ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK THE ROANOKE TIMES
The ACC champion Tar Heels begin their 31st NCAA Tournament against Fairfield, but it's not the UNC game being discussed.
There hasn't been a first-round basketball bye in the NCAA Tournament since 1984. You'd never know that this week at Lawrence Joel Coliseum.
North Carolina is a No.1 seed for the eighth time in 19 years, but the Tar Heels' East Regional first-round date tonight against Fairfield (7:40, WDBJ Channel 7) is being treated like a JV game at best.
Barring the most stunning upset in the NCAA's 59-year tournament history, UNC coach Dean Smith will tie late Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp for the all-time victory record in major-college coaching, at 876.
Then, Smith could go for the mark Saturday afternoon against another sideline icon, Indiana's Bobby Knight - providing the Hoosiers (22-10) can get their bombastic boss his 701st triumph in tonight's Joel Coliseum nightcap against Colorado (21-9).
The second-round game is one of the most anticipated events in college hoops history. Against Smith, Knight would be seeking his 600th Hoosier victory.
Somehow, Smith going for Rupp's record against Buffaloes coach Ricardo Patton (25-18) doesn't have the same allure.
Smith, of course, is all but asking, ``What record?'' - and he doesn't mean Fairfield's 11-18.
At the UNC briefing on the NCAA eve at the Tim Duncan Dome, Smith said he was ``very pleased with what each of [his] teams has accomplished ... I'm trying very hard to avoid any distraction away from this year's team. I'm trying to do my job, and that's to do my best for them.''
There is no question that Smith's place in hoops history, while already secure, will be elevated in an arena where - he reminded everyone Wednesday - the Heels opened their ACC season with a 24-point loss to Wake Forest 10 days after Christmas.
``In January, I wanted to say, `Who needs this?''' Smith said, joking about Carolina's 0-3 ACC start, the worst league opening for the program dating to the mid-1920s in the Southern Conference.
If there is a concern about the date with the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament champions, who came from last place in the MAAC regular season, it is in Carolina's backcourt. ACC tournament most valuable player Shammond Williams sprained his left ankle in practice Tuesday.
``Someone dove into me for a ball and I rolled'' the ankle, Williams said of the injury, on which trainer Mark David worked for much of Tuesday night. ``I'm wearing an air cast.''
Smith said he thought the injured guard would be OK by game time, but freshman Ed Cota is likely to see increased playing time against the Stags.
Carolina's 12-game winning streak ranks third in the nation, behind the 22 straight by College of Charleston and 19 by Princeton (24-3), which faces Cal (21-8) at soldout Joel in today's 12:15 p.m. opener. Villanova, the East's No.4 seed, meets Long Island University in the other afternoon game.
Fairfield coach Paul Cormier, whose front line averages 6-feet-5, said that if the Heels ``pummel it inside, we don't have a chance. We're going to try to clog up the paint and make them shoot 3s.''
Carolina (24-6) has made more than 50 percent of its field-goal tries in each of the past eight games, and 13 times in the last 15 games. Smith pointed to his team's improved shot selection.
He just wouldn't talk about what most everyone else, including Cormier, would.
``For someone like me, [Smith] has got to be an idol,'' said the Stags' coach, who has 161 victories in 13 seasons at Dartmouth and Fairfield. ``You try to emulate what he's done to some degree.''
If you're on Smith's team, however, you don't talk about it. When asked about his coach's perch on the edge of a number only one other man has reached, Heels center Serge Zwikker smiled and said, ``Ah, the golden question.
``There isn't any pressure for us,'' Zwikker said. ``It's an honor to be on his team when the record will be broken, but that's the last thing on our minds. It's a record that, if we keep winning, we'll get automatically.''
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. North Carolina coach Dean Smith fieldsby CNBquestions from the national media during Wednesday's NCAA East
Region press conference at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem, N.C.