Once and for all...

LONG EFFORT EARNS 49ERS GAME AT UNC
By Stan Olson, Staff Writer, The Charlotte Observer
December 12, 1998

It was April 1996, and UNC Charlotte athletics director Judy Rose was at a fund-raising golf tournament when her cell phone rang. Then-North Carolina athletics director John Swofford was on the line.

Swofford was calling to invite the 49ers to play in the Harris Teeter Pepsi Challenge, the Raycom-organized basketball tournament (now called the Food Lion MVP Classic) that features the Tar Heels each December.

"John's thinking was that if we allow you to play in the Pepsi tournament, then we would like another game, a home game,'' Rose said. "I said, Well John, what about we play at your place and you play here?' And he went, No, no, no. This is the return game - us allowing y'all to play (in the tournament).' They set the conditions.''

Still, Swofford's offer got the 49ers, who had not played their sister university since UNCC had begun playing basketball in 1965, in the door. That call would lead to the first regular-season game between the schools, a game which takes place tonight at 7 in the Smith Center in Chapel Hill.

UNCC's invitation to the tournament was the culmination of an effort begun more than a year earlier when, Rose said, she and then-49ers basketball coach Jeff Mullins went to see NationsBank CEO Hugh McColl to ask for his help in gaining admission to the tournament.

Mullins, Rose and many UNCC supporters resented that the event, begun in 1988, had included the 49ers only in 1991, when they won it (and N.C. State, not North Carolina, was in the event). Mullins was so disturbed by his team's absence from the field that he scheduled road trips for his team when the event was being played.

"I just didn't want to be here and read all the publicity about it,'' he said.

That led to the visit with McColl.

"The reason we got in was because Hugh talked to them,'' Rose said.

"I don't know that I made any contribution,'' McColl said. "I talked to (North Carolina coach) Dean Smith about it, and just told him it would be very helpful to our city and to the university to get the 49ers into our tournament.

"I don't remember his specific response, but he did say he would give it some thought and if it did happen, it would be all the better if North Carolina and UNCC could meet in the championship of the tournament.''

The UNCC-North Carolina tournament pairing wasn't a certainty. If each team won its first-round game, the teams would play for the championship the following night. If each lost, they would play in the consolation game. The 49ers, though, lost to South Carolina, and the Tar Heels beat Southern California, and the matchup didn't happen.

Still, there was that promised return game in Chapel Hill the following year. UNCC, with an outstanding team that featured DeMarco Johnson and Sean Colson, couldn't wait.

Except that Smith called to suggest they postpone the game for a year.

"There were a bunch of scheduling things that came up and we couldn't get it in,'' Smith said through a UNC spokesman.

For many years, Smith had had a rule that his Tar Heels would not play any in-state nonconference opponents. His thinking was that if he played one or two, all would want to play, and there were simply too many North Carolina schools to accommodate them all.

He didn't waver for decades, but changed his mind when former UNC player and assistant Randy Wiel became coach at UNC Ashville. Smith wanted to give Wiel a game, and played the Bulldogs in 1994 and 1995. Then, when Buzz Peterson, another of Smith's former players, got the Appalachian State job, Smith decided to pencil in the Mountaineers for last season.

He decided the best way to do that was to ask UNCC to postpone its Chapel Hill trip for a year.

"When it came up last year that they didn't want to play us, it was not an amicable agreement,'' Rose said. "Because I said, No, we want to play.' And they said, Well, coach Smith doesn't want to play,' and I said, Well coach (Melvin) Watkins does.'"

Since there was no contract - merely a handshake agreement - Rose agreed to let the coaches work it out. So Watkins, now at Texas A&M, talked to Smith.

"What he told me when we talked on the phone was that they needed to get a game with Buzz at Appalachian,'' Watkins said. "And what am I going to tell him about that?''

Watkins said he tried to sell Smith on a matchup between UNCC's Johnson and the Tar Heels' Antawn Jamison, the two standout forwards from Charlotte, but Smith wasn't buying.

