University of North Carolina Athletics
THM: Georgia Tech Rivalry Report
January 12, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 12, 2005
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The following story originally ran in the December issue of the magazine.
By Adam Lucas
There was a time when calling Georgia Tech a "rival" in basketball seemed a little bit like the New York Yankees being concerned about the potential of the Durham Bulls.
From 1971 through 1984, Carolina won 20 straight games against the Yellow Jackets. Tech joined the Atlantic Coast Conference for the 1980 season and compiled a 1-13 league mark. They dipped to 0-14 the next year and were treated rudely by the league's flagship program, suffering a 100-60 shellacking at Carmichael Auditorium and a 25-point thrashing later that same season.
But Bobby Cremins took over prior to the 1981-82 season and proceeded to do something that seemed impossible--make college basketball matter in Atlanta. The turnaround wasn't immediate; he still lost his first seven games to Dean Smith. But the congenial Cremins was slowly becoming a recruiting force, and by the 1984-85 season he'd assembled a talent base that included John Salley, Bruce Dalrymple, and Mark Price.
Price became the first freshman ever to lead the ACC in scoring, a four-time All-ACC pick, and a three-time All-American. He engineered the school's regular season sweep of the Heels in 1985 and then scored 16 points in the ACC Tournament championship game, a 57-54 Tech win at the Omni that seemed to signal a shift in the balance of power in the league. Cremins, it appeared, had proven that even schools from native football territory could compete with their Tobacco Road brethren.
He proceeded to make the Jackets one of the most dynamic teams in the conference. They weren't particularly consistent, and frequently hovered near the middle of the ACC standings, but they always seemed to have just enough talent to spring a handful of upsets each season.
Their most formidable team was probably the 1990 "Lethal Weapon III" squad that included Kenny Anderson, Brian Oliver, and Dennis Scott. That trio combined for 77 points on Feb. 1, 1990, to hand the Heels a 102-75 whipping in Atlanta, Carolina's worst defeat in the history of the series.
Surprisingly, Scott didn't shoot well from three-point range in that game, as he hit just 3-of-13 trifectas. But the Jackets have traditionally made terrific use of the three-point arc against UNC, including Scott nailing perhaps the most famous three-pointer in the history of the series on March 1, 1989, when he stole an inbounds pass with seconds remaining and swished a long jumper from the corner to give Tech a stunning 76-74 victory.
Scott, whose slight paunch made him an unlikely assassin, would later be joined in the ranks of perimeter prodigies by a series of relatively anonymous Techsters who suddenly became marksmen when they saw light blue. The extremely mortal Fred Vinson turned immortal on Feb. 12, 1994, hitting 8-of-12 three-pointers in a Smith Center upset of the talented Tar Heels. Both Barry brothers who suited up in Atlanta, Jon and Drew, enjoyed wins over the Heels. Drew was especially pesky, hitting 9-of-17 three-pointers and 10 of his 18 field goal attempts while scoring 30 points in a 92-83 overtime Tech win in 1996.
But the Tech player contending for all-time greatest Carolina killer is B.J. Elder (who will not play tonight). The 6-foot-4 shooting guard from Madison, Ga., has scored in double figures in all seven of his career games against the Tar Heels, including a 30-point explosion last year in Atlanta. Twenty-four of those points came in the second half, as he single-handedly outdueled Rashad McCants (who finished with 31) to lead Tech to an 88-77 win. For his career, he's a 15.6 per game scorer who has a 4-3 record against Carolina.
But it's not just Georgia Tech which has thrived from the perimeter in the series. One of the all-time greatest performances by a Tar Heel was posted on Feb. 8, 1997, when Shammond Williams hit 8-of-11 three-pointers, 11-of-16 field goals, and 12-of-12 from the free throw line on his way to 42 points and a 107-100 double-overtime UNC victory at the Thrillerdome. That performance ranked as the 10th-highest scoring single-game output in Carolina history, placing Williams alongside such luminaries as Billy Cunningham, Lennie Rosenbluth, and Bob Lewis. It was only the second time in the past 33 seasons that a Carolina played had scored more than 40 points.
Similar fireworks are possible when the series resumes tonight, the only scheduled meeting this season between two teams expected to contend for league title honors. No one on Carolina's roster has a winning record against the Jackets.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. His book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about the book, click here.
