Well, now, I guess you could call Carolina a lacrosse school.
After what happened over the last few days, it is time once again to amend Dean Smith’s famous line when he was asked about being a basketball school. Things have changed since then, haven’t they?
When Smith wanted to divert the attention from himself, he often started talking about his players. When he believed his program was getting too much attention, Smith pulled out the famous line that Carolina is a women’s soccer school.
That was about 25 years ago, when Anson Dorrance had more championships than Smith, and women’s soccer was indeed dominating the college sports scene here. But Smith would take pleasure in ad-libbing differently now.
He would certainly try to get Mack Brown’s program into the conversation, now that Roy Williams has retired, and Hubert Davis has to prove himself. And while both men’s and women’s soccer made the College Cup, both lost to schools named Marshall and Santa Clara.
Undefeated and top-ranked women’s tennis opened NCAA tournament play with a 4-0 sweep of Cal and Brian Kalbas’ team is favored to beat Duke Wednesday to advance to the Final Four. And Sam Paul’s sixth-seeded men face 11th-seeded Georgia Monday in the round of 16 with the winner advancing to the quarterfinals.
However, Smith would gladly single out men’s and women’s lacrosse, both top seeds in their respective NCAA brackets.
The men clobbered Monmouth 16-4 behind four goals from ACC Offensive Player of the Year Chris Gray, and the unbeaten women ran away from JMU 14-9 as senior and national player of the year candidate Jamie Ortega scored four goals. Both matches were at Dorrance Stadium.
The women take on eighth-seeded Stony Brook this weekend in the quarterfinals and the men try to get back to the Final Four for the first time since 2016 against Rutgers at Hofstra, as the lacrosse school tries to win both NCAA titles.
The Tar Heel lacrosse programs are on track to repeat their feat of 2016, when they both won national championships and UNC was called a lacrosse school, rightfully so, by more than one person.
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