Possibly the most frustrating rivalry in North Carolina’s long basketball history took place during the David Thompson era at NC State from 1973-75. The Tar Heels played State nine consecutive times while ranked, including seven times in the top 10 and four in the top 5. Carolina lost all nine by an average of 5.3 points. In six of the games, the margin was four or less.
The primary problem was a historically great NC State team with the league’s all-time greatest player having the best two-year run in league history, winning 57 of 58 games and a national championship. While losing to N.C. State, Carolina was winning 80% of its games against everyone else.
Sportswriters were asking if coach Dean Smith needed to change his system to keep up with Norm Sloan and the Wolfpack. The spell finally “broke” on Feb. 25, 1975, when Carolina held on for a two-point win in Chapel Hill, setting off a raucous celebration in Carmichael Auditorium.
Less than two weeks later, the Tar Heels would face NC State again in the ACC Tournament final, creating a matchup psychology not unlike the 2022 Tar Heels facing Duke in the Final Four just three weeks after winning in Cameron in coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last game. Except the ’75 Heels had historically had far more trouble with NC State than the Duke team of a few years ago.
Could the Tar Heels get ready to play their nemesis again? Or would Smith’s program fall further behind the Wolfpack?
The facts
Heading into the ACC tournament, local media considered Carolina, starting a freshman point guard and two sophomores, the fourth-best team in the league. After beating State, Carolina had defeated Duke to finish 8-4 in the standings, part of a three-way tie for second place behind Maryland.
Carolina won a drawing for the second seed, while State drew the fourth seed and landed in Maryland’s bracket. The Tar Heels won miraculously over Wake Forest – aided by a disputed call that a Wake Forest pass hit the overhead scoreboard – and followed with another narrow win over Clemson, placing Carolina in the final. Meanwhile, NC State, struggling to match the previous two years’ standard, seemed to hit its stride, leading Maryland in its semifinal by 15 points with less than four minutes to go. Maryland then scored 16 straight before State’s Kenny Carr scored with 1 second left to win it. The Maryland comeback was significantly aided by Thompson suffering leg cramps.
The final was set, but with more on the line than even an ACC title. The NCAA expanded its tournament that year to allow up to two slots per league. Maryland, the regular-season winner, was guaranteed one of them. This State-Carolina game would be a death match for the other.
Freshman point guard Phil Ford challenged his teammates as they got ready to leave for the Greensboro Coliseum. Common lore has it that Ford said, “Don’t get on the bus if you don’t think we can win.” Ford tells What Happened that he did “say something like that.”
“I believed we could win,” he says today.
As game time approached, the Coliseum crowd was at fever pitch. “The noise built to such intensity that it almost took on a physical presence, becoming something that could almost be touched,” the Charlotte Observer noted. At one point in the first half, Frank Weeden, State’s associate athletic director seated on the front row, jumped up and down in anger at the referees, then shook his finger at the Carolina crowd.
