If Jim Valvano were still alive, he would be much in demand as the 2003 NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament gets under way around the country. This is, after all, the 20th anniversary of one of the most exciting and reason-defying runs by any team in NCAA history, and the monumental upset purported by Valvano’s ’83 North Carolina State team in the championship game is still viewed as perhaps the most improbable victory in the history of the game.

Unfortunately, while we will still see plenty of clips about that Wolfpack team as CBS stages its coverage of this year’s tourney, Valvano won’t be around to bask in the glory again. Valvano died of cancer at age 47 on April 28, 1993, after leaving the ranks of the college game in disgrace following revelations of wrongdoing in his program in the late ’80s. He became a successful hoops analyst for ABC and ESPN following his coaching days, but the highlight of his professional career was clearly the miracle of 1983.

There was no more exuberant and manic coach in college basketball at the time than Jim Valvano. After coaching stints at Johns Hopkins, Iona, and Bucknell, Valvano was hired by NC State in 1980. The Wolfpack already had a well-established program (and had even won an NCAA title in 1974), but the team was suffering from some down times in the always-competitive Atlantic Coast Conference, and Valvano, on the heels of bringing the Iona College program to national prominence, was brought in.

In 1983, the best teams in the ACC were also two of the best teams in the country: the defending national champion North Carolina Tar Heels, and the Virginia Cavaliers, anchored by 7’4" senior Ralph Sampson. Wake Forest was also coming off of two 20-win seasons, so little chance was given to the team in red from Raleigh.

The Wolfpack got off to a 4-0 start that season but fell back to earth quickly, and when it lost starting guard Dereck Whittenburg to a broken foot in an 88-80 loss to Virginia, already-low expectations diminished further. But a turning point came in late January, when Valvano & Co. beat Carolina for the first time in seven meetings, 68-63, to improve to 15-8. Losses to Virginia and Maryland did not help the team’s NCAA chances heading into the ACC tournament in March, but NC State had gotten Whittenburg back for the team’s last four regular-season games, and in the last game before the conference tournament began, the Wolfpack annihilated Wake Forest, 130-89.

Valvano wrote in his autobiography, Valvano: They Gave Me a Lifetime Contract, and Then They Declared Me Dead (Pocket Books), that he believed that his 17-10 team needed to win the ACC tournament to have any chance of receiving an NCAA bid, and that prospect was a longshot indeed. Thus began the three-week-long streak of miracles that would ultimately take the Wolfpack to the summit of college basketball, with one loss anywhere along the way probably derailing this march toward destiny.

In its ACC tourney opener, State got stuck playing Wake Forest again, just a week after their 41-point thrashing in Raleigh. Blowout again? Hah. NC State won by just a point, and only because the Demon Deacons’ Danny Young narrowly missed a half-court shot at the buzzer. Next up was Carolina, and the game went to overtime before the Pack prevailed, 91-84. This was the first key game in which Valvano would employ the "fouling" method in order to get the ball back and cut deficits. Of course, this strategy would be canceled out if the opposition made its free throws, but if they didn’t, good things could happen. By virtue of the victory, NC State had now moved to its first conference final of the Valvano regime, but it was up against Virginia, a team that had been the best college team over the four years leading up to this point, led by Sampson, the three-time NCAA Player of the Year. Against all odds, though, State rallied from an eight-point deficit with seven minutes to go to beat the Cavaliers by three, thereby earning the tourney championship and the automatic NCAA bid.

As the sixth seed in the then-48-team tournament, NC State had to travel to Corvallis, Oregon, to meet Pepperdine, a team led by rising-star coach Jim Harrick (who later led UCLA to a national title but lately has been immersed in allegations of corruption at Rhode Island and Georgia). This game also went to overtime, and State was actually trailing by six with 1:10 to play in the first OT before rallying to tie and go to a second extra session. Valvano again employed his fouling tactics, Pepperdine missed numerous chances to ice the game throughout the overtime periods, and the Wolfpack ultimately emerged with a thrilling 69-67 double-OT victory. For the folks back home on Tobacco Road, many of whom had turned the late-night game off and headed to bed assuming the team had lost, news of State’s escape the next day was heady, and the "Team of Destiny" tag was first mentioned.

Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV team was next up in the draw, and NC State again fell behind early and was down by 12 points with just over eight minutes to go. Valvano again instructed his charges to press and foul, and the deficit soon closed. In State’s final possession, trailing 70-69, it missed two consecutive shots, and three different UNLV players had a chance to rebound those shots and clinch the Vegas victory. But Thurl Bailey emerged with the loose ball and threw in an off-balance fall-away with three seconds left to give NC State another miracle victory, this time 71-70.

The upstarts from the ACC had now reached the round of 16 in Ogden, Utah, for the West Regional finals. Boston College, Virginia, and the University of Utah were the remaining seeds from that bracket, and the Wolfpack got stuck playing the Utes, a team that was based just an hour away from the Utah State campus where the regional would be played. In spite of the regional fan base supporting Utah, NC State was hitting lights-out from long range, and shot 78.9 percent in the second half to win going away, 75-56. Virginia had beaten BC in the other regional semi, so the West championship would be a reprise of the ACC title game.

