Tag: ACC

Record: 32-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: JJ Redick (ACC POY), Shelden Williams (1st)
All-Americans: JJ Redick (National POY), Shelden Williams (1st)

This is a really interesting team. JJ Redick and Shelden Williams were obviously the cornerstones, but on paper, they had a strong and deep supporting cast. DeMarcus Nelson returned for his sophomore season after making the ACC All-Freshman team the year before. Seniors Sean Dockery and Lee Melchionni provided depth and experience. And the recruiting class was second to none, with five Top 60 recruits, including four McDonald’s All-Americans. This team was loaded.

And they played like it, starting 17-0 and blowing out several ranked teams, including #2 Texas. After a slip-up against Georgetown, they won ten more to run their record to 27-1. But the Blue Devils dropped their last two regular season games against Florida State and North Carolina. In the game against the Tar Heels, Redick had an uncharacteristically poor shooting performance, going 5-21 from the field, and maybe that was a hint to the rest of the country on how Duke could be beaten. Just stop JJ Redick, easy right?

The ACC Tournament consisted of three tight games against Miami, Wake Forest, and an outstanding Boston College team. The Blue Devils survived all three to win their seventh ACC championship in eight years. Redick was named the Everett Case Award winner and the ACC Player of the Year for the second time.

Duke went into the NCAA Tournament hoping to erase the memory of the previous season when the top-seeded Blue Devils were upset by Michigan State in the Sweet 16. But this year’s Sweet 16 was deja vu all over again, only this time it was LSU and Glen “Big Baby” Davis who played spoiler. Tiger defensive specialist Garrett Temple (who, at the time of this writing, is the 6th-oldest active player in the NBA) frustrated Redick all night. The Blue Devils shot 28% on the way to their lowest point total of the year, and their season, and Redick’s career, ended in disappointment.

What went wrong, in retrospect? Why did a team with two first team All-Americans fail to get out of the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row? Well, when you look at it honestly, this team had some weaknesses. It’s a testament to how exceptional Redick and Williams were that they had such an incredible year. Here are the challenges they had:

1. The supporting cast underperformed. Nelson was hobbled by an ankle injury all year and was a non-factor in the NCAA Tournament. The five freshmen collectively were underwhelming. Josh McRoberts was a good player, but not as good as many fans expected from the top high school recruit in the country. He turned pro after two years without really leaving a mark on the program. Greg Paulus had some good moments in his career, but his playing time went down every year and he is best remembered for getting dunked on by Danny Green. Martynas Pocius, Eric Boateng, and Jamal Boykin never became contributors at Duke.
2. They were thin on the interior. This was one of the worst rebounding teams in the country. According to kenpom, they ranked 283rd in offensive rebounding percentage and 311th in defensive rebounding percentage among Division I teams. Which is ironic considering Shelden Williams is seventh in career rebounds in ACC history. But the only size they had besides Shelden was McRoberts, and he wasn’t a banger. If Shelden didn’t get it, nobody got it.
3. They were highly dependent on JJ Redick. When he was in the game, Redick took 35% of the Blue Devils’ shots, a huge percentage. And most of the time, that wasn’t a bug, it was a feature. When the guy who takes 35% of your shots has a True Shooting Percentage of 63%, like Redick did for the season, you’re going to have a great offense. On the other hand, when the guy who takes 35% of your shots goes 3-for-18, like Redick did against LSU, you’re in trouble. Of course, it worked for them all year, and it could have worked in the tourney as well. Which brings us to #4…
4. They picked a bad day to have a bad day against LSU. Redick showed he was human. LSU defended him really well. It happens.

But enough about their flaws. They went 32-4, they were ranked #1 for most of the year, and they won the ACC Championship. This was a great team, a Top 50 team.

This 2006 season marks a logical bookend to the most impressive 10-ish year run in the history of college basketball since Wooden-era UCLA. That would be the Duke teams of 1998-2006. It’s not like Duke fell off a cliff after 2006, but the level dipped just a bit. How could it not? During the nine-year stretch from 1998-2006, here’s what they did:

• 280-42 overall record, .869 winning percentage, average record 31-5
• 121-23 ACC record, .840 winning percentage, average record 13.4-2.6
• Eight of nine teams ranked #1 at some point during the season, the other ranked #2
• Eight #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, the other was a #3
• Six ACC regular season titles
• Seven ACC Tournament titles
• Five teams finished ranked #1 in the AP poll; no team finished ranked lower than #7
• 65-25 record against ranked teams

The only thing that comes close is UNC 1981-1988. But Duke’s is better.

