State-Carolina Face Off in Fourth-Annual Big Four Tournament

Editor's note: The Big Four Tournament was played for 11 seasons at the Greensboro Coliseum. Current Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe played in the final two Big Four Tournaments, in 1979 as a freshman and 1980 as a sophomore. Would he like to see it revived? "Why not?," Lowe said. "It was a great tournament and a great atmosphere." But that's probably not the concensus opinion among the other three current coaches and the Big Four Tournament will likely remain a distant memory.

Jan. 4, 1974

BY TIM PEELER

GREENSBORO, N.C. The fans seem to like it, since all the tickets to this year’s event were sold out more than a month ago. The players like playing in a big arena in front of a basketball-crazy full house. The athletics directors and the beancounters love it, because of the injection of cash to the athletic department budgets.

But the coaches? Well, they still aren’t sold on the merits of the Big Four Tournament, the in-season round robin between North Carolina’s four ACC schools that was born four years ago out of the remains of Everett Case’s wildly popular Dixie Classic, 10 years dead but hardly forgotten.

All-time Big Four Records
School	Record	Team titles
Wake Forest	10-12	4 ('75, '76, '77, '80)
NC State	13-9	3 ('70, '72, '74)
North Carolina	12-10	2 ('71, '77)
Duke	9-13	2 ('78, '79

Tonight’s fourth-annual event kicks off at sold-out Greensboro Memorial Coliseum with No. 4 North Carolina facing No. 5 NC State at 7 p.m., followed by the undercard match between Duke and Wake Forest at approximately 9 p.m.

So what’s not to love about an event that pads the operating budget of each school by more than $53,000? That’s the biggest payday of the season for North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest. And it would be under normal circumstances for NC State as well, except for the outrageous guarantee of $125,000 it received from television network ABC to play UCLA in St. Louis on Dec. 15.

Still, the coaches have never warmed to a set of games against ACC opponents that don’t count in the league standings. They balked when the games were played in mid-December and they aren’t much happier now that the event has been moved to the first weekend in January, immediately preceding the start of the 12-game ACC regular season.

All-time Big Four Tournament Results
Date	Winner	Loser	Champion
12/18/70	Wake Forest 83	Duke 77
12/18/70	NC State 70	North Carolina 62
12/19/70	North Carolina 83	Duke 81
12/19/70	NC State 73	Wake Forest 70
			NC State
12/17/71	NC State 67	Duke 62
12/17/71	North Carolina 99	Wake Forest 76
12/18/71	Duke 70	Wake Forest 58
12/18/71	North Carolina 99	NC State 68
			North Carolina
12/15/72	NC State 88	Wake Forest 83
12/15/72	North Carolina 91	Duke 86
12/16/72	Duke 80	Wake Forest 67
12/16/72	NC State 68	North Carolina 61
			NC State
1/5/74	NC State 78	North Carolina 77
1/5/74	Wake Forest 64	Duke 61
1/6/74	North Carolina 84	Duke 75
1/6/74	NC State 91	Wake Forest 73
			NC State
1/3/75	Duke 99	North Carolina 96
1/3/75	Wake Forest 83	NC State 78
1/4/75	NC State 82	North Carolina 67
1/4/75	Wake Forest 75	Duke 71
			Wake Forest
1/2/76	NC State 104	Duke 95
1/2/76	Wake Forest 95	North Carolina 83
1/3/76	North Carolina 77	Duke 74
1/3/76	Wake Forest 93	NC State 78
			Wake Forest
11/26/76	Wake Forest 81	Duke 80
11/26/76	North Carolina 78	NC State 66
11/27/76	Duke 84	NC State 82
11/27/76	Wake Forest 97	North Carolina 96 (OT)
			Wake Forest
12/2/77	North Carolina 79	Duke 66
12/2/77	NC State 79	Wake Forest 77
12/3/77	Duke 97	Wake Forest 84
12/3/77	North Carolina 87	NC State 82
			North Carolina
12/1/78	North Carolina 73	Wake Forest 55
12/1/78	Duke 65	NC State 63
12/2/78	NC State 77	Wake Forest 70
12/2/78	Duke 78	North Carolina 68
			Duke
11/30/79	Duke 72	Wake Forest 70
11/30/79	North Carolina 97	NC State 84
12/1/79	NC State 70	Wake Forest 65
12/1/79	Duke 86	North Carollina 74
			Duke
12/5/80	Wake Forest 87	NC State 57
12/5/80	North Carolina 78	Duke 76
12/6/80	NC State 74	Duke 60
12/6/80	Wake Forest 82	North Carolina 71
			Wake Forest

