Category: Basketball

The 65th annual Atlantic Coast Conference men’s basketball tournament will be staged in Brooklyn, New York beginning today, March 6th, 2018.  The tournament will return to North Carolina next year when the event will play out in Charlotte. In 2020 the tournament will return to Greensboro for the 28th time, a series that began in 1967.
Morton collection volunteer/contributor Jack Hilliard takes a look back at the ’67 UNC season and an ACC Tournament which was one for the record books.
Carolina’s 1966-67 basketball season got off to a routine start, but finished in a flurry of firsts.  An eleven-point win in Chapel Hill against Clemson for the nineteenth straight time tipped off the season, but was hardly anything to write home about.  Next was a trip to the Greensboro Coliseum for a thirty-point victory against Penn State, followed by seven straight wins—including a win at Kentucky and two more visits to the Greensboro Coliseum with wins over NYU and Furman.  As the season played out, the Tar Heels lost only four regular season games, and they headed into the 1967 ACC Tournament as the regular season conference champion with an ACC record of 12–2.
For the first time since its beginning in 1954, the ACC played its conference tournament away from Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh.  In 1966 the conference established a rotation arrangement for tournament hosts, electing to play the 1967 tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum—much to delight of UNC Head Basketball Coach Dean Smith.  Smith had favored a neutral site for the tournament and he thought Greensboro was a good fit, even though the coliseum, at that time, had 3,600 fewer seats than Reynolds Coliseum.
Coach Smith and his North Carolina Tar Heels came into the tournament as the number one seed. This was only the second time UNC had been seeded as tournament number one, the first time being the year of “McGuire’s Miracle” after the 1956-57 regular season.
Photographer Hugh Morton made the trip up from his home in Wilmington to document this first Greensboro ACC tournament. (Morton was a fixture courtside at the ACC Tournaments and much of his work can be found in the 1981 book The ACC Tournament Classic by Hugh Morton and Smith Barrier.) Currently there are sixteen photographs made by Morton during the tournament available for viewing in the online collection.  The Morton collection finding aid indicates that thirty-four black-and-white and eight color photographs from UNC’s games versus North Carolina State, Wake Forest, and Duke.

Three days before the tournament, Greensboro Daily News sports editor Smith Barrier predicted Duke would take the tournament despite the fact that Carolina had beaten Duke twice during the regular season.
The 1967 ACC Tournament, the 14th annual event, tipped off at 1:30 PM on Thursday, March 9th with 8,766 fans watching South Carolina beat Maryland 57–54.  Duke defeated Virginia 99–78 in the second afternoon game.
The first round evening game pitted North Carolina against North Carolina State—a game that turned out to be much closer than most expected. Since Carolina was 12—2 in the ACC and State was 2–12, most folks thought the Tar Heels would have no trouble.  Head coach Norman Sloan and his Wolfpack had a different idea. At the half the score was tied at 26. Carolina was able to hang on and win 56–53.  The second evening contest saw Wake Forest defeat Clemson 63–61 in double overtime.
On Friday, March 10th, the first semifinal game had Smith’s Tar Heels playing Jack McCloskey’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons.  Wake led by four at half, 38–34, but thanks to Larry Miller’s 29-point-second-half, the Tar Heels came away with 89–79 victory.  The second Friday game had coach Vic Bubas’ Duke Blue Devils beating coach Frank McGuire’s South Carolina Gamecocks 69–66 and set up a Duke–Carolina final.
UNC All American Larry Miller had cut out Smith Barrier’s newspaper column predicting a Duke championship, and on championship game day he put the clipping in his shoe.
At 8:30 PM on Saturday, March 11, 1967 it was the “Battle of the Blues.”  Carolina, for the first time in the tournament, played like most Tar Heel fans thought the number one seed should play and led 40–34 at half.  Thanks to Larry Miller’s 32 points, the Tar Heels held on to win 82–73, but the game was really closer than the nine point difference. Coach Smith got a ride on the shoulders of his winning players and called the Duke win “the greatest victory I’ve had as a coach.”
Miller took home the Outstanding Player award.  Following the post game press conference, he presented the clipping to Smith Barrier.  According to author Art Chansky in his 2016 book Game Changers, Barrier “took it in good spirit.”  Sandy Treadwell, Managing Editor of The Daily Tar Heel wrote in the March 12th issue, “The Tar Heels ended a long road of twenty-eight basketball games.  It was a road that took them into national prominence, and which last night earned them a ticket to the NCAA Eastern Regional Tournament in Maryland later this week.”
When the 14th annual Atlantic Coast Conference ended, a total of 35,064 fans had witnessed a tournament for the record books.  Historians of the game went to work and discovered it was the first time that:

• the conference played the tournament outside Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh.  (The tournament hasn’t been played in Raleigh since 1966, but there is currently talk of playing the tournament, or part of the 75th anniversary tournament in Raleigh in 2028.)
• the conference played the tournament in the Greensboro Coliseum.  (Since then, Greensboro has hosted the tournament twenty-seven times.)
• UNC’s Dean Smith won the ACC Tournament Championship.  (Smith’s teams went on to win a total of thirteen ACC Tournaments before his retirement following the 1997 season.)
• UNC had beaten the three other members of the “Big Four” (Duke, N.C. State, and Wake Forest) during an ACC Tournament—a fete that hasn’t happened since.

The UNC Tar Heels will host the Clemson Tigers on Tuesday, January 16th, 2018 in the Dean E. Smith Center on the Carolina campus.  The game will mark the 59th meeting between the two teams when playing in Chapel Hill.  Carolina has won all 58 of the previous Chapel Hill games, an NCAA record for the longest winning streak against a single opponent.  Morton Collection volunteer Jack Hilliard offers a look back at the Clemson streak of frustration.

Prolog
The Clemson frustration in never having won in Chapel Hill was summed up by Clemson Head Coach Rick Barnes following his loss in 1997.  When asked in the Clemson locker room after the game by a reporter, who obviously didn’t know Coach Barnes very well:  How do you explain your program’s head-shaking losing streak in Chapel Hill?  Said Barnes, “If you really need an explanation, take you’re a– out there and look up at the rafters.”

It all started on Friday, January 15th, 1926, in a metal-constructed arena on the UNC campus called the Indoor Athletic Court (It would become known as the “Tin Can.”)  UNC’s “White Phantoms” (as the basketball team was often called in those days) beat Clemson College by thirty points, 50-20.  The student newspaper, “The Daily Tar Heel” called the point spread a “massacre.”

While the Carolina band blared the note of “Hark the Sound” and “Here Comes Carolina,” the Tar Heel tossers took the court and limbered up for the massacre.

Seven seasons would pass before the two teams met in Chapel Hill again, in 1934.  This time Carolina won by twelve, with a final score of 38-26 as 2,500 fans packed the “Tin Can” to open the 1933-34 season.

The game on January 3rd, 1936 was the closest game to date in the Chapel Hill series.  Carolina won 24-23 in the final game played in the “Tin Can.”

When the two teams met in Chapel Hill for the fourth meeting in the series on February 1st, 1938, Carolina was hosting in Woollen Gym with a 44-34 win.  UNC would host and win the three games of the 1940s by double digits, winning the 1943 game by twenty, 52-32.

Clemson played twice at Chapel Hill during Morton’s years as a UNC student photographer.  Only once—UNC’s 47-30 win on February 19, 1940—when he would have been able to photograph the game.  Neither the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, nor the nor the yearbook, The Yackety Yak, published a photograph from the game.  The second Clemson visit to Woollen Gym was on February 2, 1943, but Morton enlisted in the United States Army during the autumn of 1942 and only came back to campus to photograph for the yearbook on one occasion in October 1942.

Clemson traveled to Chapel Hill twice in 1952.  Saturday, January 5th, 1952 marked the eighth meeting between the two with another UNC win 65 to 59.  The following season, on December 10th, 1952 the series played out in Woollen Gym with a Tar Heel win, 82-55.  It would be UNC head coach Tom Scott’s only Carolina–Clemson game in Chapel Hill.

When Clemson came into Chapel Hill on December 19th, 1953, the two teams were now members of the newly formed Atlantic Coast Conference and Carolina’s new head coach Frank McGuire led his Tar Heels to a thirty-seven-point-victory, 85-48—the largest point difference in the series to date.