1982 Virginia
Record: 30-4, 12-2 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Lost in final
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Ralph Sampson (ACC POY), Othell Wilson (1st)
All-Americans: Ralph Sampson (National POY)

1981 Virginia
Record: 29-4, 13-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Final Four
Final AP Ranking: 5
All-ACC Players: Ralph Sampson (ACC POY), Jeff Lamp (1st)
All-Americans: Ralph Sampson (1st, Naismith Award), Jeff Lamp (2nd)

Virginia from 1981 to 1983 had three teams that are very difficult to differentiate. The records were 29-4, 30-4, and 29-5; the AP rankings were 5th, 3rd, and 4th; and all three teams were built around the same player. I’m tempted to combine them and rank them as if they were one team. But, I’m not doing that for any other teams, so I guess I can’t do it here. And, if you look closely enough, while it does require some hair-splitting, I think some distinctions can be drawn.

The 1981 team had Jeff Lamp. Lamp was a great player in his own right and was actually the leading scorer ahead of Sampson on that team. The other double-figure scorer was senior Lee Raker.

The 1982 team lost Lamp and Raker. Their playing time was picked up by freshmen Tim Mullen and Jim Miller and sophomore Ricky Stokes. Their scoring became more balanced, but their style of play overall was similar to 1981.

The 1983 team swapped out departing senior Jeff Jones for transfer Rick Carlisle. Carlisle was a better shooter than Jones, but a lesser defender, at least from the numbers. This team played at a faster pace, scored and allowed more points, turned the ball over more, and didn’t get as many steals.

Here is where I come down on ranking them. I think the 1981 and 1982 teams are virtually indistinguishable, and 1983 is just a touch below. Here is my reasoning.

The 1981 team had just one bad loss, in the ACC Tournament, but they made up for it by getting to the Final Four. I also give them a few extra points because they had a second scorer in Jeff Lamp which the 1982 and 1983 teams lacked.

The 1982 team, there is really nothing to criticize until the NCAA Tournament. Prior to that, they lost two close games to Carolina and a one-point game at Maryland. Nothing to be ashamed of there. But then they went and lost a Sweet 16 game to UAB. I’m not going to completely excuse that, but I want to point out a couple of very important mitigating circumstances, 1) Othell Wilson was hurt; and 2) the game was in Birmingham. That’s right, #1 seed Virginia had to play a Sweet 16 game against UAB in Birmingham. That shouldn’t have happened. It’s absolutely unfair. And they had to play the game without their first-team All-ACC guard. You have to cut them some slack for that. They should have won anyway; they missed free throws, for one thing, and they turned the ball over 18 times.

The 1983 team though. Twice they were on the verge of something great, and twice they couldn’t beat NC State. Now let’s give the Wolfpack some credit; we call them a Cinderella team, but the truth is they were really good when Whittenburg was healthy. But I can’t put a team in the Top 50 that lost to Chaminade and then NC State twice when everything was on the line.

The narrative around Sampson (and by extension these Virginia teams) tends to focus on what he didn’t accomplish rather than what he did, and that’s unfair. The thing is, Virginia had every chance to change the narrative. All they had to do was beat NC State, and they got two chances to do it. I think if they had won either of those games, it would have transformed the way this team is viewed. The narrative would be about a great team that finally got over the hump after years of frustration.

Record: 26-6, 12-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Final Four
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Larry Miller (ACC POY), Bob Lewis (1st)
All-Americans: Larry Miller (2nd)

1967 was one of those great turning points in ACC history. The previous four years had been dominated by Vic Bubas’ Duke teams. The Blue Devils won the regular season outright all four years (a feat equaled only by 1997-2000 Duke), won the Tournament in three of those years, and reached the Final Four three times.

Dean Smith was entering his sixth season at North Carolina. His teams had been moderately successful, compiling a 41-29 ACC record, but he had yet to achieve anything notable. He hadn’t won the regular season or the Tournament, or even reached the final. But with ACC leading scorer Bob Lewis and budding superstar Larry Miller returning, expectations were higher coming into the 1967 season. The Tar Heels were ranked 9th in the preseason AP poll – still behind Duke, which was ranked 4th. The Blue Devils had lost senior standouts Jack Marin and Steve Vacendak, but there was still plenty of talent with sharpshooter Bob Verga and junior big man Mike Lewis.

