University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Brennan's Shot Changed History
June 8, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
June 8, 2012
Pete Brennan always maintained he was all alone when he hoisted the jumper that preserved Carolina's storybook undefeated 1957 championship season. The best shooters, of course, always think they are open.
Brennan passed away Friday after a battle with cancer. He had been surrounded by family, friends, and--not surprisingly, given the close-knit nature of the '57 team--teammates in his final days. Brennan had moved to Chapel Hill in recent years after previously living on the Outer Banks. He was a natural to live in the basketball-crazed community, because he loved chatting about Carolina hoops--either of his vintage or the current version.
After averaging a double-double during the championship season, Brennan went on to earn ACC Player of the Year recognition in 1958. His jersey is honored in the Smith Center rafters.
But his most enduring legacy came from a shot he made in Kansas City on March 22, 1957. On that night, the Tar Heels faced Michigan State in the national semifinals--before the event was known as the Final Four. With Spartans star Johnny Green at the free throw line and fewer than 10 seconds left in the second overtime, Michigan State held a two-point lead over Carolina, which entered the game with a 30-0 record. Because there was no three-point basket at that time, if Green made just one of his free throws, the Tar Heel national championship dreams were extinguished.
The game appeared over. One of the Michigan State guards even sidled up next to Carolina guard Tommy Kearns and muttered, "Thirty and one," a reference to the loss the Spartans were about to pin on Frank McGuire's team.
But Green missed, and that's when Brennan etched his name forever in Carolina basketball history. The Brooklyn native had taken up his usual inside rebounding position. That was the natural place for a player who explained his in-game goals this way: "As long as I outrebounded the guy I was playing against, I felt like I'd played a good game."
When Green unexpectedly missed the front end of his one-and-one, Brennan grabbed the rebound. The 1957 team's motto was "Feed the monster," or, translated from McGuire's New York slang--get the ball to Lennie Rosenbluth. In this scenario, however, there wasn't enough time to feed the monster. There was only time for Brennan to dribble upcourt.
Video of the play shows that Tom Kearns and Bob Cunningham were out ahead of Brennan, but his Brooklyn instincts took over. Both Brennan and his teammates laughed about the play when remembering it several years ago.
"I don't think there was anyone out in front with me," Brennan said with a shooter's smile. "So I just went down the court and took the shot from the right of the foul line."
"If we had been in a practice right then, Frank would have called timeout and chewed Pete out for taking a dumb shot," Cunningham said. "He would've told him to look for the men out in front of him and get the ball up the floor. But thank God Pete didn't follow that strategy. He probably should've gone deeper and tried to throw a bounce pass for a layup. But he pulls up and takes this jumper."
It turned out to be one of the most important shots in Carolina basketball history. He made it, of course, and the Tar Heels went on to defeat the Spartans in triple overtime. An estimated two thousand fans were on Franklin Street to celebrate the shot, and the party grew the very next night, when Carolina beat Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas--again in triple overtime. At that evening's celebration of the national title in Kansas City, McGuire was introduced to a young Air Force assistant coach named Dean Smith.
Without Brennan's shot, there would have been no 1957 national title, no state of North Carolina frenzy over college basketball, and potentially, no Smith-McGuire relationship that turned into Smith joining the coaching staff and then being named Carolina's head coach when McGuire departed for the Philadelphia Warriors before the 1961-62 season.
The shot--and the 1957 team--would follow Brennan for the rest of his life. He organized a wildly successful 2005 reunion of the championship team on the Outer Banks, and enjoyed being a part of the Chapel Hill basketball scene in recent years. He was a regular at Carolina home games, a virtual fixture until illness sidelined him during the 2011-12 season.
Bob Cunningham passed away in 2006. Without Brennan, there are now three surviving members of the 1957 starting lineup: Rosenbluth (who lives in Chapel Hill), Quigg (who lives in Fayetteville) and Kearns (who can frequently be seen in Chapel Hill but can also be found in Connecticut and New York City).
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of six books on Carolina basketball, including the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel hoops, A Century of Excellence, which is available now. Get real-time UNC sports updates from the THM staff on Twitter and Facebook.