A thirty-three-point win in 1954 and a fifteen-point win in ’55 set the table for the famous 1956-57 championship season, which included a McGuire led Tar Heel win 86-54 on January 11th, 1957.

When Clemson came into Woollen Gym for the fourteenth meeting, on December 7th, 1957, something had been added.  Television producer C.D. Chesley had brought in his TV cameras for the first regular season ACC game ever and Carolina came away with a 79-55 win.

Coach McGuire and his Tar Heels met Clemson one more time in Chapel Hill during his time as coach, an 83-67 win on December 3rd, 1958.

On January 3rd, 1961, new Head Coach Dean Smith led Carolina to a 77-46 win—the first of twenty-eight Chapel Hill wins over Clemson during his Tar Heel tenure.  The Heels won by sixteen in 1962, and when Clemson came into Chapel Hill on December 1st, 1964 for the eighteenth meeting, they were no longer called Clemson College but were called Clemson University—but continued the losing streak, 77-59.

Coach Smith led his Tar Heels to double digit wins, in 1966, 1968 and 1971.  Photographer Hugh Morton was in place in Carmichael Auditorium (now called Carmichael Arena), for Carolina’s 1971 win, 92-72.  Surprisingly, it was Morton’s first coverage of a UNC–Clemson contest on a UNC basketball court.

When the two met in Chapel Hill for the twenty-second time on January 10th, 1973, Tar Heel broadcaster Woody Durham, “The Voice of the Tar Heels,” was in place for his first Carolina vs. Clemson-Tar Heel home game, a 92-58 Carolina win.  Woody would do play-by-play for the next 33 Carolina – Clemson games in Chapel Hill.

The games in 1974 and 1975 were one and two point wins respectfully for the Heels.  A fifteen-point-win in 1976 and a thirty-four-point-win in 1978 preceded another close one in 1980, 73-70.

The game on February 21st, 1981, saw the Heels win by fourteen, 75-61.
Carolina’s 1982 National Championship team beat Clemson 77-72 on January 27th, 1982 on their way to the national title. Tar Heel legend Michael Jordan played his first of two games against Clemson in Chapel Hill, scoring 14 points.

The wins in 1983 and ’85 closed out the era in Carmichael, and Hugh Morton was there for that last meeting on February 23rd, 1985—a thirty-four-point-victory, 84-50.

The Carolina vs. Clemson game on February 1st, 1986 was the first Chapel Hill meeting between the two in the Dean E. Smith Student Activity Center (often called the “Dean Dome”). Hugh Morton was there for this UNC-Clemson game as well as the next four meeting between the two, which included a thirty-six-point win in 1988 and Carolina’s first 100-point effort in the series on February 25th, 1989, 100-86.

Two double-digit wins, in 1990 and 1991, were followed by another 100+ effort on January 9th, 1992, 103-69.

Carolina’s 1992-93 National Championship run contained a thirteen-point-win, 80-67 on February 17th, 1993 before 21,147 in the Smith Center.  The ‘93 NCAA Championship would be coach Dean Smith’s second national title.

The game number forty meeting in January, 1994, was a 44-point-winner, 106-62…Carolina’s largest victory margin of the Chapel Hill series.

Coach Smith closed out his career with double-digit-wins in ’95, ’96, and ’97 with Hugh Morton shooting from courtside at each game. Smith’s January 26th, 1997 win over Clemson was listed by UNC basketball author and historian Adam Lucas as the eighth top game in Smith Center history.

Bill Guthridge, Dean Smith’s assistant from 1967 until 1997, took over the head coaching duties beginning with the 1997–98 season. Coach Guthridge managed three wins over Clemson in Chapel Hill: 1998, 1999, and 2000.

When Clemson arrived in Chapel Hill on January 17th, 2001 for game number forty-seven in the series, new Tar Heel head coach Matt Doherty was in place and led the Heels to a twenty-seven-point-win, 92-65.  Coach Doherty would add two more Chapel Hill wins over Clemson in 2002 and 2003.

Current UNC Head Coach Roy Williams was on board for the fiftieth Carolina – Clemson-Chapel Hill meeting on March 2nd, 2004 and continued the winning ways with a 69-53 victory.