The Tar Heels put everyone on notice with an early season win at Kentucky. In early January, they suffered their first loss of the season against a Princeton team that would eventually go 23-2 in the regular season. Five days later, they traveled to Cameron Indoor to face the Blue Devils. Two seasons before, the Tar Heels had snapped Duke’s 29-game home ACC winning streak, but overall, Dean Smith was 2-10 against the Blue Devils. Carolina gritted out a 59-56 victory. They would go on to beat the Blue Devils two more times on their way to Dean Smith’s first ACC championship. It was truly a changing of the guard; the Tar Heels were to be the preeminent ACC program for many years to come, while 1967 marked the beginning of a period of decline for Duke that would see them vanish from the national scene for a decade or so.

Obviously Miller and Lewis were great players, but what really put this team over the top in 1967 was the impact of sophomores Rusty Clark, Bill Bunting, and Dick Grubar. Somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of Lewis, Miller, and later Charlie Scott, this trio won three regular season titles, three ACC Tournaments, and went to three Final Fours in their three years on varsity. Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good career.

In the regional semifinal, Carolina found themselves facing the same Princeton team that had defeated them in January. This time, the Tar Heels survived an overtime thriller to advance to the regional final, where they had a more comfortable victory over Boston College behind 31 points from Lewis. In the national semifinal against Dayton, the Tar Heels could not stop the Flyers’ Don May, who scored 34 points and pulled down 15 rebounds. That loss spared them from having to face the most dominant team in the history of college basketball – 1967 UCLA.

No one could have anticipated what Dean Smith and his program would accomplish over the next 30 years. But it all started in 1967.

What was this team good at? It looks like they were pretty good at everything. They led the league in FG% at 47.2% and were second to South Carolina in opponents FG% allowed at 41.7%. That 5.5% disparity in FG% explains a little over 7 points of their 11 point average scoring margin. The other 4 points is explained by also getting more shots than their opponents, which means rebounding and turnovers. They were a good if not great rebounding team, and while the statistical record doesn’t allow us to make definitive statements about their turnover margin, it seems likely that it was a combination of turnovers and rebounding that allowed them to get more shots than their opponents.

Miller was highly efficient from the floor at a high volume, taking roughly 25% of the Tar Heels’ shots. His mediocre free throw shooting detracted a bit from overall efficiency, but he was still a terrific offensive player. Lewis was a little less efficient than Miller but still good, not as accurate from the floor but much better from the line. Clark and Grubar were highly efficient as well. All five starters except for Bunting had a True Shooting Percentage over 50%.

Record: 29-5, 15-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Sweet 16
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Chris Carrawell (ACC POY), Shane Battier (1st), Jason Williams (3rd)
All-Americans: Chris Carrawell (1st), Shane Battier (2nd)

This team was smack dab in the middle of the five-year run of great Duke teams from 1998-2002. While it’s all relative, of course, I think this team was the worst of the five. But when you look at the circumstances, it’s still really impressive what they accomplished. The top four scorers from the juggernaut 1999 team – Elton Brand, William Avery, Corey Maggette, and Trajan Langdon – were gone. Over 65% of the minutes from the 1999 team were gone. As a result, the Blue Devils were ranked “only” tenth in the preseason poll. After losing their first two games to Stanford and UConn, they fell to 18th and alarm bells were sounded.

Then they proceeded to win 18 in a row. Alarm cancelled, I guess… the only other losses were at home to Maryland and at St. John’s. The Blue Devils closed the regular season at 24-4, 15-1. They won the ACC regular season by a record margin of four full games over second place Maryland.

The tournament was more of the same. The closest game was the nine-point semifinal win over Wake Forest. The whole event seemed like an exercise in postponing the inevitable. Jason Williams became the fourth freshman overall and the first non-UNC freshman to win the Everett Case Award (Phil Ford 1975, Sam Perkins 1981, Jerry Stackhouse 1994).

So this team that had lost so many key players and stumbled out of the gate found themselves ranked number one in the country going into the NCAA Tournament. How did they do it? Well, in short, the returning players – Shane Battier, Chris Carrawell, and Nate James – stepped up, and the freshmen – Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy – were as good as advertised. Carrawell, in particular, took a major leap forward. I’m not sure he deserved to be first-team All-American, but he had a great year.

