North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: The Shoe is on the Other Foot
2/27/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 27, 2004
By Tony Haynes
This is the story of longtime Tobacco Road basketball rivals NC State and North Carolina. One of the teams is in contention for the ACC's regular season title and is safely in the NCAA Tournament field of 65. The other, however, is in a desperate fight to secure its rightful spot in the tournament, an event in which none of its starters has ever participated. For those of you who were banned from watching satellite TV or logging onto the Internet during your three-year stay on Pluto, the team that's trying to end an NCAA Tournament drought is not NC State.
Welcome back to earth.
It should be obvious by now that the basketball world in North Carolina as we once knew it isn't quite the same as it was before you left. Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge are cashing retirement checks while Herb Sendek is now the toast of the town.
What's that you say? You want me to take a polygraph exam?
Sendek's Wolfpack, now 18-6 overall and 10-3 in the ACC, trails league-leading Duke by one game in the standings with just three to play (by the way, that Krzyzewski guy is still at Duke and nothing has changed in that regard). State, in fact, is a shoe-in to qualify for "The Big Dance" for the third straight year now following an 11-year absence.
As it gets set to face the Wolfpack, against whom it has lost four of its last five games, the once-mighty Tar Heels are 6-7 in league play and 16-8 overall. After missing the NCAA Tourney two years in a row, they are poised to return provided they can nail down another win or two down the stretch.
After going up against NC State this weekend, UNC will play host to Clemson next week in Chapel Hill. Would you believe me if I said that the Tigers actually won one at the Smith Center during your interplanetary journey? Ok, ok...there are some things that are truly impossible to believe and that particular statement stretched the truth beyond an allowable limit.
But when you do tune into this Sunday's game between the Pack and Heels, you'll probably do a double-take when you see Roy Williams patrolling the UNC sidelines. Yes, it is the same Roy Williams who turned down an offer from his alma mater in order to stay at Kansas three years ago. Yet, as chagrinned as the North Carolina folks were by that rejection, they tried again last summer and finally succeeded in luring their favorite son back home.
The coach certainly wears a few more gray hairs than he had before he left to take the Kansas job those many years ago. In fact, he's added a few more since the start of this season. The process of rebuilding a juggernaut cannot happen overnight, a fact that fell on some deaf ears when Williams tried his best to reign in expectations prior to the season.
Still, the Heels are ranked 12th while the Wolfpack comes in at number 14 in this week's A.P. Poll. For the first time in quite a while, the two neighbors are nationally prominent at the same time. This will mark the first instance in 15 years that they have met each other when both were ranked in the national polls. Regardless of who wins on Sunday, the word "upset" will not be an applicable description of the outcome.
It's a meaningful game and not just because fans of the two schools desperately want bragging rights. For NC State, it's an opportunity to stay unbeaten at home and remain in the hunt for the ACC's top spot. For North Carolina, a win would probably guarantee an NCAA berth and set the stage for an upper division finish in the conference.
Either way, a rivalry is always a little juicier when the two teams involved are perceived to be true equals in almost every respect. There was, of course, a time in the not too distant past when the Wolfpack's relentless yet exhaustive effort to catch up seemed so futile. These days, however, the Pack is no longer trying to catch up.
For now, the shoe is on the other foot.
