University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Fun Facts
January 15, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
RALEIGH—Approximately three hours before Carolina tipped off in Raleigh on Wednesday night, NC State student body president Rusty Mau was asked if he expected students to storm the court if the Wolfpack pulled off the upset.
“No,” he said. “Students will not storm the court when we beat them. I will not see a single student on the court. We are NC State. We expect to beat UNC-Chapel Hill every time we play here.”
(Carolina is now 12-4 at PNC Arena all-time.)
There is one sure way to tell someone who has never attended a Carolina-NC State game in Raleigh. They will be the people who want to complain about a Tar Heel victory in that environment.
So yes, the Tar Heels played some iffy possessions in the final two minutes. They fouled a three-point shooter. They let a 12-point lead almost disappear.
But here is what you know if you were one of the 19,500 at PNC Arena: Carolina won, 81-79. That's the complete story. There might be ugly wins at Clemson. Maybe some head-shaking victories in Tallahassee. In Raleigh, however, there is only one kind of win: a good win.
(Roy Williams is now 28-2 against the Wolfpack as a head coach.)
Before the game, Marcus Paige was walking back to the Carolina bench for the national anthem. He passed a fan behind the State bench holding a sign that read, “Marcus Who?”
“I actually saw that one,” said Paige, who hit the game-winner in overtime last season and scored 23 on Wednesday. “In this gym, you see stuff in warmups, you hear people, that's what makes it fun. This year, they weren't quite as creative. Last year was their best year in terms of signs. You just expect that when you come here.”
Paige has battled a well-documented case of plantar fasciitis but still managed to summon the energy to play 36 minutes and dive on two critical loose balls in addition to his 6-for-9 field goal shooting, 5-for-5 three-point shooting and 6-for-6 free throw shooting.
(Marcus Who, er, Paige, now has 58 points in his last two games in Raleigh, has made 12 of his 17 three-pointers in those games, and has 14 assists against just one turnover.)
Part of the reason the PNC crowd lost a little steam was because Carolina essentially controlled the game from the outset. J.P. Tokoto was terrific defensively on Trevor Lacey, visibly frustrating the Wolfpack sharpshooter on the way to a 4-for-13 shooting performance.
Lacey was so exasperated that at halftime he spent a couple minutes talking with official Tim Nestor, who then walked over to Tokoto.
“He told me to keep my hands off him,” Tokoto said with a wide grin. Why the smile? Because Nestor's mere mention of Lacey's complaints let the Tar Heel junior know he was having an impact.
“He was frustrated and had to make a lot of tough plays,” Tokoto said. “I got a lot of help from my teammates as well, it wasn't just me.”
(Tokoto did get some good relief defensively from Nate Britt, but Lacey made just two field goals when Tokoto was in the game.)
Lacey wasn't the only one who was frustrated. By midway through the second half, BeeJay Anya was shouting at his teammates, forcing teammate Kyle Washington to step in and calm things down.
That's exactly the friction you want to see on the road in the Atlantic Coast Conference, where any sort of momentum can fuel a hostile crowd. Carolina never really let that happen until the closing minute on Wednesday, and by then it was—just barely—too late.
(During the 1970s, the decade in the modern era typically pointed to when NC State had the most success against the Tar Heels thanks to the exploits of David Thompson and Tom Burleson, Carolina was 17-13 against the Wolfpack. The Tar Heels were 17-7 in the series in the 1980s, 15-7 in the 1990s, 16-5 in the 00s and 10-1 so far in the 10s.)
In those final frantic 31 seconds, the Tar Heels hit seven of eight free throws, including four from Paige, one from Tokoto, and perhaps the most clutch two of the night from Britt, who converted a pair with 3.1 seconds remaining and just a one-point lead.
The lefty-turned-righty-but-still-lefty-at-the-line has a knack for being exactly the shooter you want at the line in late and close situations. In his still-young UNC career, Britt has converted big free throws against NC State (on two separate occasions), Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Michigan State.
(Britt is now 37-40, 92.5%, from the free throw line against ACC opponents in his career.)
An hour after the game, maintenance crews were hard at work turning the PNC Arena floor back into a hockey rink for Friday night's Carolina Hurricanes-Vancouver Canucks game.
It was hard not to notice that the pregame prediction was exactly right: there was not a single student on the floor.
(Carolina is now 151-76 all-time against NC State.)