They got a little bit unlucky in the NCAA Tournament, running into a seriously underseeded Florida team in the Sweet 16. This was the Mike Miller – Udonis Haslem group that advanced to the national championship game. Boozer got into foul trouble and played only 21 minutes, and the Blue Devils shot an uncharacteristically poor 3-19 from three-point range. Florida got great contributions from their bench – unlike Duke, they went ten deep – and the Gators advanced.

As good as this team was, it had some real weaknesses, or at least vulnerabilities. It wasn’t a deep team. They basically played six and went deeper only if they ran into foul trouble. They were a good but not great defensive team, and in particular their defensive rebounding was terrible. The problem was that their real big guys – Casey Sanders, Nick Horvath, and Matt Christensen – weren’t very good. As a result, Boozer played as an undersized center, and they just were not a big team overall. Whatever weaknesses they may have had, they made up for it by being the best offensive team in the country, overwhelming defenses with their ability to put points on the scoreboard.

I also have to ding this team a little bit for playing in what was a relatively weak ACC. I think there is a good argument that 1999-2000 was the weakest year for the ACC in the forty-year window from the early 1970s until the early 2010s. The only other ranked team was Maryland. North Carolina, in their last year under Bill Guthridge, made an unexpected run to the Final Four, but they really weren’t very good. 15-1 is 15-1, but it has to be seen in the context of that year’s ACC.

Record: 32-6, 14-4 (3rd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Elite 8
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Zion Williamson (ACC POY), R.J. Barrett (1st)
All-Americans: Zion Williamson (National POY), R.J. Barrett (1st)

A completely unique and memorable team in the history of college basketball. After everybody bailed from the 2018 team, Coach K had to start pretty much from scratch, and boy, did he. He hauled in one of the great recruiting classes of all time, with Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, Cam Reddish, and Tre Jones, and those four were the core of the team. Probably the least experienced team in college basketball history.

But you’re never quite sure what to expect from a bunch of freshmen until they take the floor, right? Well, they answered that emphatically by absolutely obliterating #2 Kentucky 118-84 in the season opener behind 33 from Barrett, 28 from Zion, 22 from Reddish, and 7 assists and zero turnovers from Jones. So much for freshman jitters?

The baby Blue Devils blazed to a 23-2 start and a #1 ranking heading into a mid-February matchup with eighth-ranked Carolina. Of course you will remember that Zion hurt his knee in the first minute. The Blue Devils lost that game and two more out of the next five without him, culminating with another loss to the Tar Heels in the regular season finale.

But Zion returned for the ACC Tournament and announced it by going 13-for-13 from the floor in an 84-72 drubbing of Syracuse. Duke then got revenge on the Tar Heels, eking out a one-point win with the winning margin coming on a tip-in by (who else?) Zion. In the final, Florida State forestalled the inevitable for a while, but the four freshmen were too much, and Mike Krzyzewski had his umpteenth ACC championship.

In the NCAA Tournament, the Blue Devils survived a couple of tight games to advance to a marquee regional final against a Michigan State team that maybe should have been a #1 seed over Carolina? Duke fans will remember that, down two, Barrett had two free throws to tie it with 4.7 seconds left. He made one of two. Then, in an interesting problem, Duke had only three team fouls in the second half, so they were unable to send the Spartans to the line. For once, Tom Izzo got the best of Coach K, and the Blue Devils were on the short end of a 68-67 thriller.

Such a fascinating team. They had no bench. They couldn’t get a defensive rebound. They were an absolutely terrible three-point shooting team, one of the worst in the nation. They were not a good free-throw shooting team either. And yet, in spite of all that, they were so dominant on the interior that they still had the seventh-most efficient offense and sixth-most efficient defense nationally according to kenpom. They shot 58% from two as a team and dominated the offensive glass. They beat eventual national champion Virginia twice in the regular season. This could have been a national championship team with a couple of different bounces.

Record: 27-7, 8-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 7
All-ACC Players: Jim Spanarkel (1st), Mike Gminski (1st), Gene Banks (2nd)
All-Americans: None

Let’s say you were to take a poll among ACC experts of the most memorable, compelling, dramatic, unexpected postseason runs by ACC teams. 1983 NC State is clearly at the top of that list, but who would finish second? My money would be on 1978 Duke.

It’s hard to imagine now, but coming into the 1978 season, Duke was just another program. They hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since Vic Bubas’ last Final Four team in 1966. The year before, they finished 2-10 in the ACC. They just weren’t on anybody’s radar coming into the season.

