University of North Carolina Athletics
Best Games Of 2013-14: No. 4
July 15, 2014 | Men's Basketball
Continuing today and concluding on July 18, GoHeels.com will count down the top 25 games of the 2013-14 academic year. To catch up on the previous entries, click here.
No. 4: Carolina 82, Kentucky 77 - Men's Basketball, Dec. 14, 2013
Before the stage could be set for another memorable Carolina-Kentucky showdown, the Tar Heels visited familiar ACC/Big Ten Challenge foe Michigan State on Dec. 4. For MSU, it was another disappointment against UNC, as Roy Williams' club bested Tom Izzo's top-ranked Spartans for the seventh straight time, 79-65. Carolina never trailed that night in East Lansing, putting together a vintage performance for the program's 13th all-time win against the nation's No. 1 team.
While the comprehensive road win over Michigan State may have been UNC's most complete performance of the season, the 2013-14 Tar Heels needed one more signature win to validate their up-and-down start. The win over Louisville felt like a turning point for a young team playing without P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald, but a loss at UAB a week later sent the Tar Heels back to square one.
And it was that search for validation that provided the backdrop for what proved to be an instant classic against the Wildcats.
Carolina had followed the MSU win with a rout of UNCG in the middle of final exams, but the Tar Heels would have to wait another whole week for Kentucky to roll into town. UNC had yo-yoed from No. 12 in the preseason AP poll to No. 24 after the loss to Belmont back up to No. 16 after the win over Louisville to unranked after the UAB loss and back up to No. 18 after the win at Michigan State. The jury was very much still out on the Tar Heels.
Kentucky was its own mystery, as the preseason No. 1 team with the nation's top recruiting class had stumbled in its first two marquee matchups with Michigan State and Baylor.
The Wildcats led most of the first half behind a balanced attack that saw seven different players score, but J.P. Tokoto and James Michael McAdoo had 11 each for Carolina to put the hosts up 33-30 at the break.
Halftime that day was special, too. Dean Smith had recently been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama, and the family of the legendary coach, along with former players Eric Montross and Phil Ford, gathered at center court. From Adam Lucas' account of the day:
"The Smith Center has rarely been as loud as it was during points of Saturday's game. It has never, ever, been as totally silent as it was during the opening moments of the ceremony honoring Smith. The ceremony mattered because it was the first time my kids had heard some of those stories about the coach, and maybe it was the first time your kids did, too.
"We've reached the point in time - we're in the 17th season since his retirement -that we have to tell those stories as much as we can. Yes, he integrated a restaurant and a community. Yes, he took his players to visit prisons. All of that happened and it mattered, and what the comments from Phil Ford, Eric Montross and Smith's wife, Linnea, perfectly showed was that it mattered more than beating Georgetown or inventing a new offensive wrinkle."
It was a seminal moment in the history of the building that bares Coach Smith's name, and it would have been a Saturday to remember regardless of how the game concluded. Fortunately for the full house of Tar Heel fans, the second half did its best to live up to halftime.
The first six minutes of the half featured five ties and four lead changes as both teams competed at a high level. Nate Britt's coast-to-coast driving layup tied it at 46 before Marcus Paige stole an Andrew Harrison pass on the wing and took it all the way to give Carolina a two-point lead.
The Tar Heels spent the next 13-plus minutes holding off Kentucky with a variety of defenses that at times confounded the young Wildcats, stretching the lead to eight on a McAdoo bucket with 5:33 to play.
UK cut the Carolina advantage to three twice inside the final five minutes, the last time coming on a James Young basket with 2:15 to go that prompted a UNC timeout. The Tar Heels worked the shot clock inside five seconds on the ensuing possession and Paige came up with this:
That - a teardrop over 7-footer Willie Cauley-Stein - would have been the play of the game, except for what happened after Andrew Harrison's step-back 3 on the next UK possession hit the front iron.
As Lucas points out in his postgame column, Kentucky made the same mistake Wake Forest made in 2001 after a thunderous Ronald Curry to Julius Peppers alley-oop by calling a timeout that allowed the replay to be shown over and over on the Smith Center video boards.
Harrison's late 3 got the Wildcats back to 80-77 with seven seconds left, but Paige iced it with a pair of free throws - he was a perfect 10 of 10 from the line that day - and Carolina emerged victorious.
Paige finished with a game-high 23 but it was McAdoo, who finished with 20 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals in 37 minutes, who was the difference against the bigger and stronger Wildcats.
It was a third win in as many tries over the elite of college basketball for the Tar Heels, and it served notice to the nation that, despite a season of turmoil, Carolina was still a force to be reckoned with.
Previous Entries
No. 5: Carolina 34, Pitt 27 - Football, Nov. 16, 2013
No. 6: Carolina 4, Georgia 2 - Men's Tennis, May 16, 2014
No. 7: Carolina 4, NC State 3 - Baseball, May 20, 2014
No. 8: Carolina 85, NC State 84 (OT) - Men's Basketball, Feb. 26, 2014
No. 9: Carolina 27, NC State 19 - Football, Nov. 2, 2013
No. 10: Carolina 3, Duke 0 - Women's Soccer, Oct. 31, 2013
No. 11: Carolina Completes Road Sweep Of Duke And NC State - Women's Basketball, Feb. 10 and 16, 2014
No. 12: Carolina 11, Maryland 8 - Men's Lacrosse, March 22, 2014
No. 13: Carolina 4, Virginia 2 - Baseball, April 20, 2014
No. 14: Carolina 4, Duke 1 - Men's Tennis, April 26, 2014
No. 15: Carolina 1, Virginia 0 - Men's Soccer, Nov. 1, 2013
No. 16: Carolina 45, Virginia 14 - Football, Nov. 9, 2013
No. 17: Carolina 17, Maryland 15 - Women's Lacrosse, April 5, 2014
No. 18: Carolina 2, Connecticut 1 - Field Hockey, Oct. 26, 2013
No. 19: Henderson's All-America Run At NCAAs - Wrestling, March 20-22, 2014
No. 20: Carolina 5, Virginia 2 - Women's Tennis, March 8, 2014
No. 21: Carolina 3, Illinois 0 - Volleyball, Sept. 20, 2013
No. 22: Carolina 93, Louisville 84 - Men's Basketball, Nov. 24, 2013
No. 23: Carolina Men, LeHardy Shine At XC Nationals - Cross Country, Nov. 23, 2013
No. 24: Carolina Sweeps Rivals To End Home Schedule - Men's Swimming and Diving, Jan. 25 and 31, 2014
No. 25: Carolina 12, Virginia Tech 8 - Softball, March 2, 2014
