A March to Madness by John Feinstein

Author:John Feinstein [FEINSTEIN, JOHN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sports & Recreation / Basketball, Sports & Recreation / Coaching / Basketball
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2014-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

About seven hundred miles to the northeast, another coach was walking to his car that night in something approaching a state of shock: Dean Smith.

There weren’t many nights when Smith walked out of the building named for him a loser—Carolina was 122–16 in its first eleven years in the DeanDome—and the number of nights in his life when he had watched his team blow a 22-point lead could be counted on one hand. But that was what he had just witnessed. With 14:24 left in the game, Carolina freshman point guard Ed Cota had split the Maryland defense for a layup to make the score 66–44. Nine minutes and 52 seconds later, a shell-shocked Smith called a 20-second time-out. The score at that point was Maryland 72, Carolina 68. The Terrapins had outscored the Tar Heels 28–2.

In the DeanDome.

In the front of the usual sellout of 21,444.

More important, in front of Dean.

If Smith was stunned, Gary Williams was amazed. He had been all over his team at halftime for letting Carolina bring the game to them, for not being aggressive, for being intimidated by their first game in a hostile arena. The score at that point was 50–38. The tirade didn’t help. For the first six minutes, Carolina, which had shot 58 percent in the first half, continued to dominate the game. Then, when a rout seemed inevitable, the game suddenly turned 180 degrees with extraordinary swiftness. Maryland ripped off 14 straight points in a little more than three minutes. Still, the Terrapins trailed by eight. Serge Zwikker stopped the bleeding for Carolina with a rebound basket, but Terrell Stokes went right through the defense for a layup to cut the margin to eight again.

Smith, who hates to call time except in the endgame, called a 20-second time-out to calm things down. It didn’t help. Maryland kept forcing turnovers and making shots. It took the lead at 69–68 with 5:07 left on a Laron Profit layup. When Profit drained a three pointer 32 seconds later, Smith called his second 20-second time-out. By then, it was so quiet in the building you could hear sweat drops hitting the floor.

Carolina teams are famous for their resiliency. For them to be 22 down and come back to lead was almost commonplace. Even after the 28–2 run, there was still plenty of time left to turn it around. It wouldn’t happen on this night. The Tar Heels never got even again. Maryland pulled away in the final minute for an 85–75 win. The score of the last 14 minutes of the game was 41–9.

When the buzzer sounded, Williams found himself staring at the scoreboard, almost unable to believe the numbers could be accurate. He walked down the court to shake hands with Smith and felt a little bit shaken. Smith looked gray to him, his hair looked gray, his face looked gray. He looked old. “I’ve never thought of Dean as old,” he said later. “At that moment, he looked old to me.”

It was

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