Record: 34-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in final
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Eric Montross (1st), George Lynch (1st)
All-Americans: Eric Montross (2nd)
If you had to choose one team that best epitomized Dean Smith basketball, what team would you pick? It would be a team that emphasized senior leadership, unselfish play, getting the ball inside, getting to the free throw line more than the opposition, acknowledging the passer, and meticulous preparation. It would be a team that lacked a superstar but came together as a unit and exceeded expectations.
There are several candidates. The 1971 team was a team that Dean mentioned frequently and clearly loved. The 1991 team was a team that made the Final Four without a superstar player. But to me, the team that best embodied the essence of Dean Smith was the 1993 national championship team. The senior leadership of George Lynch; the inside strength of Lynch and Eric Montross; the defensive toughness of Lynch and Derrick Phelps; an unselfish team that finished 12th in Division I in assists per game; a team that had six different players lead the team in scoring over the course of the season; a team that averaged 86 points per game without any individual averaging as much as 16; a team that made 63 more free throws than their opponents attempted; a team where all the bench players dutifully stood and applauded and Bill Guthridge never, ever failed to pat a player on the rear when he came out of the game.
But let’s go back to 1992. It was essentially the same team, but with Hubert Davis at shooting guard instead of Donald Williams. They were having an excellent year, humming along at 18-3, when out of the blue, they became the first North Carolina team since 1965 to lose four games in a row, including an embarrassing home loss to a bad NC State team that had lost nine straight coming into that game.
To their credit, the Tar Heels righted the ship somewhat, reaching the ACC Tournament final and playing respectably in the NCAA, but it still felt like a collapse and left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
With the same team coming back in 1993 except switching out Davis for Williams, Dean Smith could have panicked. A lot of coaches would have made change for the sake of change: personnel changes, transfers, benchings, staff changes, whatever. But you know Dean Smith wasn’t going to do that. He obviously believed in this group in spite of their shaky finish in 1992.
Well, it worked. The ’93 team was better in every way. Individually, everyone took a step forward. Montross was better, Lynch was better, Reese was better, Phelps was better. As a team, the Tar Heels were much better defensively. They rebounded better. They got more steals and forced more turnovers. In retrospect, the 1992 team was just young and ran into a tough spot in their schedule. They needed another year.
The Tar Heels did not play, for them, a particularly challenging non-conference schedule. The only marquee game was a December game against the Fab Five of Michigan in Maui. The Tar Heels lost that one 79-78. They were 10-1 going into ACC play.
The ACC was brutal that year. Six of the nine teams were ranked at some point during the season. All six of those teams made the NCAA Tournament, and four of them made the Sweet 16. You had Florida State with Cassell, Edwards, Sura, and Charlie Ward. Duke still had Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Wake Forest had Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress. Virginia was a Sweet 16 team with Cory Alexander and Junior Burrough. And Georgia Tech won the ACC Tournament behind James Forrest, Travis Best, and Malcolm Mackey. Going 14-2 against that ACC is a heck of an accomplishment.
The two losses came back-to-back on road trips to Wake and Duke. After that, the Tar Heels won their last nine regular season ACC games, with no game closer than 10 points.
Behind a stellar performance from Everett Case Award winner James Forrest, Georgia Tech upset the Tar Heels 77-75 in the ACC Tournament final. But it did little to dampen the spirits of Tar Heel fans as they were awarded the top seed in the East region.
After two easy games in Winston-Salem, things got tougher. In the Sweet 16, Carolina faced an Arkansas team with the same core group that would win the national title the next year. It was a tight game all the way. The Tar Heels were nursing a one-point lead with a minute to go when Williams got a back door layup to push it to three. Then Lynch made a tremendous defensive play to force an up-and-down turnover, the Razorbacks had to start fouling, and that was that.
Things didn’t get any easier in the regional final against seventh-ranked Cincinnati, coached by Bob Huggins and led by Nick Van Exel. Cincinnati took a 15-point lead in the first half, only to see it erased by a furious North Carolina run that closed the margin to one at half. The second half was tense and physical with several ties and lead changes. With the score tied at 66, the Tar Heels had two golden opportunities to win it in regulation. George Lynch’s turnaround with a few seconds left wouldn’t stay down. After the ball went out of bounds off Cincinnati with 0.8 seconds left, Dean Smith drew up a perfect play and actually got a wide open dunk for Brian Reese just as time expired – which Reese missed. In overtime, with the score tied at 68, Williams hit consecutive threes and that was all the Tar Heels needed.
In the national semifinal, Roy Williams and Kansas were waiting for the second time in the past three years. The Jayhawks were coming off an upset of #1 Indiana in the regionals – Bob Knight’s last great Indiana team. It was one of those games where Carolina was always ahead, but never comfortably. The Jayhawks cut it to three inside three minutes, but Williams hit yet another huge three to push the lead to six, and that was all the Tar Heels needed.
I can’t tell you anything about the final against Michigan that you don’t already know. It was great game between two evenly matched teams, and you know what happened at the end.
I sometimes wonder how Dean Smith’s legacy would have been different if he had lost that game. As great as he was, with “only” one national championship, would he still be regarded as one of the top five coaches of all time? Wooden, Rupp, Krzyzewski, Knight, Williams, and Calhoun each have at least 3 titles. I think without that second title, Smith would be considered seventh, behind that group. With it, he’s right in there. I’ve never been sure how to compare Wooden to the others. Obviously what he accomplished from 1964 to 1975 is unparalleled and probably unattainable. On the other hand, in the 17 years prior to 1964, he didn’t do that much, and he retired younger than the others. By contrast, Smith, K, and Williams had sustained success over longer periods of time. They were able to adapt to so many changes in the game and still be successful.