When the fifty-first meeting took place on February 19th, 2005, Carolina was on the way to another NCAA Championship.  That ’05 win was a thirty-two-point-blowout, 88-56. Coach Williams continued the winning streak with a 76-61 win on February 4th, 2006.

Although game number fifty-three on February 10th, 2008 was a ten-point winner, it was much closer than the final score might indicate.  At the end of regulation, the score was tied at 82.  After overtime number one it was 90-90.  And finally the Tar Heels were able to pull out the 103-93 win in the second overtime.  All-American Tyler Hansbrough led the way with 39 points and 13 rebounds.

The twenty-four-point-win on January 21st, 2009 was once again a stepping stone to a national title. Recent games fifty-five through fifty-eight have been double-digit wins for Coach Williams and his Tar Heels.  And that brings us to tonight’s fifty-ninth meeting between Clemson and Carolina in Chapel Hill.  Whoever wins game 59 . . . the streaks will continue or new ones will begin.

Corrections and clarifications
With the 87-79 UNC victory against Clemson on 21 January 2018, the streak did continue.  After the game we reviewed this post in light of the 1952 game-day program having been added to illustrate the article, and we discovered a few mistakes.  On February 5th, we made the following changes:

• The phrase “UNC’s 47-30 win on February 19th” omitted the year, which was 1940.
• Sources consulted had not listed the December 8, 1956 game as having been played in Charlotte, so we rewrote the sentence, “A thirty-three-point-win in 1954 and a fifteen-point-win in ’55, set up two Tar Heel wins heading into that famous 1956-57 NCAA Championship season when McGuire let the Heels to two more Chapel Hill wins over Clemson, 94-75 on December 8th, 1956 and 86-54 on January 11th, 1957.”  The sentence now only mentions the game played in Chapel Hill on January 11, 1957.
• Clarified the phrase “Carolina’s first 100 point effort on February 25th, 1989, 100-86” to reflect it was the first “in the series,” not the first ever.
• Corrected the game day for 2008 played on February 10th, not January 10th.
• Corrected the game day for 2009 played on January 21st, not January 9th.
• Corrected some typographical errors.

On March 18th, 2012 Bill Richards, a colleague who worked in the library’s Digital Production Center, passed away unexpectedly while watching the Tar Heel’s basketball team defeat Creighton University in the “Sweet Sixteen” round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.  In 1982, Bill was the Chief Photographer for the Chapel Hill Newspaper.  In 1988, he began working as a photographer and graphic designer in the UNC Office of Sports information.  In 1998 he started working in Library Photographic Services, but continued shooting for Sports Information into the 2000s.  I am dedicating this blog post, as I have each year since his departure, to Bill who, like Hugh Morton, was an avid UNC basketball fan.
Here we are again . . . it’s March Madness time and UNC is in the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament for the forty-seventh time.  Yesterday’s 103 to 64 first-round win against Texas Southern, coupled with Arkansas’ 77-to-71 defeat of Seton Hall, set up the sixth tournament meeting between the Tar Heels and Razorbacks.  Hugh Morton photographed three of those contests in 1990, 1993, and 1995. In the latter two face-offs, the victors continued on to play for the national championship.

The first of these two encounters was the 1993 tournament’s East Regional Semifinals played at East Rutherford, New Jersey.  Arkansas was fueled by eleven three-pointers, but but UNC’s sophomore guard Donald Williams scored the last nine Tar Heel points—including three foul shots at the end—to clinch the game 80 to 74.  At one point in first half Arkansas led by eleven, but the game was often close.  The score at halftime was 45 to 45, and with 6:30 left to play it was 69 to 69.  It was then that North Carolina’s Brian Reese bucket gave the Tar Heels a  lead that would not give back.
A monstrous dunk by 245-pound Razorback freshman Corliss Williamson bought  Arkansas to within two points, 73 to 71, and their fans leapt to their feet.  With just over a minute to play in the game, Carolina held onto a 75-to-74 lead.  UNC’s legendary coach Dean Smith called a time out at the 0:51.7 mark and drew up play.  Rather than stall in a patented four-corners set, he designed a quick-scoring backdoor pass from George Lynch to Williams for a lay-up that extended the score to 77 to 74 with 0:42 seconds left.  An Arkansas turnover forced the Razorbacks to foul Williams.  He iced the free throws and capped the Tar Heel victory.  George Lynch led UNC in scoring with twenty-three points and ten rebounds.  Eric Montrose added fifteen points.  The win sent the Tar Heels to the East Regional Finals against Cincinnati.