"Then it was sort of, OK, then that's what it's got to be,'' Watkins said.

The game was postponed until this year. Until tonight.

Meanwhile, Smith retired and gave way to Bill Guthridge, and the teams' first meeting surprised everyone, coming in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Hartford, Conn. UNCC forced the favored Tar Heels into overtime before losing 93-83.

And now, after all those years, they meet in the regular season. It may be many more years before it happens again.

Smith, who still helps with scheduling, said Friday that he would try to keep scheduling one in-state, nonconference, Division I opponent each season. Other Division I branches of the consolidated university not in the ACC are Appalachian State, East Carolina, UNC Asheville, N.C. A&T, UNC Greensboro, UNC Wilmington and Western Carolina.

It may be some time before UNCC's turn comes around again.

Tar Heels athletics director Dick Baddour, asked about scheduling UNCC, said, "Down the road, maybe after we look at some other opportunities for other schools, maybe that will happen.''

Until then, UNCC has tonight.

 

REMATCH TIPS TO HEELS
By Stan Olson, Staff Writer, The Charlotte Observer
December 13, 1998

The game UNC Charlotte basketball fans had waited so long for - the first regular-season meeting with North Carolina in 49ers' history - turned out to be worth the wait.

Overtime again, just like last year in the NCAA tournament. Heart-stopping again, just like last year. And finally, just like last year, another Tar Heels' victory, this time 75-73.

But all No. 7-ranked North Carolina escaped with was a victory. UNCC took home, for the second straight year, the knowledge that it can play with the Tar Heels. And the 49ers left the Smith Center with a busload of pride.

"There was no happiness in our locker room; you're not happy when you lose,'' said UNCC coach Bobby Lutz, "but I'm just so proud of the way this team played. I think this was the smartest game we played all year, and proved again we can play with anybody if we play that way.''

The teams might still be playing but for the one weapon for which UNCC had no answer, 7-foot North Carolina center Brendan Haywood. The big sophomore intimidated early and decided the game late.

The 49ers' Diego Guevara had just knocked in his career-high seventh three-pointer to forge a tie at 73 with 11 seconds in overtime. North Carolina's Ed Cota brought the ball down but was forced onto the left baseline by Guevara, and threw up a difficult jumper with three seconds left.

Haywood, coming from the other side, grabbed the rebound and laid it in just before the buzzer.

"I got good position on the weakside like they teach us,'' Haywood said. "The ball came my way and I put it in.''

UNCC forward Tremaine Gardiner, whose brilliant 13-point, eight-rebound second half helped raise the 49ers from the apparent dead, said, ``We were slow rotating back on the boards after Cota's shot and Haywood put it in.''

The basket put a painful end to UNCC's storybook comeback. The 49ers had trailed by 13 before Jobey Thomas' three-pointer cut the margin to 33-23 in the final second of the first half.

But the second period brought out an entirely different bunch of 49ers. UNCC hit its first three shots - all three-pointers, two by Guevara - and started the half on a 15-2 run to take the lead.

From there the momentum shifted back and forth. UNCC (6-3) led by as many as six at 60-54 with 4:34 left in regulation and then trailed by five in OT. But it all came down to Haywood, who had considered attending UNCC before picking the Tar Heels.

He, for one, was impressed with his cross-state brethren.

"That guy Guevara, he can flat-out shoot,'' Haywood said.

Small consolation to the 49ers.

"This game hurt, more than any game this year,'' Gardiner said. "This game hurt. But we did show the basketball world that we are a team that will compete and compete in every game, no matter who we're playing.''

Unfortunately, who they're playing won't be North Carolina again anytime soon. The Tar Heels hope to play one in-state non-conference Division I opponent each year, and UNCC now drops to the end of the line.

Which is a shame, according to North Carolina freshman Kris Lang, who had 17 points and six rebounds.

"They played a sensational second half; I'd love to play 'em every year,'' said Lang, a Gastonia native. "It's a good rivalry for a non-conference game. It'd be great competition every time, and exciting.''

