Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 14, 1993 TAG: 9303140112
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
CAVALIERS' OFFENSE IN DEEP FREEZE
Even in the snowiest ACC Tournament in history, some things couldn't be buried.Enough Virginia jump shots, for one. Top-ranked North Carolina for another.
The great blizzard of 1993 hit Semifinal Saturday, on the heels of the most upsetting day in 40 years of this basketball bash. For the Cavaliers, however, it was another typically cold day against the Tar Heels.
As Carolina's two regular-season routs of UVa showed, a power shortage for the Cavs against Dean Smith's team isn't anything unusual. This time, after the weather outside turned out the lights inside the Charlotte Coliseum, Virginia's offense really became a shot in the dark.
Carolina bolted to a 74-56 victory to reach the ACC final for the 21st time. Virginia's ball-handling was as frightful as the weather, and not even a four-wheel-drive vehicle could have gotten the Cavaliers to the free-throw line.
Although it was Carolina that kept going to the stripe, Smith cried foul about the officiating, saying the biggest Heel was being held and hacked in the first half.
At the first intermission, the field-goal and rebound totals for 7-foot center Eric Montross matched his uniform number - 00 - but even then Carolina owned a 35-30 lead that had once been 13.
Virginia was in the game until the lights were out for almost half an hour, even though the Cavaliers hadn't shot a free throw. UVa didn't go to the stripe until its 51st possession.
When the Cavaliers finally did, they couldn't score anyway. It wasn't officiating that took UVa out of a tournament that lost three of the top four seeds in Friday's quarterfinals.
UVa converted on only one of its first nine possessions after the power outage. That was the real dark side in UVa's bid for a 20th victory.
The only thing that stood between Smith and second place on the career Division I coaching victories list was Virginia's defense - and that wasn't big enough.
If UVa coach Jeff Jones was fuming about the free-throw-line difference after the game, during the contest he was reluctant to use the power of persuasion with the officials.
The Cavaliers' coach displayed even less emotion than usual on the sideline, standing passively, arms folded as UNC pulled away for its 27th win in 30 games.
Jones already had beaten Smith once during tournament week, if only on paper. In a poll published Thursday, Greensboro newspaper readers voted Jones the ACC's sexiest coach. Even with that haircut.
Smith was second. However, when the NCAA Tournament seeds are handed out this evening, the dean of active coaches likely won't be taking a back seat to anyone.
With depth, with size, with experience, Carolina is a special team.
In Montross, it has the aircraft carrier most clubs lack, right down to the huge Hoosier's appropriately flat-top haircut.
Since 1980, eight of the 13 ACC Tournament champions have reached the NCAA Final Four. UNC could make it 9-for-14 today and next month.
Virginia doesn't know where it will be seeded in the NCAA, but the Cavaliers know where they want to play.
It isn't in the Tar Heels' shadow.