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Beware, Wagner is a lot better than the team that beat Duke.
The Tar Heels’ first opponent in the NCAA tournament edged a Howard team in the First Four coached by former Blue Devil Kenny Blakeney, who must have heard jokes about that loss to Wagner when he played for Duke’s Final Four teams of 1992 and ’94.
Those Seahawks came to Durham on January 5, 1983, with a 2-7 record and had been blown out at UNLV by 50 points in their last game. The Blue Devils were 5-4 in Mike Krzyzewski’s third season and a group of “Concerned Iron Dukes” were already lobbying for his removal.
Only 5,500 fans showed up for the game, and the yet-to-be-dubbed Cameron Crazies weren’t exactly camping out in tents to get the best seats. They moaned through a very close game that the Wagner players felt like they could win. “We knew right away,” said guard Bob Mahala, who scored 25 points. “I thought ‘we can get these guys.’”
“These guys” included freshmen Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins and Jay Bilas for a program that had gone 10-17 the year before and would be crushed by Virginia and senior Ralph Sampson in the last game of the “Wagner season.” Of course, three years later, they won the ACC championship and lost to Louisville in the NCAA title game.
“We were all freshmen, we had just won three straight, and were flat in the second half,” Bilas said. “I don’t know if we didn’t take them seriously, but we were all still learning Coach K’s system and each other. Clearly, we weren’t fully prepared for that game. We didn’t take any opponent lightly after that. Tough learning experience.”
“He wasn’t Coach K yet,” said Jay Price, who covered the game for the Staten Island Advance. After Wagner won 84-77, Price said the Durham media really grilled Krzyzewski. “They thought this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be,” he said.
The team top-seeded Carolina faces this afternoon is a lot better, even though its record is 17-15 after the win over Blakeney’s Bison. The 16-seed Seahawks only have seven guys on scholarship, just one over 6-feet-7. Melvin Council, Jr. is their best player and had 21 points against Howard.
“To have the first NCAA tournament victory in school history, it’s huge,” said second-year coach Donald Copeland. “Huge for the school, the program and these guys, they have gone through so much to continue to build and continue to write their own season the way they wanted to.”
It was Wagner’s second appearance in the NCAA tournament, the first in 2003 just before Copeland played for Seton Hall in the Big Dance. “We’ll go down to Charlotte and do the best we can,” he said.
Of course, he could not compare beating Howard to the upset of Duke 41 years ago, since he wasn’t born yet. But if any of those ’83 Seahawks were watching on national TV, they must think it was at least as good as what they did.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Dean
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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