April Fools Day was no laughing matter for UNC in the 1995 NCAA tournament when the Hogs beat the Heels 75 to 68 in the tournament semifinal played at the Seattle Kingdome.  UNC had returned to the Final Four after exiting early in 1994, and Arkansas was the returning national champion.  UNC led at the half 38 to 34.  The score would normally have been 38 to 31, but Arkansas’ Dwight Stewart heaved a 55-foot shot at the buzzer that found nothing but net to end the first half.  The bomb enlivened the lackluster Razorbacks and left the Heels stunned.
The energy boost carried Arkansas well into the second half, reeling off an early 17-to-5 run.  UNC suffered twelve-and-a-half minutes without a score until a three-pointer by Stackhouse with 15:14 left to play.  Carolina closed the deficit to one, 69 to 68, with 47.7 seconds left, but the Tar Heels scoring ended there.  They made only seven shots in the closing half after hitting fifteen in the opener, including seven threes.  Equally domineering, Arkansas made ten shots from close-range inside the paint in the second half, compared to Carolina’s two.  Donald Williams, now a senior, finished with nineteen points, but Corliss “Big Nasty” Williamson scored the same amount in just the second half, finishing with twenty-one. UNC’s Jerry Stackhouse scored eighteen.
Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson said afterward, “We’re called the ‘Cardiac Kids’ and we tried to do it again.” With their victory Arkansas earned the right to defend their title against UCLA, which defeated Oklahoma State 74 to 61. UCLA, however, denied the Razorback repeat by scoring an eleven-point win, 89 to 78.  After the season, as a junior, Williamson declared for the 1995 NBA draft and was the thirteenth pick overall by the Sacramento Kings.  From UNC, Jerry Stackhouse was the third overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Washington Bullets selected Rasheed Wallace next as the fourth selection.  Both Stackhouse and Wallace left UNC as sophomores.
Post Script
Morton also photographed the North Carolina versus Arkansas regional semifinal in March 1990 won by Arkansas 96 to 73, but there are no images of that game in the online collection of images.
Correction
A previous version incorrectly stated “In the latter two face-offs, the victors continued on to win the national championship.”  This has been corrected and now reads “to play for the national championship.”

“March Madness” is only a week away when the 64th annual Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament takes place starting today, March 7, through March 11, 2017 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.  Officially, it’s the “New York Life ACC Tournament,” but a title sponsor has not always been attached.  That addition is just one of the many changing facets of this classic sporting event that have taken place over the years— and photographer Hugh Morton was there for twenty-one (at least) of them between 1954 and 2005.  On day one of the ACC Tournament, Morton collection volunteer and A View to Hugh contributor Jack Hilliard takes a brief look at the record book.  Within the story, you may follow the links to see Morton’s photographs for the years available in online collection. (Not all the years photographed by Morton are available in the online collection.  See Series 6.1 in the collection finding aid for a full listing.)

