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Grrr…

Posted on March 29, 2007March 30, 2007 by Staff

By Frank Heath
Sports Columnist

It’s that week again, one of the most difficult times of the year for a Carolina fan. You know the week: the one after the UNC men’s basketball team plays and loses its final game of the season. Much more often than not, that’s what’s happened; not every year can bring an NCAA title to Franklin Street. And for some reason—maybe it’s just me, but—don’t the Tar Heels always seem to save the most creatively depressing manner of losing for last? Can there be a worse ending than Sunday’s 2-for-21 shooting (or whatever it was) over the final 11 minutes of the game? Ouch.

Well, unfortunately, there can be, and have been, worse endings for Carolina. During the 38 years since I began watching UNC seasons come to an end, here is what this Tar Heel fan has experienced:

One “did-not-play” (2003), five NIT appearances (one championship—in 1971), three national championships and 29 depressing NCAA Tournament defeats.

Do Carolina’s three NCAA titles outweigh the 29 losses? One has to say yes—but sometimes just barely.

That’s because, as I count it, only two of Carolina’s NCAA losses over the past four decades—in 1990 and 2000, years in which the Tar Heels entered the Big Dance as a No. 8 seed and pulled off upsets against top-seeded Oklahoma and Stanford in the second round—have been even marginally palatable. In every other year besides ‘82, ’93 and ’05, the Heels have failed to advance as far as most of their supporters would have hoped. And not only that, they’ve often played quite miserably in their final game of the season.

So during the week following Carolina’s nearly annual bowing-out, a fan is left to watch other schools celebrate, and to figure out what to do to stay occupied for the next seven or eight months.

One will sometimes pretend as if basketball didn’t exist. But this year, since the Tar Heel women are still alive, you can’t do that. So instead, I’ve decided to rank my least favorite season-ending losses in Carolina men’s basketball history, in hopes that at the end of this article I can build a bonfire (not, unfortunately, on Franklin Street) and burn all these terrible losses together into a pile of ashes.

Here we go:

No. 5 Worst NCAA loss: UNC 72, Boston College 75 (1994)

One of Carolina’s most talented teams ever—with seniors Eric Montross, Derek Phelps and Brian Reese; junior Donald Williams; and freshmen Jeff McInnis, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace—goes down with a brutal thud in the second round. This was Carolina’s earliest exit from the tournament in 16 years, and it came at the end of a season in which many had expected the Tar Heels to walk backwards into the championship game.

No. 4: Carolina 59, Utah 65 (1998)

This too was one of Carolina’s best teams, with Jamison, Carter, Okulaja, Cota and Shammond Williams in the starting lineup. But in this NCAA semifinal, the Heels fell behind by 13 at the half against a physical Utah squad. Carolina shot just 39 percent, its worst all season, and Jamison had 14 points in perhaps his least productive game as a Heel. Carter’s 21 points gave a glimpse of things to come, but even a young Vince couldn’t bail the Heels out by himself.

No. 3: UNC 50, Indiana 63 (1981)

I had the misfortune of actually attending this NCAA championship game loss, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Isiah Thomas dominated against the Carolina backcourt of Jimmy Black and Mike Pepper, and the high from Carolina’s 78-65 win over Virginia two days earlier quickly disappeared. At halftime, I made the mistake of eating one of the Spectrum’s hot dogs, and Carolina’s second-half struggles made my queasiness that much harder to take. In college at the time, I attended the game with fellow Tar Heel Ed Cone, who is about as famous a blogger these days as one can find. The silver lining was that the remaining Tar Heels used the bitterness from this loss to fuel their championship run a year later.

No. 2: UNC 51, South Carolina 52 (1971)

This loss was actually in the championship of the ACC Tournament, but back in 1971 an ACC Tournament defeat was the same as one in the NCAAs, because only the ACC champion advanced to play for the NCAA title. With less than 10 seconds remaining, UNC’s center, 6’10” Lee Dedmon, had a jump ball against USC guard Kevin Joyce (6’2”). Somehow the ball got to South Carolina’s Tom Owens, who scored the winning bucket and sent the Tar Heels packing. UNC went on to capture the NIT crown that year behind Bill Chamberlain. But even as a 9-year-old, I was fully conscious that the NIT was not the NCAAs.

And the No. 1 most-hated Carolina loss of all time: North Carolina 59, Marquette 67 (1977)

For many who were fans in that era, this team was an all-time favorite. Olympians Phil Ford, Walter Davis and Tom LaGarde were in the starting lineup along with John Keuster and Mike O’Koren. When Ford, Davis and LaGarde suffered injuries during the season, someone always stepped up to save the day, as the Tar Heels ran off a 15-game winning streak in the run-up to the national championship game. Unfortunately, Butch Lee, Bo Ellis and the rest of Al McGuire’s Warriors blocked the way to a fairy-tale ending, and the Tar Heels fell short in the title game, even after going to the Four Corners with a second-half lead. I remember hearing, from my bedroom window, a band playing on Franklin Street in “celebration” that night, after the game had ended, and thinking, “How can they go on with the party?”

As for all of Carolina’s other NCAA Tournament losses, well, let’s just say they tie for No. 6. Not one of them was worth a dog, and maybe they’re not even worth ranking. But if readers have reactions to this list, or perhaps a Carolina’s best/worst list of their own, please feel free to send them to me at: frank@catscradle.com. I will do my best to comment on them in this space in The Citizen and also online at tarheeldaily.com.

Our deepest condolences go out to the family and friends of Jason Ray, the UNC ram mascot who died Monday after being hit by a car Friday while preparing to perform at Carolina’s regional semifinal game against USC.

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