The first big sign that this team was different was a mid-January win over second-ranked Carolina. As the rest of the ACC schedule unfolded, it became clear that this was a very good Duke team, certainly the best since the Bubas era. They went undefeated at home. But there were some ugly losses along the way as well. The Blue Devils finished the regular season at 20-6, 8-4 and ranked 15th in the country. Up until the tournament, they were simply a good team having a good year.

The ACC Tournament broke right for them. #1 seed Carolina and #3 seed NC State lost early, so as it happened, Duke faced the three bottom-seeded teams on their way to the title, beating Wake Forest in the championship game.

That got the Blue Devils up to a number eight national ranking going into the NCAA Tournament. This was the last year of the 32-team tournament, and the last year before the seeding system went into effect. Prior to the seeding system, teams went into predetermined slots in the bracket based on conference finish. To be honest, the Blue Devils were placed into a very weak East region. The main threats were Ivy League champion Penn and Big 10 runner-up Indiana. Duke survived two tense games against Rhode Island and Penn, then dominated Villanova to reach the Final Four.

Suddenly the Blue Devils were starting to look like a team of destiny. In the national semifinal, they faced a Notre Dame team that had been ranked in the Top 10 all season and featured future NBA standouts Kelly Tripucka and Bill Laimbeer. That game was what really cemented the reputation of this team. The big three combined for 71 points on 25-for-43 from the field and 21-for-23 from the line, Gminski and Banks dominated the paint, and the Blue Devils withstood a furious second-half comeback to escape with a four-point win to advance to the national championship game. Unfortunately the fairy tale ended there. Kentucky’s Goose Givens went off, scoring 41 points, and it was too much for Duke to overcome.

Where do they rank among the great teams in ACC history? This team has received a tremendous amount of attention over the years. Part of that is due to John Feinstein’s book Forever’s Team. Part of it may be due to the fact that Spanarkel and Gminski have remained prominent and public figures in college basketball. And part of it, let’s be honest, is the fact that it’s Duke. Because I’ve heard so much about this team over the years, I started out thinking they would be possibly Top 25.

Well, they aren’t. The more I look at this team, the more I think the attention they have received over the years is somewhat out of proportion with their actual accomplishments. Is that unfair? I mean, they did win the ACC Tournament and advance to the national final. But take a step back and look at the actual record. Based on regular season alone, this team would not be one of the 100 best teams in ACC history. They went 8-4 in the ACC and they were ranked 15th in the country going into the ACC Tournament. A good year, to be sure, but hardly special or memorable by ACC standards.

What happened next is they took advantage of an unusually weak set of opponents over the next three weeks. The only good team they beat on their way to the national championship game was #6 Notre Dame.

I know you can only play who’s on the schedule, and I know that just because you’re favored doesn’t mean these games are easy to win, and I know they played an incredible game against Notre Dame to get to the final. I’m just saying, that run isn’t quite as special as I once thought. Contrasted to other teams that made similar runs – 1981 North Carolina, or 2016 North Carolina, or even 2004 Georgia Tech, for Pete’s sake – this team had an easier time of it.

Record: 28-7, 9-5 (3rd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national semfinal
Final AP Ranking: 5
All-ACC Players: Danny Ferry (ACC POY)
All-Americans: Danny Ferry (2nd)

Duke, as everyone knows, went to five consecutive Final Fours in the late 80s / early 90s, culminating with the national championship teams of 1991 and 1992. That run started with this team.

Looking back at those teams, they weren’t as dominant as I remembered. Apart from the 1992 team, none of them was a favorite to reach the Final Four. None was a #1 seed. They were ranked 5th, 9th, 15th, and 6th respectively in the final AP polls.

In light of that, it makes their run that much more impressive. This 1988 team was a good example. They were very good, ranked in the Top 10 all season, but they lost three straight tough road games in late February and wound up third in the ACC standings behind Carolina and NC State. As it happened, those were the very teams that Duke had to face to win the ACC Tournament. The semifinal against NC State, who had swept the regular season matchups, was a nail-biter that came down to some missed free throws in the last few minutes by the Wolfpack and a lob into Charles Shackleford that was mishandled on the last possession.

In the final, the tables were turned in the sense that Duke had swept the Tar Heels in the regular season. The predictable narrative was how hard it is to beat a good team three times (is there any evidence for that, by the way?). It was an ugly, defensive kind of game, as tournament championship games often are, but the Blue Devils held on.

