University of North Carolina Athletics
THM: Bumps Await any Postseason Run
March 16, 2005 | Men's Basketball
March 16, 2005
Tar Heel Monthly is the premier magazine devoted to the stories and personalities behind UNC athletics. Click here for subscription information.
The following story originally ran in the April issue of the magazine.
By Adam Lucas
Every Final Four team gets a ring. Every Final Four team takes home a shred of championship-clinching net. Every Final Four team is rewarded with a banner in the Smith Center rafters.
And every Final Four team, at some point, has to survive a heart-pounding NCAA Tournament game against a less-heralded opponent.
It's that type of drama that makes CBS willing to pay billions of dollars to televise the annual March festivities. It's also that kind of drama that makes coaches prematurely gray.
"The NCAA Tournament is a lot of fun and watching all those upsets is a lot of fun," former Carolina head coach Bill Guthridge says. "Those first two rounds when it goes from 64 teams to 16 are really exciting, unless the upsets are happening to you."
But near upsets are almost unavoidable. Even a team that earns a number-one seed has a formidable challenge waiting in the second round--a team seeded eighth or ninth, the second-round opponent for a top seed, is one of the 35 best teams in the country. A top seed has never lost a first-round game, but at some point it will happen. And in the second round, the land mines begin to explode.
"You never know," Dean Smith says. "In 1993 I was very concerned about Rhode Island. They looked great in the first round in beating Purdue when Purdue had Glenn Robinson. And then we play them and we're up by 30 at halftime. It's so unpredictable and that is what makes college basketball unique."
And what makes the knuckles of Carolina fans turn white every March. Since 1982, every Tar Heel Final Four team has had to survive at least one unexpectedly tight game in regional play. Tar Heel coaches have traditionally tried not to overprepare for specific opponents. Instead, they use practice throughout the season to simulate every conceivable scenario.
"It really helps to have played close games," Guthridge says. "In 1991 in the finals, UNLV had blown everyone out, and they got in a tight game at the end and mishandled it. You want those close games during the regular season. You want experience playing against all types of teams, all types of defenses, because you might run into that in the tournament."
We asked Guthridge and Smith to revisit some of the most memorable squeakers involved in Carolina's Final Four runs over the past 25 years.
1981: Carolina 61, Utah 56: This game is the most unlike the others because Utah was a legitimate national contender in 1981 and the game was played in Salt Lake City--Carolina was assigned the second seed in the West Regional and then handed a road game in the regional semifinal.
"People were counting us out before that game," Guthridge says. "Utah was a really good team. They've since done away with those types of road games because that was really unfair."
1982: Carolina 52, James Madison 50: Smith's first national championship team was almost derailed in the second round of regional play. After receiving a bye in the first round, the Tar Heels drew a second round matchup at the Charlotte Coliseum that concerned their head coach.
"I always told my assistants not to cheer for anyone," Smith says. "But I was cheering so hard for Ohio State over James Madison. I wanted to play Ohio State because James Madison was a ball control team and executed very well. A couple of James Madison's players wanted to come to Carolina and it's always dangerous when you play someone who wants to show you that you made a mistake."
Lou Campanelli's team almost proved the point, but a double-double from Sam Perkins (17 points, 10 rebounds) rescued the Tar Heels.
1991: Carolina 75, Temple 72: Although it was a regional final, outsiders didn't expect the 10th-seeded Owls to provide much competition for the powerful Tar Heels, who were just two weekends removed from a 22-point blasting of Duke in the ACC championship game.
Bill Guthridge knew better.
"When you play Temple you know you're going to get fewer possessions and they have a zone that's a little different," he says. "Attacking their zone is different from attacking most zones. You have to prepare for it differently. It's tougher to beat a team like Temple in the NCAA Tournament than it is to beat a team like Loyola Marymount (Carolina's 1988 victim in a 123-97 rout when UNC shot 79 percent from the field) because Loyola gave us so many possessions."
