Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992                   TAG: 9203150117
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Bill Brill
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C.                                 LENGTH: Medium

THESE ARE STILL THE TAR HEELS

The Tar Heels had just beaten Florida State 80-76 to gain a shot at Duke for the ACC Tournament title.

"So many [media] were saying we're done," said North Carolina's 31-year coach. "We're two up [on those predictions]."

After all these years, only an idiot believes the Tar Heels were without hope at tournament time.

Clearly, this is not a vintage Carolina team. It has bulk but not much quickness. It has just one outside shooter, Hubert Davis, who happens to be on a torrid streak at the right time.

But these are still the Tar Heels, the single most successful franchise in the history of college basketball, and when your coach has won 737 games, the team is never, ever, to be taken lightly.

The funny thing is that this was supposed to be the year Tar Heel fans had waited for. UNC had gone to the Final Four last year, only to lose to Smith disciple Roy Williams and suffer the private hell of watching Duke win it all.

But the Fab Five (the original No. 1 recruiting class, not to be confused with Michigan '92) haven't yet panned out.

Clifford Rozier, the most physically gifted of the group, transferred to Louisville. Eric Montross, one of the trio of seven-footers, and Brian Reese are starters, but not stars.

Derrick Phelps is the sophomore point guard, a good defender and penetrator, but not an offensive threat.

But to expect the sophomores to be the leaders ignores the Smith way.

In this program, as inflexible as it is successful, only the superstars like Michael Jordan and Phil Ford make the grade early.

This is the basketball team built around seniors, who, in the Smith way of thinking, are the world's most important people.

Only this team has just one senior - Hubert Davis. So George Lynch, a junior, is filling in quite nicely.

Consider that in Carolina's comeback victory over Wake Forest in the opening round, Davis and Lynch combined for 43 points.

In the triumph over Florida State, they paired up for 49 points, and did almost all the scoring down the stretch.

That Lynch, the 6-foot-7 Roanoke native, had never had back-to-back 20-point games before is not surprising, because in his mind, he's a role player, a team man.

But when your team loses five of six games, and falls from fourth to 20th in The Associated Press poll, more is expected of the veterans. So Lynch delivered.

It's not that he had been having a bad year. He's second in scoring and assists and first in rebounds, not bad for a undersized power forward who yearns to play on the wing.

The Davis story has been told often. Even though his uncle, Walter, was a former UNC All-American and long-time NBA star, little was expected of the unheralded Hubert.

Now, as a senior, he has become the first Smith player ever to average more than 20 points without being all-conference.

And Smith players rarely score that much, because the emphasis is always on the team game.

Smith may be stubborn, but he's not senile. He realized that unless Davis and Lynch did some more scoring, the Tar Heels were destined to finish in a quiet funk.

So they've stepped it up, right on cue. Lynch had a huge game against Georgia Tech as Carolina snapped a four-game losing streak. Davis had a career-high 35 points against Duke.

They've continued that play in the ACC Tournament.

The Carolina records have been recited often, but they are so stunning they bear repetition. For 22 straight seasons the Heels have won 20 games. They have reached the NCAA Sweet 16 the past 12 times, Needless to say, nobody else can come close to that.