Rivalry couldn’t dim NC State’s respect for Dean Smith

N.C. State beat North Carolina and Dean Smith in overtime in the semifinals of the 1983 ACC tournament in Atlanta.

It was the kind of improbable come-from-behind win that Smith had engineered so many times for the Tar Heels.

It was notable because Smith was on the other end, and it was one of several dramatic wins by N.C. State en route to winning the national title.

Under normal circumstances, that game would be the first memory to pop into Dereck Whittenburg’s mind.

But with the news of Smith’s passing, Whittenburg, one of the stars of the ’83 team and now an assistant coach for the Wolfpack, recalled a different memory of the late Carolina legend.

Ten years after that ACC tournament win by N.C. State, Smith went up to Whittenburg at Jim Valvano’s funeral.

“Jimmy really loved you,” Smith told Whittenburg.

“That conversation, those five minutes he took to talk to me, that really meant a lot,” Whittenburg said.

“That’s the way Dean was. He was a great coach, but he was a better man.”

Smith built a dynasty in 36 years at UNC. He was 60-30 against N.C. State, winning his first game against the Wolfpack and coach Everett Case in January 1962 and his last, for the 1997 ACC title, against Herb Sendek’s first team.

Case helped create the ACC and the religion of basketball in the state of North Carolina, but Smith took the conference to another level with his success and longevity.

Smith won 879 games, the most by any Division I coach when he retired, two national titles, made 11 trips to the Final Four and finished an incredible 33 straight years in the top 3 of the ACC standings.

“As a kid growing up, he was always the ACC,” former N.C. State guard Chris Corchiani said Sunday.

Corchiani went 3-5 against UNC in four seasons from 1988 to ’91, including Valvano’s last win over Smith, 88-77 on Feb. 7, 1990 in Chapel Hill.

Like so many other people who interacted with Smith, Corchiani’s memory of him isn’t related to the basketball court.

“We got them a couple of times,” Corchiani said. “I saw him at a golf tournament after I retired and he remembered certain games and certain plays. He had the sharpest memory. He was amazing.”

What Corchiani remembers most about Smith was in 1993. During training camp with the Boston Celtics, two former UNC players – Rick Fox and Matt Wenstrom – were playing cards.

Fox was a star at UNC, and on his way to a long, productive NBA career. Wenstrom was a rookie, a reserve on the Heels’ 1993 national championship team.

During the card game, Smith called Wenstrom.

“He was just calling to check up and see how he was doing,” Corchiani said. “Most coaches will just call their stars. He kept an eye on everybody that was in his family.”

Smith got along better with some N.C. State coaches (Valvano and Les Robinson) than others, (Norm Sloan).

Smith clashed with Sloan in the 1970s, with the Wolfpack gaining a rare upper hand in the series with a nine-game winning streak from 1972 to ’75, thanks to the efforts of David Thompson and Tommy Burleson. Despite that streak, Smith still finished with a 26-14 record against Sloan.

Valvano and Smith were competitive but respected each other and were cordial. Smith had an 18-7 mark against Valvano.

Valvano and Sloan each won a national title, but Robinson had the most success against Smith. Robinson’s 5-7 record against Smith was better than either of N.C. State’s championship winning coaches.

Robinson saw Smith’s career from beginning to end. The Wolfpack guard played against some of Smith’s first UNC teams in the 1960s, then coached against him in the 1990s and was N.C. State’s athletics director in 1997 when Smith retired.

Robinson respected Smith’s basketball acumen, like everyone else, but he also appreciated his tactical gamesmanship. Ever the competitor, Smith was always looking for an angle.

“He always had something to say, it was always calculated,” Robinson said.

Robinson, who succeeded Valvano in 1991 and took over as the program was hit hard by stringent recruiting and academic standards, had more success against UNC than just about any other school.

After N.C. State beat UNC, 99-94 at Chapel Hill on Feb. 22, 1992, Robinson and Smith shook hands and spoke briefly at midcourt.

When Robinson relays the story, he breaks into his Smith impersonation:

“He said, ‘Les, you ought to play us more often.’ ”

Smith got the best of N.C. State more often than not. That’s what made the 1983 ACC tournament so special for the Wolfpack.

Whittenburg detailed the 91-84 Wolfpack win in “Survive and Advance,” the ESPN documentary about the Wolfpack’s ’83 NCAA title.

With 2 seconds left in regulation, UNC had the ball in front of N.C. State’s bench and the game tied at 70.

Matt Doherty threw a baseball pass, a strike, to Sam Perkins, who was about a step behind the NBA 3-point line. Perkins came free off of a screen and caught the ball in front of UNC’s bench.

He squared and took a clean shot

“I can still see it right now,” current UNC coach Roy Williams, who was an assistant at the time, said on the documentary. “I thought it was going to be in.”

Perkins’ shot rimmed out. N.C. State never would have been in the NCAA tournament if Perkins’ shot had fallen, never would have made history.

“We were kind of due against them, but that was typical Dean Smith,” Whittenburg said. “He drew up the right play. He was a tremendous coach.”

This story was originally published February 8, 2015 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Rivalry couldn’t dim NC State’s respect for Dean Smith."