Another back-and-forth game ensued, and Virginia held a 62-61 lead late, but with just 23 seconds left Lorenzo Charles got fouled while going up for a shot. Charles made both free throws, and Virginia had one more opportunity to win it, but the Cavs missed two open jumpers at the end and the Wolfpack was going to the Final Four in Albuquerque.

The semifinal game between NC State and the University of Georgia was viewed as almost an afterthought at the 1983 Finals, because the other Saturday game included two of the most exciting teams in college-basketball history: the Denny Crum–led Louisville Cardinals against the Phi Slamma Jamma acrobatics of the University of Houston. The winner of that game was almost certain to be coronated the National Champion before the Monday-night final was even played.

In the early game, Georgia came out and missed 19 of its first 23 shots and fell behind early, and State carried an 18-point lead into the final six minutes of the contest. Valvano wrote in his book that "I figured State being an agricultural school, we should have been able to milk a lead," but the strategy backfired and the Bulldogs made a game of it before ultimately falling, 67-60. NC State — at one point in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament altogether — was now going to be playing for the national title on Monday night.

In the other game, Houston won a highly entertaining back-and-forth affair from Louisville to advance to the title game, and so little chance was given to the lads from Raleigh that the Washington Post’s Dave Kindred wrote, "Trees will tap dance, elephants will ride in the Indianapolis 500, and Orson Welles will skip breakfast, lunch and dinner before State finds a way to beat Houston."

Valvano, though, had his kids believing that anything was possible, and he used a fire-and-brimstone pre-game speech and crossed up Houston’s expectations on the floor by sparking his team to a tremendous first-half performance. Instead of slowing down the tempo, NC State had taken it to the bigger, faster Cougars, and got Houston’s Clyde Drexler hamstrung with four fouls en route to a 33-25 halftime lead.

Everyone in the arena expected Houston to come out with more passion in the second half, and it did, outscoring the Wolfpack 17-2 in the first 10 minutes to take a 42-35 lead. That was that, most observers believed. But Cougar coach Guy Lewis inexplicably slowed down the pace of the game, and that played into the hands of the underdog NC State team. Houston had only shot 60.9 from the free-throw line during the course of the season, and it ultimately cost them down the stretch when State began to employ its press-and-foul maneuver. The Wolfpack scratched its way back into a 52-52 tie with just over a minute remaining, and after fouling freshman Alvin Franklin, the Wolfpack followers gasped in disbelief as the point guard missed the front end of the one-and-one. NC State got the rebound and called time-out with 44 seconds left on the clock.

You will probably see those final seconds numerous times over the next three weeks as the 2003 tournament plays out, but it’s still one of the most thrilling and heart-stopping finishes in NCAA history. As the play unfolded, Houston almost stole a pass from Bailey out to Whittenburg in the backcourt, which, had the turnover been converted, would have probably led to an uncontested game-winning dunk for the Cougars. Instead, Whittenburg held on, almost lost his dribble as he began to look for the final shot, then threw up a desperation 30-footer. With Houston center Akeem Olajuwon in perfect rebounding position, he inexplicably did not see that the ball was going to fall well short, and never even left his feet. Lorenzo Charles, though, did track the arc of the ball, grabbed it in midair to the right side of the basket, and threw it in as the final horn sounded.

It was good! The game was over! And North Carolina State had stunned the college-basketball universe with a 54-52 last-second victory over the Goliath-like Houston Cougars. Famous footage from those frantic few seconds after the winning dunk show the euphoric Valvano running around the court in search of someone to hug, ultimately settling on 65-year-old NC State athletic director Willis Casey.

Perhaps eighth-seeded Villanova’s NCAA victory over Georgetown two years later gave the hoop world an even more unexpected champion, but truly, there was no more-exciting and improbable national champion than Jim Valvano’s endearing squad of "rats" from that magical tournament 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, Valvano’s image was tarnished by the accusations that surrounded the program in the years following the title run, and those swirling rumors eventually led to his being dismissed as head basketball coach and athletic director at NC State. He insisted to the end that the charges were bogus and trumped-up, but they nonetheless expedited his exit from the upper echelon of the college-coaching hierarchy.

In 1992, Valvano was diagnosed with terminal metastatic cancer, but true to his personality, he did not let the illness keep him down. Instead, in his final year he established the V Foundation (www.jimmyv.org), which raises funds for cancer research. He made many speeches to garner support for the fledgling organization’s fight for a cure, including a memorable tribute at the 1993 ESPY awards, when he highlighted his acceptance of the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award with his memorable "Don’t ever give up" credo.

Just 55 days after his appearance at the ESPYs, Valvano lost his battle to the disease, 10 years after his memorable sprint around the court in Albuquerque.

Whatever Valvano’s legacy is, his 1983 club’s miracle run to the NCAA championship remains an inspiration to teams everywhere, and the story of that remarkable championship drive will no doubt be brought up by tournament coaches facing long odds in the upcoming fortnight of hoops.

Valvano won’t be around to share his recollections of that championship season with viewers of the upcoming tournament, but his establishment of the V Foundation and the belief he took to his grave that anything is possible will surely benefit many, many more than that handful of youngsters who converted his gospel into a national title 20 years ago.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com