Tar Heels march on to Elite Eight

BY MIKE LONDON
SALISBURY POST

Instead, the Tar Heels are proving they’re a trouble team. Trouble, that is, for anyone that has the misfortune to be bracketed opposite them in this wild and crazy NCAA Tournament.

Eighth-seeded Carolina is just 21-13 after extending its postseason fun run with a stirring 74-69 comeback win over fourth-seeded Tennessee on Friday night in a South Region semifinal game at the University of Texas’ Erwin Center. But the Heels are 3-0 in their new season — and that’s the only one that really matters to coach Bill Guthridge and his student-athletes.

The Tar Heels, whose very presence in the tourney was called into question, are still players in the NCAA mix, while three No. 1 seeds have already packed their bags.

Guthridge, who said he stopped listening to the radio call-in shows and stopped turning on SportsCenter because of all the negativity as this roller-coaster season bumped along, is fast becoming a cult hero and a cornball comedian.

Asked how on earth the Heels lost four of their last six games prior to the tournament, he deadpanned, “Ah, we were just setting people up.”

Tar Heel fans have recently stopped hanging “Gut” in effigy and have started hanging on his every word. And if Carolina can beat seventh-seeded Tulsa Sunday afternoon, they’ll get to watch him hang a banner commemorating the school’s record-setting 15th trip to the Final Four.

“I’m thrilled to win, thrilled for the team,” said Guthridge, after the Heels rallied from seven points down in the final minutes “We’ve won a lot of good ones, but I guess, this was one of the great ones.”

Heroes weren’t hard to find. Freshman Joseph Forte started and finished strong for 22 points. After that, the Heels had better balance than Olga Korbut. Haywood and floor leader Ed Cota scored 11 each, while Lang scored 10 and Jason Capel nine.

The Heels got smacked on the boards by the more athletic Vols (26-7), but compensated with 50 percent shooting and a brilliant performance by Cota, who made just two turnovers while facing relentless pressure for 39 minutes.

The Heels’ zone defense was a tough nut to crack, even with the big men watching. Four Vols hit double figures, led by senior center C.J. Black’s 17 points, but Tennessee shot just 6-for-21 on 3s and was held to 29.6 percent shooting in the second half.

Tennessee was undone late by a lapse into what its head coach, Jerry Green, often refers to as “educated street ball.” Meanwhile, the Heels, particularly Cota, played with impeccable poise.

Haywood got the Heels started with two early buckets, but then disappeared. He walked three times before halftime and combined with Lang as the prime culprits in the Heels’ failure to finish nine of 15 paint opportunities in the first half.

Forte carried the load early, making four straight jumpers and scoring nine straight Heel points in one burst. He put his team ahead almost single-handedly by 18-11 at the 13:38 mark.

But for the rest of the first half, Tennessee tormented UNC with its quickness. Peppers and Haywood got in foul trouble, as the Vols went on a 19-5 run for a 30-23 edge at 6:34. The Heels were fortunate that Capel buried a long 3-pointer in the closing seconds to send them to the locker room down 39-36.

Tennessee seized the initiative again as the second half got under way. The lead reached nine at 51-42 at the 12:51 mark as the Heels just couldn’t score. They tallied a mere six points in their first 14 possessions of the second half.

And the fouls mounted. Cota and Lang were in trouble, now. Haywood got his fourth at 9:30 and his fifth, while a sub waited to come in for him, at 8:03. He exited to groans just as the Heels had battled back to within 55-53.

The Vols’ lead then crept back to 64-57 at 4:48. That’s when Guthridge went to his small lineup, making his zone quicker and his offense tougher for the Vols’ man defense to match up with.

“Coach wouldn’t let us get down,” said Cota. “He told us coming in that we might have to play this one from behind and we couldn’t lose our poise. He kept telling us even after Brendan went out that this was our ballgame.”

And it was. The Heels’ defense clamped down, creating three straight turnovers. The Vols helped too, by taking hurried shots. Tennessee scored on only two of its last 11 possessions.

“Seemed like we were all trying to slay the dragon by ourselves,” said Green. “We tried to make hard plays rather than easy ones, and we got stuck on a score and couldn’t get off.”

But Forte, as they say, was now ready to “go off.”

Forte ignored a hand in his face for a critical 3-pointer at 4:27. Then Capel came up with a steal and a tough drive to cut the gap to 64-62 at 3:02.

Then it was Cota’s turn.

“I’d spent the game trying to get my teammates involved, trying to control the game,” he said. “I knew if I stayed patient my time would come.”

The senior made two straight difficult, right-on-time shots in the lane, and suddenly the Heels were ahead 66-64.

“He made the same great plays he’s made for four years,” gushed Guthridge.

Tennessee’s Ron Slay then missed a short jumper for a tie and Forte rebounded, was fouled (hard) and made two free throws with 34 seconds left for a four-point cushion. Peppers then knocked down a pair of free ones with 26 seconds to go and Owens dunked at the buzzer for the final margin.

“We’ve let our fans down, our coach down and even let ourselves down this season,” said Cota. “But there was no better time for us to pick it up.”

And now, finally, a lot of people are picking Cota’s team to be in Indianapolis.