In early March, 1997, the ACC Tournament was staged in Greensboro for the 17th time, but the front page basketball story in the March 9th edition of the “News & Record” was titled “Shooting with the Best of Them: At 76, Hugh Morton still keeps life in focus.”  The article told the Hugh Morton story and how he had covered the ACC tournament starting back in 1954. In fact, feature writer Jim Schlosser’s article said:  “He’s been shooting Carolina wins, and the occasional loss, in every ACC tournament, save one, since the first in 1954 in Raleigh.”
The fifteen-team league competing for the 2017 ACC Tournament Championship is a far cry from the league that Morton first photographed in 1954 when only 8 teams made up the conference. That ’54 tournament was played in Raleigh’s William Neal Reynolds Coliseum and was won by Coach Everett Case’s NC State Wolfpack…an 82 to 80 overtime thriller against Coach Murray Greason’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons.  State went on to win the event in ‘55 and ’56 before North Carolina won its first tournament in 1957. And Carolina continued its winning ways as the NCAA Champion that year…the first North Carolina based team to do that since the official formation of the Atlantic Coast Conference in May of 1953.
The University of Maryland won the 1958 tournament, defeating the defending champion Tar Heels as the Terps became the first out-of-North Carolina tournament champion.  In ’59, NC State came back as a winner for the 4th time with a win over UNC.
Duke beat Wake Forest for its first ACC Tournament in 1960, while Wake beat Duke in ’61 for its first tournament win. Wake won again in ’62.  During the next four years, Duke won three more times and State won in ’65. Hugh Morton photographs can be seen in the online collection for the UNC vs USC semifinal game in 1963 and the Duke vs NC State first-round game in 1964.
In 1967, the tournament moved from Reynolds Coliseum to the Greensboro Coliseum where Carolina beat Duke for the title. Carolina continued its winning ways with two wins over State and Duke as the tournament moved to Charlotte in 1968 and 1969.
Following NC State’s 1970 win in Charlotte over South Carolina, it was back to Greensboro for the next five years.  South Carolina won its only ACC Tournament in 1971 and Carolina and State split the next four years: Carolina winning in 1972 and 1975, and State winning in 1973 and 1974—and of course State won the National Championship in 1974, the only time the “Final Four” championship round has been played in Greensboro.
In 1976, the tournament moved to the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland where Virginia won its first ACC Tournament, beating North Carolina 67 to 62.  It was back to the Greensboro Coliseum in 1977 for a four year stint.  Carolina and Duke split with UNC winning in 1977 and 1979 and Duke winning in 1978 and 1980.  (Note: four photographs in the online collection lack definite identifications with “late 1970s” being the estimated date range, and another photograph only dated as “1980s” appears for all searches for the years 1980 through 1989.  Please try your hand at identifying the photographs and leave a comment with your findings!)
Carolina won in 1981 back at Capital Center, and then again in Greensboro in 1982, where the Tar Heels won the NCAA Championship again 1982.  The tournament moved again in 1983—this time to the Omni in Atlanta where NC State won over Virginia and went on to its second NCAA Championship.  Maryland beat Duke back in Greensboro in 1984 and Georgia Tech won its first ACC Tournament at the Omni in 1985, beating North Carolina.
Duke won twice in Greensboro in 1986 and 1988 while NC State won at Capital Center in 1987.  Carolina beat Duke 77 to 74 in 1989 at the Omni before the tournament moved back to the Charlotte Coliseum in 1990 for five years with Georgia Tech winning twice, in 1990 and 1993, and North Carolina twice, in 1991 and 1994.  Duke won in 1992 adding a NCAA Championship. The years 1995 to 1998 were back in Greensboro where Wake Forest won twice, in 1995 and 1996, and Carolina won in 1997.  And I believe that’s where we came in with Morton shooting the 1997 tournament in Greensboro.  Morton’s last ACC Tournament was in 2002 at the Charlotte Coliseum.
Since Morton made “tournament headlines” in Greensboro in 1997, the ACC Tournament has played out nineteen times and Morton’s Tar Heels have won only four of those events, while Duke has won ten. (And it should be pointed out that Duke’s wins in 2001, 2010, and 2015 were followed up with NCAA championships). Florida State, Miami, and Notre Dame have added one win each while Maryland and Virginia have added one each to their championships lists.  Also, the tournament has added two additional venues since 1997: DC in 2006 and Tampa, Florida in 2007.
Ten years after Tampa was added, the tournament moves to Brooklyn, New York in 2017—where Duke will be going for overall tournament championship number twenty, UNC will be going for number nineteen, NC State will be looking for number eleven, and Wake Forest number five.  But as ACC basketball goes, any one of the now fifteen member teams could win in the “Big Apple” this March as “Madness” abounds.

UNC’s ascent to the 1982 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship included a confrontation with Villanova in the East Region Final won by the Tar Heels, 70 to 60.  In 1991 the two universities squared off again in the East Region bracket, an 84 to 69 UNC win in the second round, played in the Carrier Dome at Syracuse, New York.  On the sidelines of those two respective games were assistant coaches who will find themselves as helmsmen during tonight’s contest for the 2016 national championship in Houston: UNC’s Roy Williams seen above as assistant to Dean Smith in 1982, and Jay Wright, seen below, as assistant to Rollie Massimino in 1991.  (A similar photograph by Morton can be seen in the online collection.)

