ESPN Men's Basketball

The time has come. Sean May is ready to show the videotape he's been carrying in his gym bag since the beginning of the NCAA Tournament.

"I'll break it out when we get to St. Louis," he said.

Now that North Carolina has finally made the Final Four, May is offering his teammates a private screening. The game: Indiana vs. Michigan, for the 1976 national championship. The climax of the last perfect season, the apex of his father's career.

This is no DVD, no high-definition recording, no state-of-the-art production. The grainy action is 29 years old. The shorts cut butter. Kent Benson is shooting old-school hook shots, for Dick Enberg's sake.

The only guy the modern-day players would recognize is the coach in the plaid jacket – Bob Knight. Well, May's Tar Heel teammates might recognize one other guy – a younger version of the man who has popped up at so many Carolina games the past three years.

GettySoft hands and a wide body make a nice post combo.

That guy wearing No. 42 in white? Yep, that's Sean's dad, Scott. Merely the best player on the best team of the post-Wooden Era – at least.

Scott May went on to cash some healthy checks as a pro player, both here and overseas, and he's now a hugely successful real estate owner in Bloomington, Ind. But what he did at Indiana is what resonates with him today.

"He said that this is the only thing he remembers: playing in the NCAA Tournament, going to the Final Four, winning a championship," Sean said. "This is the best setting in sports, the best feeling in sports."

Watching your son get that same feeling is pretty special, too.

This father-son Final Four thing doesn't happen as often as you might think. Henry (UCLA) and Mike (Arizona) Bibby. Bill (UCLA) and Luke (Arizona) Walton. Bob (Ohio State) and Pat (Indiana) Knight both made it there, too, although neither had much to do with his team's getting there.

Sean and Scott May both wear the same number, are similarly vital to their team's chances and can catch anything.

"Everyone talks about how soft Sean's hands are," said his coach at Bloomington (Ind.) North High School, Tom McKinney. "Well, do you remember Scott May? He was the same way."

Their games, however, have little in common. At 6-9 and 255 pounds, Sean owns the most enticing combination of power, agility and finesse in college basketball, clearing space with his w-i-d-e shoulders and then shooting with almost a delicate touch. At 6-7, Scott was more of an all-court player.

Funny thing: Sean May is a second-team All-American, currently surrounded by as much adulation as any college player in the country – and he's still not the most decorated and accomplished player in his own family. When the 1976 national Player of the Year gives a hoops lecture, his son has little recourse but to shut up and listen.

"He taught Sean an awful lot about the game," McKinney said. "His dad was probably his best one-on-one teacher. He and his dad are very close, and I think they've talked the game of basketball since early on."

Sean describes his dad as "my biggest critic and my biggest fan." Scott has been known to take hours critiquing videotapes of his son's performances, finding flaws and explaining how Sean can improve.

This week, the elder May is the one on tape and the younger May is the one doing the reviewing. He won't find much in Dad's game to rip.

But the purpose of showing that tape this week isn't just for Sean to brag about his father. It's to show his teammates what a national champion looks like.

Carolina probably has more NBA talent than did those Hoosiers. But if the Heels study the videotape they'll see a team absolutely committed to the cause, and to the essentials of winning basketball. That's been the (only) knock on this North Carolina team – that it's a little too casual, a little too careless, a little too reliant on overwhelming talent to carry the day.

But if anyone in baby blue has shown killer instinct this March, it's Sean May.

Start with the monstrous 26 points and 24 rebounds he dropped on Duke to end the regular season and wrap up an undivided ACC title. (That was the same day Ohio State stopped Illinois' undefeated run, preserving Indiana's legacy as the last unbeaten team. "He tried to act like he wasn't happy that Illinois got beat, but I know deep down inside he was," Sean said of his dad.)

Since the Duke game, May has overpowered pretty much everyone in his path, capping the run with 29 points and 12 rebounds in the Syracuse Regional final against Wisconsin.

May could tell how much making the Final Four meant to him the night before that game. He couldn't sleep.

May and his roommate, Wes Miller, usually sleep with the television on. May got up and turned it off. He stared at the ceiling. He got up and paced the room until Miller rolled over, looked at him and said, "Man, what are you doing?" He finally went to sleep at 2:15 a.m.

If May was sleepless in Syracuse, it might be worse in St. Louis. May and fellow juniors Rashad McCants and Raymond Felton, hailed as program saviors three years ago, got a burden off their backs by getting to the Final Four – but the expectations don't end there. Not for the team with the most talent in the field.

If he puts a championship net around his neck, might May be tempted to skip his senior season and turn pro? He said his dad would tell him when he's ready, with input from Carolina coach Roy Williams.

Sean trusts his dad's input that much. That's a big reason he's at North Carolina instead of hometown Indiana, and a big reason there's so much talk about Mike Davis' job security as coach of the Hoosiers.

If he'd gotten Sean May, it would be a moot point. Davis would be empowered and entrenched instead of embattled.

May figured to be a Hoosier. He hung out with Davis' son quite a bit during high school, and his older brother, Scott Jr., was a bit player on Indiana's 2002 Final Four team. But it didn't happen.

"Sean was very torn about that, because he loves IU," McKinney said. "It was awfully tough. But I think it has probably been easier to be at North Carolina."

Many suspect that the hand of the eternally embittered Knight was hard at work keeping Sean May from going to Indiana. Whether it was out of loyalty to Knight or for some other reason, Scott May did not endorse Sean's going to IU.

"I can't go somewhere without my father's blessing," May said. "There was some friction between coach Davis and my father."

If there's one thing we know about Sean May, it's this: He honors his father. And when he pops in that videotape of the '76 championship game for his teammates to watch this week, he'll honor Scott May again.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com.