The pivotal moment in the NCAA Tournament was the regional final against Temple. The Owls came into the game with a 32-1 record, ranked #1 in the country, and winners of 18 straight. The Atlantic 10 at the time was what we would think of as a mid-major league. Temple hadn’t played a lot of top teams, but when they had, they fared well: a one-point loss at UNLV, a 12-point win over Villanova, and most impressive of all, a 17-point blowout of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Both teams shot poorly in the first half. Duke trailed 31-25 early in the second half, but over the next 12 minutes or so, Temple went on one of the worst scoring droughts you ever saw. Danny Ferry, Kevin Strickland, and Quin Snyder got it going offensively. By the six-minute mark, the Blue Devils led 50-35, and the game was effectively over. Duke dominated the game defensively, harrying All-American freshman Mark Macon into a dismal 6-29 shooting performance.

In the national semifinal, they ran out of steam. They didn’t shoot well, and they had no answer for Danny Manning, who was on his way to one of the all-time great NCAA Tournament performances.

This wasn’t one of those Duke teams like 1999-2002 or 2019 that had a superabundance of talent all over the floor. Yes, Ferry is an all-time great, and Strickland was a good player who probably should have been second-team All-ACC over Jeff Lebo. Beyond that, Robert Brickey was the only other double-figure scorer, and that just barely. But they had quality supporting players in Snyder, John Smith, Phil Henderson, Alaa Abdelnaby, Greg Koubek, and defensive wizard Billy King. And a pretty good coach.

Record: 29-8, 10-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national championship
Final AP Ranking: 6
All-ACC Players: Al Wood (1st), James Worthy (2nd)
All-Americans: Al Wood (2nd)

Trivia Question: who are the only coaches to lose more than two NCAA championship games?

Trivia Answer: Mike Krzyzewski, 4; Dean Smith, 3; Roy Williams, 3

Is this one of the 50 greatest ACC teams? They didn’t look like it in the regular season. They won the Great Alaska Shootout and had a huge early season win over Indiana but also lost to Wake Forest in the Big Four Tournament and lost consecutive non-conference games to Minnesota and Kansas just before ACC play started. They swept a very good Maryland team but lost twice to Virginia, dropped another game to Wake Forest, and lost to Duke on Gene Banks‘ Senior Day in overtime. It added up to a 22-7 record and a #12 ranking going into the ACC Tournament. That’s when magic started happening.

After an easy opening round win over NC State, the Tar Heels faced #11 Wake Forest for the fourth time in the semifinals. With 40 seconds left, the Tar Heels had the ball down by one. The ball was deflected into the backcourt and a scramble ensued in which Jimmy Black did everything but put a full nelson on Mike Helms as they battled for it. No foul was called, the Tar Heels recovered the loose ball, and they were able to get an open look for Mike Pepper who hit the game-winner. That set up another one-point win in the final over Maryland, who had blown out top seed Virginia in their semifinal. With the game tied at 54, Maryland turned it over on three straight possessions and the Tar Heels were able to take advantage and grab a lead that they would not relinquish, though the game was not decided the final seconds.

The Tar Heels were sent out West as the #2 seed. It turned out to be a favorable draw as #1 seed Oregon State lost right away. After the Tar Heels survived a tough Sweet 16 game against a Utah team featuring future NBA players Tom Chambers and Danny Vranes – in Salt Lake City no less – they had no trouble with Rolando Blackman and Kansas State in the regional final.

That set up a showdown with a Virginia team that had started 22-0, lost 3 of 5, then seemingly righted the ship with three easy wins to get to the Final Four. The Cavaliers had swept the regular season matchups, but they say it’s hard to beat a good team three times. Al Wood must have thought so. He exploded for 39 points – still the record for a national semifinal – and led the Tar Heels to 13-point win. A national title was not to be – Bob Knight, Isiah Thomas, and Indiana made sure of that – but it was a stirring run.

It wasn’t a deep team. They basically played six guys. Wood, James Worthy, and Sam Perkins were the stars; Jimmy Black, Mike Pepper, and Matt Doherty were the supporting cast. That’s something you notice about Dean Smith teams. There were certain invariants – they got the ball inside, they rebounded, they played unselfishly, they played defense without fouling – but there were other areas where he adapted to what he had. If he had ten good players, he played ten; if he had six good players, he played six. They got very little scoring from their backcourt. They had no true center. Didn’t matter. Dean figured it out.