It has been 16,423 days since Marquette cut down the nets inside Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia, in the 1977 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game against North Carolina.
And shy of its 45th anniversary, the legacy of Al McGuire’s final team at Marquette lives on.
“I’m reminded of it all the time,” head coach Shaka Smart said. “Obviously walk by the statue everyday coming in here (the Al McGuire Center). There’s a lot of really cool stories involved with it and make no mistake about it, the number one thing that made that happen was you had great players that were connected around one vision laid out by Coach McGuire and they brought it to life.