University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Tar Heels, Cards Have History
January 9, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
For most of his Tar Heel career, Ademola Okulaja was known as the third component of the very successful Vince Carter-Antawn Jamison-Okulaja triumvirate. The trio entered together as freshmen before the 1995-96 campaign, and went to back-to-back Final Fours in 1997 and 1998 (our apologies for the memory of the Utah game) while also winning back-to-back Atlantic Coast Conference titles.
Jamison and Carter received most of the accolades. Jamison was the consensus National Player of the Year in 1998 and remains Carolina's eighth all-time leading scorer; his jersey is retired. Carter's jersey is honored in the Smith Center rafters, as he was a first-team All-America pick in 1998.
But the duo departed after their junior seasons, leaving Okulaja and point guard Ed Cota as the centerpieces of the 1998-99 club. Under the direction of Bill Guthridge, the Tar Heels won 10 of their first 11 games, including a Preseason NIT championship that featured wins over Purdue and Stanford.
That set up a Dec. 17, 1998, matchup with Louisville, the only time in history—until tomorrow—that the Cardinals have visited Chapel Hill. The two programs actually have a reasonably sizable history for two schools that have never been in the same conference, as they've had a dozen previous meetings, with Carolina winning nine. But four of those have come in NCAA Tournament play and four came in pre-conference season tournaments, including last year when the Tar Heels defeated the third-ranked Cardinals, 93-84.
In fact, Louisville has only ever beaten Carolina once away from home—a 94-79 win for the eventual national champions in Seattle in the 1986 NCAA Tournament.
Denny Crum coached that 1986 Louisville team, just as he did the 1997 Cardinals squad that provided Dean Smith with his last career victory (a 97-74 win in the NCAA Tournament) and the 1998 team that visited the Smith Center.
In that game, Carolina limited Louisville—which entered the game shooting a robust 56 percent from the field, the top mark in the country—to just three for their first 22 field goal attempts, allowing the Tar Heels to build a 23-9 lead.
The missed shots prevented the Cards from setting up their trademark pressure. “We shot the ball so poorly,” Crum said after the game. “Our shot selection in the first half in particular was poor. Consequently, we didn't get enough pressing opportunities to take advantage of our quickness.”
Carolina, meanwhile, was getting a career best performance from both Okulaja, who finished with 23 points and 15 rebounds, and Max Owens. After Okulaja helped stake the Tar Heels to the early lead, Owens helped close out the victory by spurring a 12-2 UNC run in the game's closing minutes that broke a 51-51 tie.
“I was just waiting for him to bust out and show everybody that he can play,” Okulaja said of Owens, a sophomore. “He's finally adjusting to the system and playing. I hope it's not a one-time affair, but he will do that on a constant basis.”
There was still a little bit of drama, however. Carolina struggled from the free throw line, missing eight of 10 charity tosses during one stretch, on the way to a 37-for-54 performance from the stripe. But trailing just 74-72 with seconds remaining, Louisville couldn't secure a potential offensive rebound and Owens hit a clutch free throw to ice the win.
Okulaja would go on to earn first-team All-ACC status after averaging 13.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game as a senior.
Carolina finished third (10-6) in the ACC, lost the ACC Tournament title game to Duke, and then was eliminated by Harold Arceneaux and Weber State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