“Maybe it would be more beneficial to hold this a little earlier,” said North Carolina coach Dean Smith.

“I think it is rather insane for a coach to be in this,” said first-year Duke coach Neil McGeachy.

Wake Forest coach Carl Tacy had a different outlook.

“I think the tournament is helpful from the standpoint of preparing you for the conference schedule,” Tacy said. “You find out what you need to do and what areas you need to work on.”

Few would find it difficult to believe that Wolfpack coach Norm Sloan has strong opinions about the event as well. But he’s not really sharing them, perhaps because his team received such a confidence boost last season by beating Wake Forest and North Carolina en route to its second championship in three years.

“I guess there is a little Pollyanna in me,” Sloan said. “I just take the attitude that since it’s on our schedule, we will enjoy playing in it. It wouldn’t be logical not to enjoy it, because it wouldn’t go away.”

But the coach admits that if his team is going to lose to any of its in-state rivals, this would be the time to do it, instead of in the regular season or in the ACC Tournament. He figures it near impossible to expect to beat a team three times in the regular season, as his team did against North Carolina last year and as Smith’s Tar Heels did to the Wolfpack two years ago.

“Since we play them three times, this game Friday night is the one that you wouldn’t mind losing as much as the others,” Sloan said.

The Wolfpack has virtually owned the event since its inception, winning the inaugural Big Four thanks to an upset of North Carolina in the opener and racing through last year’s field en route to a 27-0 record. The Tar Heels won the second Big Four crown in 1971 with wins over Wake Forest and State.

The Tar Heels (7-0) have practically made Memorial Coliseum their home this year, already winning neutral-site games over Kentucky and Houston. Perhaps it’s Smith’s way of preparing his team for the ACC Tournament or the NCAA finals, both of which will be held in the same building later this year.

For the Wolfpack, tonight’s game will be a chance to break out of the mediocrity that has plagued what should be one of the nation’s top teams. Sloan squad was stung 86-68 by the top-ranked Bruins in the made-for-television contest at St. Louis Arena. Only a post-Christmas trip to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl Basketball Classic has seemed to lift the Pack out of its early-season malaise.

“Maybe pressure has been a problem for us this year,” Sloan said. “We’ve been trying too hard, trying to prove how good we were. That’s something I didn’t anticipate. Now we will just have to keep improving constantly, aiming for the tournament in March, and maybe we can fulfill our potential that way.”

Sloan will have to make some decisions about his lineup in facing a Tar Heel team that features a formidable frontline of 6-10 Mitch Kupchak, 6-9 Bobby Jones and 6-5 freshman Walter Davis, with 6-10 Tommy LaGarde coming off the bench. 

The coach knows he hasn’t been getting the anticipated production out of junior forward Tim Stoddard and that sophomore Phil Spence, a newcomer from Vincennes Junior College, is making his case to become a starter. Stoddard has been hampered by a sprained ankle and the fact that he lost 15 pounds in 10 days after having his wisdom teeth removed.

But this would be the time for Sloan to tinker with his rotation. Because after this weekend, all the games matter a lot more than these do.

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

North Carolina State University Athletics

State-Carolina Face Off in Fourth-Annual Big Four Tournament

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