University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Decades In The Making
February 26, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
With just a week left in the Atlantic Coast Conference regular season, Carolina travels to Charlottesville tomorrow for what appears to be the conference's game of the year. With the Tar Heels and Cavaliers both in the nation's top ten, it's a game that will be featured on ESPN College Gameday, will be pivotal in determining the league's regular season champion, and also has major implications for a plum top seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Those are all attributes the Tar Heels are accustomed to seeing assigned to the traditional regular season finale with Duke, not a one-week-earlier trip to John Paul Jones Arena. But there was a relatively brief period in Carolina basketball history when the games with the Wahoos were the highlight of the season calendar.
Going into tomorrow, the Tar Heels and Cavs have met seven times in history when both occupied spots in the AP top ten. Five of those seven happened in a 23-month stretch from March of 1981 through February of 1983, a span that correlates fairly closely to what many would consider the glory days of the league.
The UNC roster for those meetings was stacked, including Al Wood (who poured in 39 points in the first meeting of the quintet, a Final Four showdown in 1981), Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins. The Virginia lineup, in contrast, was defined by one very imposing presence: Ralph Sampson. Both schools—along with virtually every program in the country—had recruited the 7-foot-4 center. He picked Virginia, in the process setting up the best college basketball rivalry of the early 1980s. This was UNC-Duke before there was the UNC-Duke we know today, always carrying regional and national ramifications, and with signature plays in every iteration.
“The rivalry with Virginia then was kind of like what it is with Duke now,” Michael Jordan said in the book A Carolina Century, the official chronicle of the first 100 years of Tar Heel basketball. “There was some distance between us geographically, and Duke wasn't well-liked even then. But Virginia was such a powerhouse in the ACC. Ralph Sampson was dominant, and that's where the rivalry initiated.”
Sampson introduced himself to the Tar Heels by scoring 21 points at University Hall in 1980. Unlike many teams, the Tar Heels didn't assign two men to Sampson, although defenders were supposed to have an awareness of being in front and behind him. Instead, Smith wanted to limit the impact of Sampson's supporting cast. Carolina held the star to 12 points in the rematch later that season at Carmichael. He notched a double-double in the first meeting in 1981, then poured in 32 points with 13 rebounds in a one-point Virginia overtime win in Chapel Hill later that season.
Carolina extracted revenge in the 1981 Final Four (Dean Smith's club was ranked sixth; Virginia was fifth) with a 78-65 victory. That game served as the preliminary to a terrific stretch of games in 1982 and 1983, with four of the five meetings decided by six points or less. Overall, Carolina finished 6-4 against Sampson, and four of the five meetings when both teams were in the national top-ten.
“They were one of the few teams as talented as we were,” said Jim Braddock. “People forget that they had a great core around Sampson. Both teams were so balanced, and those games were a lot of fun to play in. We didn't prepare any differently for Virginia, but you could feel it on campus. I'm not going to lie, those games were special.”
“The students would line up outside all the way down the street in front of Carmichael,” said Buzz Peterson. “And we were just as excited. My freshman year, Ralph was outside the lane. He caught the ball, pump-faked James (Worthy), and then leaned over and dunked it. I was like, 'Wow.'”
The most memorable meeting came on Feb. 10, 1983, when the third-ranked Cavaliers built a 16-point lead in the second half. With 4:12 remaining, Virginia still held a 63-53 lead and had achieved the impossible: they'd silenced Carmichael Auditorium. But spurred by a Braddock three-pointer, the Tar Heel comeback began. Matt Doherty and Sam Perkins each nailed a pair of free throws for the nation's top-ranked team. Jordan scored on an offensive rebound and then made one of the signature plays of his Carolina career.
As Cavalier guard Rick Carlisle brought the ball up the court, Jordan let Carlisle go by him. As Carlisle approached the midcourt stripe, he appeared to almost forget about Jordan. As he continued to dribble, Jordan swiped the ball off Carlisle's foot, scooped it up, and then soared in for a one-handed dunk that gave Carolina a one-point lead and the eventual margin of victory.
It was a perfect ending to a classic matchup. Well, almost perfect.
“Coach Smith didn't think I was going to make that dunk,” Jordan said. “He never wanted to show up the opponent, and he wasn't a big fan of some of the creative dunks. At the time, with that kind of spectacular play, he thought it was showing up the other team.”
Almost by the time Jordan returned to earth after the slam (a photo of the dunk hangs in the Tar Heel players' lounge), the rivalry with Virginia had dissipated. Smith's team After meeting nine times as ranked teams during the Sampson era, the Tar Heels and Cavaliers have met just 12 times as ranked teams in the 32 years since he graduated, and only once when both were in the top-ten (second-ranked Virginia won an 86-66 rout over a slumping and ninth-ranked Carolina team in 2001).
This year's meeting will be a little different. In the previous ACC era, the losing team was assured a rematch. This is a one-time game, which means the winner gets bragging rights, but also the tiebreaker advantage for the ACC Tournament in Washington, D.C., and a major chip in NCAA selection jockeying.
This time, where will be no do-over…unless it comes in Washington, D.C., or perhaps—given that the teams do have a Final Four history—even later in March or April.
