University of North Carolina Athletics
CAR-O-LINES: It Wasn't A Pretty Victory, But McCants Play Sure Was
March 8, 2004 | Men's Basketball
March 4, 2004
By Rick Brewer
This one was far from pretty, but the outcome was the same.
North Carolina ran its homecourt record against Clemson to 50-0 Tuesday night in a sometimes ragged 69-53 win at the Smith Center.
Coming off an emotional 71-64 victory at N.C. State on Sunday, the Tar Heels never seemed to get in sync. The same was true for the Tigers who had beaten Carolina, 81-72, earlier in the year at Clemson.
The first half of Tuesday's game was not exactly a thing of beauty. There were several flurries of possessions when neither team could even get a shot. And the shots that were taken were usually off target.
The two teams combined for just 21 points in the game's first 11 minutes with Clemson holding a 13-8 lead.
Then Rashad McCants basically took over, scoring all 14 of his first-half points the rest of the way, sparking his team to a 26-18 at intermission. He took a Raymond Felton pass for a fast break dunk and followed that with four three-pointers. The last one came with a second on the clock.
"We played well defensively in the first half," said Coach Roy Williams afterwards. "That's fortunate because we weren't very good on offense."
Carolina shot just 35.7 percent the floor in the first 20 minutes. The Tar Heels had almost as many turnovers (8) as field goals (10).
ut, things were different on the defensive end. The Tigers shot only 30.4 percent from the floor with seven field goals and 14 turnovers.
The second half was a bit different.
"We played much better offensively," said Williams. "But, we had breakdowns on defense. Clemson shot 53.8 percent. That's a reversal from the first half and is an indication of what I mean."
Offensively, McCants added 16 more points for a total of 30. He also hit four more three-pointers, tying the school single-game record of eight.
"Every time we made a run, McCants would break our momentum with a big shot," said Tiger Coach Oliver Purnell. We just couldn't do anything with him."
A lot of people have had trouble doing anything with McCants recently. Over the last 13 games he has averaged 22,8 points a game. He's hit 58.6 percent of his field goal attempts and 47.9 percent of his three-pointers in this stretch. He scored at least 25 points eight times in this 13-game period.
"Rashad was the story of this game," said Williams. "I think he's been playing as well as anyone in college basketball in the last few weeks. He's made some big, clutch shots when we've really needed them."
Sunday night McCants drilled a pair of late three-pointers to spark the win at State. With the Tar Heels trailing 56-54, he hit a three-pointer with just less than four minutes left for a 57-56 lead. Moments later he was seemingly falling into the Carolina bench when he fired another three-pointer to just beat the shot clock for a 60-56 advantage.
Sean May, with 17 points, was the only other Carolina player in double figures in the win over Clemson. Raymond Felton, playing with a sprained toe, had seven points, nine assists and four steals.
Although the Tigers hit seven of 17 three-pointers, that figure was far different from the earlier game on their own court. Clemson made 11 of 13 three-pointers that day and shot 55.6 percent overall.
"We didn't play very good defense at all that day, certainly on their three-point shooters," said Williams. "But, you've also got to give the Clemson players credit for knocking them down."
Carolina's basketball record against the Tigers is truly remarkable.
ut, Clemson also knows something about long winning streaks. At one time the Tigers had a 29-0 all-time football record against Virginia. The Cavaliers finally snapped that in 1990.
The Tigers have come close to winning a basketball game here several times only to see the Tar Heels put on one of their famous late comebacks.
Coaches from both schools are usually reluctant to talk about the streak. After all, every year it's two different teams playing. None of the players will be involved in more than four of these games so it shouldn't be a big streak to them.
However, they all know about it. The law of averages says Clemson will eventually win here. But if players like McCants perform as he did Tuesday, it's going to have to be an exceptional Clemson team playing at its very best.
