midst of a NIT run. The Dick Harter coached Ducks finished third the year before. In ‘76 their high seed did not help as sentimental favorite UNC-Charlotte sent them packing after one game. Oregon was led by Ron Lee, Greg Ballard and Stu Jackson. Lee and Ballard both went on to play in the NBA while Jackson later coached at that level.
Providence, the runner up to Princeton the year before, settled for fourth. The Friars undoubtedly were smarting from the heartbreaking loss to Kentucky in the semis and could not bounce back against Norm Sloan’s NC State Wolfpack, led by sophomore Kenny Carr, a 26 ppg scorer on the season. Dave Gavitt led a young and talented group at PC. Among them sophomores Bruce ‘Soup’ Campbell, Bob Misecivius and Bill Eason. Junior Joe Hassett led the team in scoring. A deadly outside shooter Hassett could have posted more than his 17.7 scoring norm had there been a three point arc back then.
In the final analysis the story was Kentucky-claiming their second NIT championship. The Wildcats won the first game in this year’s tournament and ultimately the last as well.