In between those two face-offs was Villanova’s victory over UNC for the 1985 Mideast Region Final, won by Villanova 65 to 44 on the Wildcats way to winning the national championship.  At that time Wright was coaching in Division III at the University of Rochester, and Williams was still the assistant coach at UNC.  Hugh Morton photographed that game but only a shot from the UNC locker is in the online collection.

Back in 2009 David Meincke wrote a post titled “UNC vs. Villanova: 1982 and 1985” when these school faced each other during the opening round of “Final Four” play.  UNC won handily, 83 to 69.  Those who prefer the lighter shade of blue will be rooting for another Tar Heel title tonight.

Correction: this article initially incorrectly credited Jack Hilliard as the write of the “UNC vs. Villanova” post.

Walking to my office from the bus stop this morning while talking with a fellow bus rider, I wondered if Duke and UNC ever won national titles back-to-back.  Checking the records books (okay, Wikipedia), I learned that the answer is yes!  Duke won the national title in 1991 and 1992, followed by UNC in 1993.

Hugh Morton traveled to Indianapolis in 1991 when both schools reached the Final Four.  UNC lost its national semifinal to Kansas, coached by Roy Williams, 79 to 73.  Morton hung around town and returned for the championship game to witness Duke’s downing of Kansas 72 to 65.

Morton did not make the trek to Minneapolis for Duke’s championship at the 1992 Final Four with UNC’s Southeast Regional loss to Ohio State in Lexington, Kentucky, but he certainly was not going know what it means to miss New Orleans in 1993.  Follow the “1993” link to our story about that game, published in March 2013.
Duke was last years’s national champion.  Will UNC follow in their footsteps this year and make history repeat itself?
 
 

It was his last college game.  An upset that still rankles a quarter-century later, like a large pebble in his Air Jordans.

—Mike Lopresti, sportswriter, March 3, 2009

This coming Friday night, the UNC Tar Heels will face the Indiana Hoosiers’ in the East Regional Semifinal of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The two schools last met in the East Regional semifinal round thirty-two years ago today on March 22, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia.  Michael Jordan played his last game as a Tar Heel that day, because the Hoosiers emerged with a 72-68 victory.

According to sportswriter Mike Lopresti, who wrote an article in 2009 titled “After 25 years, Jordan still frustrated by loss to Hoosiers in tourney,” Indiana head coach Bobby Knight made a few strategic changes that led to their upset win over the number one seed UNC: “He ditched his beloved motion offense and spread the floor, to better combat Dean Smith’s trapping defenses . . . and . . . put a blue-collar defender named Dan Dakich on Jordan. Dakich was ordered to deny Jordan the backdoor cut, the post-up and offensive rebounds. Fail at any, and he was on the bench.  Dakich learned of his assignment a few hours before the game. Already ill, he went back to his room and threw up.”
Jordan fouled twice early in the game and it was he who spent unexpected minutes on the bench.  Jordan told Lopresti in an interview: “When I got back in the second half, I felt like I was trying to cram 40 minutes into 20 minutes,” he said. “I could never find any sync in my game.”
A post last week listed all the NCAA basketball tournaments photographed by Hugh Morton.  The list did not include 1984.  Once I heard that these two teams would play against each there once again, I immediately flashed on a photograph I’ve had on my office door for several years until very recently:

I lived in Indiana for fourteen years before moving to North Carolina to work in the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, so it was a fitting photograph—my new state rising above my old state.  What stuck in my mind’s eye, though, was the 1984 banner in the lower right corner.  That’s when I knew I could add another tournament to Morton’s list.  Checking the finding aid revealed that he also photographed the opening rounds played in Charlotte.
In the Morton collection there is one roll of 35mm black-and-white film and second roll of color transparencies.  The latter are mostly substandard as Morton missed focused on most of his exposures.  Only one color image is online; the description, however, did not mention that the game was in the NCAA tournament so it did not turn up in my search.
Today we (that is, our scanning technician) scanned the roll of black-and-white negatives and present three of Morton’s better photographs from the game.