The big one in the Big Easy was pretty damn hard.

The 1982 Tar Heels were No. 1 in the country for all but five weeks of the season, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you won the games you had to win. Over that season, Carolina – with Worthy, Perkins, Jordan, Black and Doherty – survived some very tough encounters.

For example, Carolina had to outlast No. 3 Virginia and Ralph Sampson in the ACC tournament championship game in Greensboro to secure the East Regional.

Still, staying in its home state, UNC eked out a two-point win over unranked James Madison in Charlotte and then beat Alabama by five points and Villanova by 10 in Raleigh to make the Final Four in New Orleans. A monster dunk by James Worthy propelled the Heels to a 68-63 win over Houston and back into Monday night.

No. 6 Georgetown was coached by Dean Smith’s friend and his Olympic assistant John Thompson and led by freshman phenom Patrick Ewing and senior star Eric “Sleepy” Floyd. The game was a classic between two powerhouse programs, and neither could get an edge.

The pressure was clearly on Carolina and Smith, who had been dubbed the best coach to never win anything – except 10 ACC regular seasons, 9 tournaments, an Olympic Gold Medal and an NIT title.

In his seventh Final Four, Smith still had the monkey on his back, but he was clearly the calmest person on the UNC bench. When the Heels trailed by a point with 32 ticks left, Smith signaled for a timeout because his veteran lineup looked a little scared. “We’d rather be down one with the ball than the other way around,” he told his team about controlling its own destiny.

The Superdome was in a nervous frenzy; Chapel Hill was still. Smith knew Thompson would call for a zone to keep the ball away from Big Game James and Silent Sam. As the huddle broke, he tapped freshman Michael Jordan and said, “If you get the shot, knock it in.”

Jordan caught a skip pass from Jimmy Black on the left wing, rose up and took aim. As he has said many times, when the ball rolled off his fingers, he closed his eyes. It went in smoothly. The coach had his first national championship and the kid launched a career. Dream ending.

 

Smith, Worthy and Black After Championship Win (courtesy of Hugh Morton Collection)

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