Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 6, 1993 TAG: 9304060201
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS LENGTH: Medium
UNC KNEADS TURNOVERS INTO VICTORY
There may be a Dean Dome in Chapel Hill, N.C., but the site of the 55th NCAA Tournament championship game has to be Dean's Dome.North Carolina has won two NCAA basketball championships in coach Dean Smith's 32 seasons as the Tar Heels' boss. Both have turned on appropriately immense plays in the Louisiana Superdome.
Michigan coach Steve Fisher, on the losing side Monday night to an ACC team for the second straight year, described and defined both UNC championships with one sentence.
"In the heat of the moment," Fisher said, "strange things happen."
Then, he summed them up in one word.
"Inexplicable," Fisher said.
End of season - again.
In 1982, Carolina clinched its first title for Smith 63-62 when Georgetown guard Fred Brown, with the Hoyas holding for a potential winning shot, nervously spun right and inexplicably made a pass to the Heels' James Worthy.
Eleven years later, with UNC ahead 73-71, Michigan had the ball when with 11 seconds left, Wolverines star Chris Webber called a timeout.
It was one too many for the Fab Five. It was just enough for the Tar Heels' school record 34th victory, when Donald Williams - voted the Final Four's outstanding player - made two technical foul shots to seal a 77-71 win.
"I probably lost the game for us," said Webber.
It will be remembered that way by historians, but it's certainly not entirely accurate. Webber had a double-double before his trouble, and Michigan led 67-63 with 4:14 remaining.
The Wolverines went the next 3:27 without scoring.
The stretch included three of the worst judgment plays seen in a title game by Jalen Rose, a point guard making his 68th start.
Rose threw away two passes in the final 4:30 and took a 22-foot jump shot from above the key with 38 seconds left and the Wolverines' down three.
Of course, that wasn't any more bizarre than some of Smith's incessant substitutions, or the traveling call not whistled on Webber seconds before he called the excessive timeout.
With 6:50 left and UNC down, Smith had only one starter - 7-footer Eric Montross - on the floor with Henrik Rodl, Kevin Salvadori, Pat Sullivan and Scott Cherry. The UNC coach was trying to kill time.
It seemed the Tar Heels were killing themselves.
"It was a funny thing, we seemed to die out there," Smith said. "We wanted to run the clock and tire them out. I looked out there and we were the ones that looked tired. Maybe it was just nervous energy that was getting to us."
A spin move with 2:04 left brought the last basket in the college career of UNC's George Lynch. Appropriately for the first Roanoker to win an NCAA basketball title, it was huge - as was a Montross stuff with 1:01 to go that made the score 72-67.
However, the ACC's third straight national title trophy was tilted toward the perimeter, where Williams had all five of the Tar Heels' 3-point goals.
Michigan and UNC battled even inside. Although the Wolverines had the five stellar second-year starters who weren't feeling so fab for a second straight first Monday of April, it was UNC's shooting guard who was the best sophomore on the floor.
UNC won differently than it had most of a 34-4 season. Its average margin in winning 17 of its last 18 games was 19.5 points. In avenging a Rainbow Classic loss to Michigan, UNC needed every bit of its experience.
Smith, in his ninth Final Four, also wasn't going to say he was handed a championship trophy until the Tar Heels stepped onto the postgame victory stand.
"Neither one of those plays necessarily means we would have lost," he said of the opponents' finishing mistakes 11 years apart. "One play doesn't make a game."
Try convincing Michigan.
Most tourists who visit "The Big Easy" head to the French Quarter for those doughy rolls known as beignets.
The Tar Heels, however, have feasted on two big turnovers.