Don't expect North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge to be in any hurry to call the 49ers. He talked of preferring to play out-of-state teams and said of UNCC, "There's nothing on the horizon right now.''

Two great escapes in two seasons is apparently enough.

 

UNCC GRABS NORTH CAROLINA'S, BASKETBALL WORLD'S ATTENTION
By Stan Olson, Staff Writer, The Charlotte Observer
March 15, 1998

The North Carolina athletic department official shook his head.

"Now I know why we don't play them,'' he said.

Now the entire basketball world knows. Because Saturday afternoon, UNC Charlotte played the No. 1-ranked Tar Heels even through 40 minutes. Dead even.

Eventually, North Carolina escaped this second-round East Region NCAA tournament matchup, pulling away to a 93-83 victory in overtime in the Hartford Civic Center.

But not before Tar Heels fans, who have virtually ignored UNCC's young program since its 1965 inception, were scared into paying attention.

"I think UNC Charlotte is the best eighth seed I've ever seen,'' said North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge. "`They're really a good team. This was like a regional final, the caliber of competition. Definitely we ducked a bullet.''

A green-and-white bullet noisily supported by almost all of the crowd of 16,105.

But there was surprisingly little satisfaction for the losers in their close call.

UNCC coach Melvin Watkins climbed solemnly up on the podium, leaned toward the microphone and said, "I want to make it perfectly clear - no moral victories. These kids worked too hard, and we expected to win the game.

"Kids know they can't play for me if they don't expect to win.''

And to a man, Watkins' players echoed his sentiments.

They had played hard, outrebounding the taller Tar Heels 43-34 and prompting North Carolina junior all-American Antawn Jamison to say, "They were relentless. I was really impressed with the way they checked us on the boards.''

Twenty-three of UNCC's rebounds were offensive, as the 49ers threw their bodies at the ball at every opportunity.

Perhaps the most wounded by the defeat was senior point guard Sean Colson, a shining talent who misplaced his jump shot for much of the game. But down the stretch, Colson consistently beat North Carolina's Ed Cota to get inside and get the 49ers back in the game.

Then UNCC freshman Diego Guevara electrified the building with a three-pointer over Jamison to tie it at 74 with less than three seconds left, but the 49ers stumbled badly in overtime.

In a four-possession stretch, Colson, tiring after playing all 45 minutes, had a shot blocked and threw the ball away twice, and it was over.

"If we'd have just lost, it might've been easier to take, we could say we were just beaten by a better team,'' Colson said, leaning back in his locker. "I really believe we could've won and should've won but we broke down with unforced errors.

"We came here to win but it just didn't happen. That's going to take a long time to get over. We don't have anything to be ashamed of, but we are a little down because we thought we should've won.''

Long after it was over, Watkins stood in his quiet locker room and talked about what was almost his school's greatest victory, and hating the taste of that "almost.''

"We wanted to be playing in Greensboro come next week, and it just didn't happen,'' he said. "I'm not ready to stop playing this year, that's the tough thing. Can we go to the NIT or something? I enjoy being around these kids and they enjoy playing. I'm not ready to give it up yet.''

He has no choice now. But UNCC, hidden in the ACC's long shadow for so, may have spent Saturday stepping out into the light.

"I hope (North Carolinians) understand now that there's good basketball besides tobacco road in our state,'' he said. "Maybe this is a wake-up call for the rest of the state to understand that.''

Saturday, they may have understood at last.

 

Where is the part about UNC being scared?

 

http://theacc.ocsn.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/112304aag.html

2001 Article that says UNCC isn't even in the Tarheel's league.

 

WARNING, click the link in above post at your own risk!

Good attempt Brain! Fortunately I looked at the bottom of my screen first.

 

BOOOOOOO

Its a good thing you're one of my favorites here HP

 

Should be the other way around, my friend. I could've deleted it but that is one of my favorites.

 

But for anyone to believe such an article even exists they deserve to face that

 

The Brain is a real jerk