The only two times Carolina has played in the Final Four at the New Orleans Superdome, the Tar Heels cut down the national championship nets.
In 1982, Dean Smith won his long-awaited first NCAA title over Georgetown and long-time friend John Thompson. Smith’s Tar Heels had been to six Final Fours previously, losing in the semifinals three times and in three championship games. The year before, Carolina had played in the NCAA final game, falling to Indiana when foul trouble strapped sophomore star James Worthy.
The tipoff of that game hung in the balance after President Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley outside the Washington, D.C. Hilton. Smith had lobbied for a postponement until learning Reagan’s fate. The defeat was a somber end to a weekend that began with Carolina avenging two regular-season losses to Virginia and Ralph Sampson in the Saturday semifinals, fueled by Al Wood’s 39 points.
In 1993, Carolina was back in the Big Easy, and this one had a whole different feel to it. Since 1982, Smith’s program had suffered a nine-year absence from the Final Four despite having won more games in the 1980s than any other school. The Tar Heels had broken that draught in 1991, losing to long-time Smith assistant and third-year Kansas coach Roy Williams in the semifinals at the Hoosier Dome.
That long, cold weekend in Indianapolis remains a bad memory for thousands of Tar Heels who made the trip, expecting their team to beat Kansas and face top-ranked and undefeated UNLV for the national championship. Instead, Carolina had a frigid shooting game and KU won, with Smith enduring the insult of being ejected from that game by official Pete Pavia with the outcome decided.
Since Williams had become a favorite during his 10 years on Smith’s staff, the loss to Kansas was not a heartbreaker. But Duke’s first NCAA title while UNC fans were forced to hang around Indy certainly was. Then, after the Blue Devils had earned a second consecutive national championship in 1992, here were Smith and UNC back in New Orleans with a chance to steal some of Duke’s thunder.
Ironically, and almost cruelly, the semifinal opponent was again Kansas and Williams. But Carolina fans were all in lockstep this time about Smith winning his second championship no matter which team and coach they had to beat to do it.
And it turned out to be Michigan’s Fab Five, who as freshmen had lost the previous year’s title game to Duke. So a lot was on the line.
Michael Jordan’s shot against Georgetown in the 1982 National Championship game became an iconic moment in his career, but also earned Dean Smith his first title. (Photo via Allen Deane Steele.)
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The 1982 Final Four was one of the strongest in history.
Freshman Michael Jordan was role player for most of the season in a lineup with Worthy, All-ACC center Sam Perkins, unselfish small forward Matt Doherty and savvy point guard Jimmy Black. With a very short bench, these Tar Heels (30-2 and No. 1) were the original Iron Five almost being duplicated by Hubert Davis today.
In the Saturday semifinals, the Tar Heels faced Houston, which was somehow unranked despite having future pro stars Clyde Drexler and Akeem (later Hakeem) Olajuwon in their lineup. The nip-and-tuck game was only decided in the closing minutes on a monster break-away dunk by Worthy.
In the other semifinal, Georgetown with freshman Patrick Ewing and senior Sleepy Floyd eked out a 50-46 victory over 1980 national champion Louisville with Derek Smith, Jerry Eaves and Rodney McCray in the lineup. So the match-up was set between the 51-year-old Smith and Thompson, 40, whom as a fourth-year coach at Georgetown Smith had tabbed as an assistant on his 1976 U.S. Olympic team.
After the 63-62 win had been decided by Jordan’s jumper from the left wing, Smith hurried down to the opposing bench where the 6-foot-10 Thompson embraced him with the biggest bear hug. “I’m not a better coach now than I was two hours ago,” Smith said to writers who pestered him about, at last, winning the big one.
With Worthy leaving school as a junior to become the No. 1 pick in the 1982 draft by the Lakers, and Black graduating, Smith still had returnees Perkins, Doherty and Jordan, who would blossom into national player of the year. No one ever believed that it would take Carolina seven years to win another ACC tournament championship and nine to get back to the Final Four.
During that time, Duke and its unknown head coach Mike Krzyzewski were making their presence felt in college basketball. Beginning with going all the way to the 1986 championship game before losing to Louisville, Coach K’s Blue Devils would reach seven Final Fours in a nine-year stretch. They had become the new America’s Team to much of young America.
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That’s why the 1993 Final Four was so important for Carolina to get there and win. The Tar Heels did it by finishing first in the ACC and then marching to New Orleans with a talented sum that was even better than its individual parts of senior George Lynch, juniors Eric Montross, Derrick Phelps and Brian Reese and sophomore Donald Williams. UNC handled Kansas this time 78-68 to move on to Monday night and the Fab Five that was expected to break up after that season.
The team bus had taken the players and other coaches to the Superdome, when Smith caught a cab and tried to get into the massive arena without a credential. A security guard (obviously not a basketball fan) denied him, and Smith said, “Okay, I’ll go back to the hotel and let my assistants coach this game.”
Finally gaining entrance, Smith walked into the locker room just as his players were about to take the court for warm-ups. “Well, if you don’t know how to play basketball by now, there’s not much time left to teach you,” Smith quipped.
The Tar Heels led by five at half-time of the back-and-forth game and made a big push to take control late after Smith sent five subs in to give the starters one last breather. The starters, who had erased a seven-point Michigan lead, came back to seal the victory after Chris Webber’s illegal timeout gave Donald Williams, who was the MVP of the Final Four with 10-for-14 from the 3-point line, hit four technical foul shots that spelled the 77-71 final score.
The 1982 national championship team and staff, including Michael Jordan and Roy Williams, returned to Chapel Hill for a 40th anniversary ceremony on January 29, 2022. (Photo via Todd Melet.)
In between those two Final Fours in New Orleans, Carolina missed another trip to the Big Easy when it lost to Syracuse in the 1987 regional championship game. In 2003, Roy Williams’ last season at Kansas, his Jayhawks lost to Syracuse in the Superdome that usually bothers long-range shooters more by missing 18 free throws.
Duke has gotten most of the headlines over the last two decades and this season with Krzyzewski’s retirement tour. But Carolina has had the better of it by making its third Final Four in the last six NCAA tournaments while the Blue Devils’ most recent visit was in 2015, seven years ago.
Will one of them get to feel “Super” around midnight Saturday and again on Monday?
Featured photo via The News & Observer.
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