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Clemson Basketball

The Ones That Got Away: Three times UNC escaped Clemson in Chapel Hill

January 16, 2018
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CHARLOTTE -- You've seen the storyline a thousand times this week.

Clemson will arrive at the Dean Dome facing the single greatest losing streak in college basketball history. Clemson is an NCAA record 0-58 in games played against North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

58 trips, 58 losses.

It seems impossible, but it’s happened time after time. In fact, it’s happened so much that the pressure to keep the streak alive might outweigh the pressure to break the streak.

“Nobody wants to be the team that loses to Clemson,” Brad Brownell said Monday. "If I was a player at North Carolina or I was a coach at North Carolina, that's how I would approach it."

Clemson enters Tuesday’s contest 15-2, and 4-1 in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Tigers are No. 20 in the latest AP poll while North Carolina is No. 15.

0-58 is the record and many of those have been blowout wins for the Tar Heels. But here are three games that got away from Clemson when North Carolina escaped defeat in Chapel Hill.

 

2007-2008 - Final: North Carolina 103 Clemson 93 (2OT)

This is the game that seems to have hurt Clemson fans the most.

The Tigers just came off of a home 90-88 overtime loss to then-No. 1 ranked North Carolina a month earlier. Clemson jumped out to an 8-0 start after forcing North Carolina to turn it over on its first five possessions. Things were looking bright.

With under three minutes to go in regulation, the dream ended and a nightmare comeback for the Tar Heels ensued.

James Mayes had just given Clemson an 11-point lead thanks to an emphatic dunk on a fast break. Then, Clemson turned it over on its next three possessions, and the All-American Tyler Hansbrough went to work.

He quickly scored four points and took a charge to give Tar Heel fans life, and the pressure started to suffocate Clemson. North Carolina guard Danny Green was dancing during a dead-ball timeout when Clemson’s lead was cut to five points. It was like he knew the results were imminent.

Two consecutive Green three-pointers highlighted a 14-3 North Carolina run to end regulation and send the game to overtime. Clemson had its chances to ice the game at the free throw line and on the final possession.

The late Demontez Stitt, an 81-percent free-throw shooter, missed the front-end of a one-and-one when Clemson was up by 82-80. Then, Clemson guard K.C. Rivers missed a layup that rolled off the front of the iron that would have ended Clemson’s winless streak.

From there, North Carolina took over. Hansbrough scored 13 of his 39 points in the first and second overtimes and reality set in for the Tigers. The 103-93 win broke the NCAA record for the longest home winning streak against one opponent. The record, of course, still stands.

This quote from Rivers, who missed the layup, stood out: "It's like having your favorite thing in your grip and losing it.

"And you can't get it back."

 

1996-1997 - Final: North Carolina 61 Clemson 48

This game wasn’t really close, but there were a lot of little things that happened in this game that made Clemson fans happy about the direction of the program under Rick Barnes.

Clemson even earned an “Overrated!” chant from the Tar Heel fans.

The year before, Clemson beat North Carolina in the ACC Tournament on Greg Buckner’s last-second slam. Clemson was a team on the rise and Barnes was challenging the establishment of the ACC. The young, energetic head coach was not afraid to get in the face of Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski.

This was arguably the best Clemson team that’s ever been assembled. Barnes had a young and talented group led by Buckner, Terrell McIntyre, and Harold Jamison.

That season, Clemson achieved the highest ranking in program history when the No. 2 ranked Tigers entered the Dean Dome. Clemson came into the game on the heels of a home loss to Tim Duncan and No. 4 Wake Forest, but the Tigers, again, had their chances in Chapel Hill.

The Tar Heels were 11-5, 3-3 heading into the game. For Clemson, snapping the streak was there for the taking.

Facing a tremendously talented Tar Heel team led by Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison, the boys in blue shut down Clemson’s offense bringing home a 61-48 win.

6-foot-6 inch Vince Carter used his length and athleticism to hound the much smaller Terrell McIntyre and held Clemson’s star guard well under his scoring average.

Clemson was terrible from the floor, shooting 48-of-66 and 3-of-24 from behind the arc.

"That was a great compliment the crowd gave us, chanting `overrated,"' Barnes said. "Talk about a role reversal."

To continue the theme of “role reversal”, North Carolina fans rushed the Dean Dome court after the 13-point win.

Clemson’s Buckner scored all but two of his team-high 19 points in the second half and shot 8-of-19 from the field. But everyone else struggled from the field, and the No. 2 Tigers didn’t have enough to beat the Heels.

That Clemson team started 16-1 and made it to the NCAA tournament as a 4-seed, but couldn’t get it done at Chapel Hill.

 

2010-2011 - Final: North Carolina 75 Clemson 65

An experienced Clemson team that had players from the 2008 collapse had its chance to end the streak in 2010-2011.

North Carolina was coming off of a 20-point loss on the road at Georgia Tech, and this was Clemson’s opportunity to catch the Tar Heels slipping.

The Tigers, led by Andre Young and Stitt, this time were down double digits in the second half at the Dean Dome. The Tigers battled back to tie the game, but couldn’t get over the hump.

Harrison Barnes and Reggie Bullock, two freshmen, led the way for the Tar Heels as they were able to hang on and keep the streak alive. Barnes finished with 13 points and six rebounds while Bullock added a season-high 18 points.

Stitt buried a three-pointer with 7:30 left in regulation to tie the game at 63 and Clemson had hope. Barnes, the future seventh pick in the NBA draft, killed any dreams Clemson had of returning home with a long-awaited victory.

He calmly hit a go-ahead three-pointer with five minutes left to give the Tar Heels the lead for good. The Tigers answered with a layup but were unable to find get the stop they needed to make North Carolina uncomfortable.

Clemson was held scoreless in the final four minutes.

There haven’t been many Clemson teams in school history that have been able to match up well with North Carolina on the road. When they have, the ball just has not bounced Clemson’s way.

With the streak alive and intact, no North Carolina player wants to be the team that loses to Clemson at home. That certainly adds fuel to the fire.

"We definitely didn’t want to be that team to let that streak go down," said North Carolina junior James Michael McAdoo in 2013-2014. The Tar Heels had just beat down Clemson 80-61.

Whether Clemson fans can believe it or not, the streak will end at some point in time. We just don’t know when. This year, Clemson does arguably match up well with a North Carolina team that has struggled to win at times.

Oh yeah, they also lost to Wofford at home earlier this season.

Donte Grantham knows how hard it is to win on the road in the ACC in general, but he also noted that playing in Chapel Hill will always be a different animal.

“When you win on the road, it’s special,” Grantham said Monday. “With a team like North Carolina with great players and you’re playing on the road, you have to play almost perfect to play against North Carolina and take away the things they do great.”

Will 2017-2018 be the year that Clemson finally accomplishes the unthinkable?

Or will it let another one get away?

 
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