Lucas: Flashback To 40 Years Ago

By Adam Lucas

Forty years later, most of the story about March 29, 1982, revolves around Michael Jordan.

But forty years ago this morning, virtually no one was thinking about the Tar Heel freshman from Wilmington. Instead, most of the storyline on the Carolina side focused on Dean Smith, who would be coaching in his seventh Final Four. His previous six trips had ended without a championship.

"I'm tired of people saying he gets to the finals and then chokes," Tar Heel point guard Jimmy Black said leading up to the Carolina-Georgetown national championship game. "I'm putting special emphasis on winning it for the coach."

Black, in fact, had convened a team meeting at Granville Towers after the ACC Tournament. The message: the Tar Heels were going to do this for Dean Smith.

Even Smith, who was completely incapable of talking about himself, acknowledged the chatter. "Since we are here at the Final Four, it would be fun to go away with it once," he said in New Orleans. "Then all you writers would stop talking about it all the time."

The title opponent, Georgetown, had a Carolina connection. Smith and Hoyas head coach John Thompson had developed a close friendship during the recruitment of Donald Washington. It wasn't unusual for them to call each other—remember, this was in the day when that meant ringing the house phone—in the middle of the night, both in season and out of season. Thompson's son, "Little John," attended Carolina's basketball camp (and later became a head coach himself).

Carolina's team hotel was in the heart of the French Quarter. But when a death threat was phoned in after the Big East tournament, Thompson elected for his team to stay in Biloxi, Mississippi, 90 miles away from the Superdome.

Always protective of his players, Thompson largely kept the media away from star freshman center Patrick Ewing. They did have access, however, to 25-year-old Ed Spriggs, who had spent three years working for the US Postal Service before college. Spriggs didn't seem too concerned about the travel logistics. "We just came here to do a job," Spriggs said with a shrug of the long bus trips.

The marquee matchup was not freshman Jordan against freshman Ewing, but Gastonia native James Worthy against fellow Gastonia native Sleepy Floyd. The duo had attended the same church and had known each other since the seventh grade.

Still, though, the primary Tar Heel character was Smith. As he made the long walk to the bench, the Georgetown portion of the Superdome crowd chanted, "Choke Dean choke."

Jordan went largely unnoticed. Smith had famously  declined to have him included on a preseason Sports Illustrated cover featuring the other four projected Tar Heel starters. In fact, Smith and Jordan never had a discussion about the rookie being a starter; "He just wrote my name on the board before the first game," Jordan recalled later in the season.

As usual, Smith had tried to keep the praise for his freshman somewhat muted. "Michael Jordan isn't Al Wood," Smith had said earlier in the season, referencing the senior who had scored 39 points in the national semifinal the previous season. "But he's a great freshman prospect. He has talent. He's a very quick learner. He's a bright student, which passes on to the court and a remarkable young man who has fit in extremely well."

The Worthy (28 points) and Floyd (18 points) battle unfolded largely as expected. But on one of the most star-studded NCAA championship courts ever, freshmen also played a huge role. Ewing was an intimidating defensive force who collected five goaltending calls. He finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds. Jordan almost had a double-double of his own, scoring 16 points to go with his nine rebounds.

Floyd gave Georgetown a 62-61 lead with under a minute to play. A Smith timeout with 25 seconds remaining led to one of the most famous Smith quotes of his career: "Knock it in, Michael," he told Jordan about the possibility that the ball might swing to him instead of going inside to Worthy.

That's exactly what happened. A very different version of Jordan—one almost star-struck by the moment—talked about his game-winning shot in the immediate aftermath of Carolina's 63-62 win. With most today's memories of the game colored by the 40 years of history that have happened since then, it's interesting to hear Jordan's immediate reaction.

"We have several last-second plays we've worked on in practice," Jordan said. "The one we used is designed to go to me. I almost took it earlier, but they were overplaying me. So I passed it to Jimmy (Black) and the zone shifted over there. When he came back to me, I was open. I just wanted to concentrate and make sure of my follow through. It felt good when it left my fingers. I knew it was going in."

"I can't believe it," Jordan continued. "Tomorrow morning, I still won't believe it."

Even the usually reserved Smith was willing to admit the win was special. "I thought it was really just another game," he said afterwards. "But now that you talk to me after, it's not. I'm very grateful to my players."

Everyone associated with the program was thrilled to leave New Orleans with Smith having finally answered the last remaining question about his credentials. Outside the Carolina locker room, James Jordan, Michael's father, was kicking an invisible object up and down the hallway. "I'm kicking the monkey!" he said. "Kicking Dean Smith's monkey."

Ervin Worthy, the father of James, understood. "We've got that monkey off our back," he said. "We've got the ring on our finger. How 'bout them Heels?"

A crowd of 25,000 would welcome the Tar Heels back to Kenan Stadium the next day. Smith did not attend the event. Instead, he went on a walk around his Chapel Hill neighborhood with his children, preferring to keep the focus at Kenan on his players.

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