UNC, Kansas provide epic love letter to college hoops — in a crushing loss for Tar Heels
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UNC, Kansas basketball share storied history
North Carolina and Kansas share more college basketball history than perhaps any two other schools. From Dean Smith to Roy Williams, Hall-of-Fame coaches are just part of the reason why.
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This much ballyhooed, much-anticipated, much-celebrated meeting between Kansas and North Carolina here on Friday night seemed headed for a letdown, and looked for the longest time like the game itself might actually be the only disappointing aspect about the whole thing.
Because everything else was awesome: the build-up, the hype, the decibel level inside Allen Fieldhouse, where students had been waiting for this for days; waiting for this monumental meeting between two of college basketball’s original and oldest members of its royal family.
But then there was the game, itself, and let’s be honest: Before it suddenly turned riveting and dramatic and into the sort of thing that’s the very best of the sport — long before Kansas was left celebrating its 92-89 victory while UNC was left crushed with the sort of cruelty usually only reserved for March — the affair was, well, sort of meh.
Anticlimactic, perhaps, is the more accurate word — that after all of this (gestures everywhere, from those well-documented connections from James Naismith to Phog Allen to Dean Smith to Roy Williams) it seemed headed for a blowout.
And how sad that would’ve been.
How unfair, maybe, given the rarity of this kind of meeting. How supremely unfitting, and unsatisfying, that the history connecting Naismith, who invented the sport, and Michael Jordan, who perfected it, wouldn’t produce something worthy.
The Jayhawks led by 20 late in the first half and by 15 at halftime, and you could already hear the Take Machine revving up on social media: that Carolina has just lost a step; that something about its program is just a little off; that Kansas understands this modern era and UNC doesn’t; that the Heels whiffed on the transfer portal and the Jayhawks didn’t; that UNC is slip sliding away.
Well, never mind with all of that, huh?
It’s almost like these programs can’t help themselves; can’t help but get together to provide classic, memorable basketball theater – the latest of which came in something amazing and undecided until Elliot Cadeau’s final 3-point attempt bounced short off the rim as the final seconds ticked away. That UNC was even in that position was a victory, in itself, given how it started.
And no, this isn’t a program content with moral victories. It never should be, or will be.
The pain of defeat was still plain on coach Hubert Davis’ face, and he had to compliment his team’s comeback almost through gritted teeth; almost as if he hated saying anything nice after a loss.
“I was really proud of them,” at least Davis managed, “how they got back into the game.”
Most high-level college basketball teams pretty much everywhere are playing patsies this time of year, warming their way into more difficult competition. Davis, though, made a point of scheduling a road trip to Kansas — where UNC hadn’t played since 1960 — in Game 2, though he didn’t want to make a big deal out of that, either, afterward.
“So what,” basically was his answer to a question about it. Kansas has the return trip to UNC next season, he said.
RJ Davis, the Tar Heels’ senior guard provided more of an explanation.
“That’s the type of coach Hubert Davis is, and that’s the type of player he was,” RJ Davis said. “He’s always ran towards the smoke, and that’s what he always talked about – embracing that.”
A game like that, against a team like this ...
“That’s who you’re going to be playing against at the end of March,” RJ Davis said.
But back to the “smoke,” as he put it. Kansas brought plenty of it to UNC early, throughout most of the first half. The Jayhawks were better everywhere: on the perimeter with Zeke Mayo and KJ Adams; on the inside with the lumbering Hunter Dickinson. It looked for the longest time like the Tar Heels didn’t necessarily belong on this stage, and like they weren’t ready for the moment.
A legion of message-board and Twitter takes were being written. That Kansas coach Bill Self was the basketball savant, worthy of coaching in a building that literally has Naismith’s original rules of basketball (or “Basket Ball,” as he wrote it at the time) preserved in a wall in a concourse upstairs. That Hubert Davis, who indeed missed on his most coveted off-season targets, was overmatched.
But then it was something like fate or magic or both. It was as if Naismith and Phog and Dean Smith themselves all came together wherever they might be in their eternity and convened; like they agreed on some kind of Higher Power intervention: That no, it couldn’t go down like it looked like it was going to go down, could it? That there had to be some theater befitting their legacies.
And so it was. UNC’s comeback began humbly: chipping away here, and there.
And then, suddenly, an eight- or nine- or 10-point game was down to six. And three.
And gone, after a Jae’Lyn Withers’ corner 3-pointer, followed by a layup, with seven minutes to play. From there, when the Tar Heels held an 80-79 lead, the lead changed three more times. The margin for either never grew larger than four points. The noise level never ebbed to something quieter than a jet engine, and was louder than that during Kansas’ final surge.
Everything about, well, everything here was a love letter to college basketball. A tribute to a sport that needs juice and attention and a way to capture interest outside of March. And yes, there are those neutral site non-conference games and “classics” that have become popular over the past 10 or 15 years, some of which are often compelling. But not like this was compelling.
“If you can’t be fired up to compete and play in this type of atmosphere against that type of team, then something is wrong with you,” Hubert Davis said.
His players, despite their shaky first 20 minutes, met the moment even if they failed to finish. UNC held a four-point lead with three and a half minutes to play, yet only scored two more points the rest of the way. The Jayhawks finished on a 9-2 run, with Dickinson scoring the final three points after it was tied at 89 with one minute, 45 seconds to play.
Undoubtedly, that closing stretch will be studied when the Tar Heels gather to watch film in the coming days. Undoubtedly, Davis will spend no shortage of time going over the final play, and how it broke down and forced Cadeau to settle for a shot that was not particularly ideal. But, undoubtedly, this was the sort of atmosphere, and test, that could and should pay dividends.
At halftime, Davis emphasized and reemphasized one of his favorite words: toughness.
He was animated. He was fiery, and loud. The message was clear.
That “we’ve got to be tough; we’ve got to want to fight,” said Seth Trimble, who led the Tar Heels with 19 points. “We’ve got to play with emotion. We can’t just be on the court with a straight face the whole time.
“You know,” Trimble said of his coach, “he got really emotional in the locker room.”
And then here came the response, and a second half worthy of everything else that had surrounded this stage and moment – all the obvious storylines with the history and those deep connections. There was so much build-up to it all that it seemed impossible for the actual game to live up to any of it. And indeed, it looked that way at halftime. Like, alas – at least the atmosphere was good.
As it turned out, the show hadn’t even really started. Gradually, the real thing took over. It really was as if the Tar Heels and Jayhawks had no other choice but to make some more college basketball magic. It’s happened before in the national championship game and in the Final Four and, now, in early November. College basketball continues to change. Rosters turn over more and more frequently. Coaches and fans grumble about NIL and the portal and what’s being lost.
And here were Kansas and North Carolina, delivering a classic. Same as it ever was.
This story was originally published November 8, 2024 at 9:38 PM.