Temple also presented a thorny offensive problem: sharpshooting guard Mark Macon scored 31 points and almost tied the game at the buzzer with a 30-foot jumper. Macon was a one-man show, also leading his team with 9 rebounds, but he was outdone by the more team-oriented Heels, as Rick Fox and Hubert Davis each contributed 19 points.
1993: Carolina 80, Arkansas 74: Most people remember the regional final, when Brian Reese missed a dunk at the end of regulation against Cincinnati. But that game almost never happened--Arkansas jumped out to a 25-14 lead at the Meadowlands in the regional semifinal.
The Razorbacks were in the heyday of "40 Minutes of Hell" under head coach Nolan Richardson, but Carolina had frequently practiced ways to beat that type of overplaying defense. Reese's last-second dunk had been a spur-of-the-moment diagram by Dean Smith. But with the Arkansas game still undecided and seconds remaining, Smith called a familiar play during a timeout.
"Most of the things we'd run in that situation we'd been through before," he says. "That was an important play, so we ran our set in which George Lynch took a dribble and Donald Williams went backdoor."
It worked perfectly, and Carolina's championship dreams had dodged a bullet.
1995: Carolina 80, Murray State 70: Sometimes close games are caused by injury. That's what happened against Murray State, as Rasheed Wallace missed the game with an injury sustained during the ACC Tournament.
"Murray State was a really good team, but no one realized it because they were a 15 seed," Guthridge says.
They realized it when Carolina trailed by a point at halftime. The Racers had won their regular season and tournament conference crowns, and with Wallace out, some of Carolina's raw talent advantage was negated. But the Tar Heels mined an unexpected gem, as Serge Zwikker filled in for Wallace and showed the first flashes of the consistent center he'd become as an upperclassman.
1997: Carolina 82, Fairfield 74: The NCAA claims not to "set up" potentially attractive games when they're filling out the bracket. But it was hard to make that claim when the draw was revealed and the Tar Heels were staring at a potential second-round matchup with Bob Knight and Indiana--which would have just happened to be Dean Smith's record-breaking 877th victory.
Indiana failed to hold up their end of the equation, losing to Indiana and causing Knight to walk from Lawrence Joel Coliseum to the team hotel in frustration. Unexpectedly, the Tar Heels also had to struggle to reach the second round, surviving a tussle with unknown Fairfield.
"If you're an underdog, shooting three-pointers is a good way to compensate for that," Guthridge says. "If you're an underdog you have nothing to lose and maybe you make some of those shots. That's tough to handle."
The previously unheralded Greg Francis was especially tough to handle, finishing with 26 points, but Vince Carter bailed out the Tar Heels with 22 and Smith went on to break Adolph Rupp's record against Colorado two days later.
1998: Carolina 93, UNC-Charlotte 83 (overtime): Carolina might have had one of its best teams ever, but Guthridge knew as soon as the brackets were revealed that the second-round game in Hartford would be difficult.
"I hated seeing them come up on the screen," Guthridge says. "Charlotte had been wanting to play us forever and that second-round game as a top seed is always tough."
Diego Guevera, who memorably sealed every one of his three-pointers with a kiss to his wife in the stands, kept the 49ers in the game with his long-range shooting. But Carolina had a marksman of their own, as Shammond Williams scored 32 points to prevent the upset.
2000: Carolina 74, Tennessee 69: The entire Final Four run of 2000 probably belongs in this category, as the Tar Heels rebounded from a disappointing ACC Tournament and put together their most unexpected Final Four run ever. Tennessee was a brash, athletic team that had become the trendy pick to reach the Final Four. But Carolina had rediscovered their defense and held the Vols to 36 percent field goal shooting. Even a seven-point deficit with eight minutes to play and foul trouble on Brendan Haywood couldn't deter what was beginning to look like a team of destiny.
"We had lost to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament, but if Joseph Forte makes a shot he usually makes that whole thing might have turned out differently," Guthridge says. "But after we lost we really practiced hard. We worked on getting the ball inside and I tried to emphasize to the players that we were a good team. We talked about how they had worked hard and deserved better and we wanted to show people we were good.
"It was a great run. Things seemed to just fall into place but it was a magical run."
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.
