THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 27, 1996 TAG: 9601270403
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Comment
SOURCE: BY FRANK VEHORN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
PUH-leeze! Is it possible to make it through the remainder of the ACC season without being told two or three times a day that Dean Smith is doing his finest coaching job at North Carolina?
We can only hope, but chances are we will hear it mentioned another few thousand times - especially if the Tar Heels get by Wake Forest today to emerge the front-runner for, oh-hum, another ACC regular-season title.
But, why should anyone be so surprised the Tar Heels are in the title hunt to claim it is taking Smith's ``finest coaching job'' to get them there?
This is only the 32nd straight year Smith's Tar Heels have been in the running - finishing among the top three each season and winning 17 titles.
Sure, we know this was supposed to be a rare payback season for the rest of the league. So rare, in fact, only once in Smith's 35 years at Chapel Hill have his Heels failed to produce a winning ACC record and finish out of the first division.
Some thought this season would be different because Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, the sophomores who led North Carolina to the Final Four last year, had made the jump for the money.
The cupboard never seemed so bare at the Dean Dome.
Smith was left to depend on two veteran guards, a trio of unproven freshmen, and a senior center who had drawn more chuckles than cheers his first three seasons.
How bad might it be?
The school that had finished in the top 20 in 24 of the last 25 years began this season left out of that select group.
Now here we are, almost halfway through the ACC season, listening to those experts telling us that Smith is doing his best coaching job ever.
They should be telling us that they were wrong to underestimate Smith, whose Tar Heels rank 11th and are tied for the ACC lead with a 5-1 record.
Did someone forget that the cupboard gets only so bare at the Dean Dome? When a door closes on one All-American, it opens for another.
And, of course, there is Smith, so good at his craft that he's made winning look so easy, so routine, that only twice in the last 18 years has he been voted ACC Coach of the Year.
Smith claims not to be bothered by such oversights and adds he could care less if he never received a coaching award.
``You are hired to do a job and if you are good enough at it, you get to keep the job,'' he said recently.
He flinches whenever anyone notes that he is 32 victories away from tying Adolph Rupp's Division I record of 876 - a milestone he should reach next season.
Smith surely must scowl, too, each time he clicks on the television and hears that he is doing his finest coaching job ever.
While those saying it mean it as a compliment, the remark tends to discredit all Smith has accomplished in previous seasons.
``He always does a great job,'' says Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins. ``That win over Kentucky in last year's Southeast Region championship game was unbelievable.''
Still, nothing is more unbelievable than Smith's record for keeping the Tar Heels among college basketball's upper crust for three decades.
Bobby Knight's Hoosiers have bounced up and down the Big Ten standings like a yo-yo, as has John Thompson's program at Georgetown, and Mike Krzyzewski's Blue Devils are the latest to learn what goes up usually must come down.
Smith's Tar Heels have been the exception for three decades.
Sure, Smith is doing another great job this year. While Maryland struggles without Joe Smith, and Virginia wrestles with chemistry, the Heels have solved greater problems without missing a beat.
Smith made adjustments for the team's inexperience on defense by playing more zone, and he put the offense in the hands of his most experienced players, guards Jeff McInnis and Dante Calabria.
But, his best coaching job ever?
Not hardly. It's only more of the same ol', same ol'. by CNB