North Carolina Basketball: Looking back at the 1997-98 season after 20 years
Road to the Final Four
Success for any Carolina basketball team is defined in three tiers. The first is the rivalry bragging rights. The second is conference tournament or regular season titles. The third is the Final Four with a national championship being the best kind of gravy.
Success in tier two or three can mitigate disappointment in tier one. Similarly, if the team fails to achieve tier two or three goals, it is nice to have rivalry wins to fall back on.
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The 1997-98 Carolina team had a good record on all three counts even if they did not win the national championship. Against Duke, Wake Forest, and NC State, Carolina posted a 6-2 record on the year. The toughest loss was a 14-point home loss to NC State late in the year. The Tar Heels also lost in Cameron on Duke’s senior day by two in another classic of the series.
Despite Duke being ranked #1 in each game that the Heels played them in (three), the Heels got the better of Duke in 1997-98. Their two point loss to Duke was flanked by a home win of 24 points and the ACC Tournament final win of 15 points. That ACC Tournament also included a 27 point victory over the Wolfpack.
The final measure is the Final Four. To get there this time, the Tar Heels ran into stiff competition in the second round. The UNC-Charlotte 49ers were enjoying one of their good eras and wanted to show their stuff against the flagship Tar Heels. DeMarco Johnson and Sean Colson took the Heels to overtime before the Tar Heels pulled out a 10-point victory.
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By comparison, the next two rounds went more according to plan. Michigan State fell in the Sweet Sixteen and the Tar Heels beat a Connecticut team in the Regional Final that was a year away from its own national title run.
The national semi-final against Utah was something else. It was an ugly game where Shammond Williams could not find his shot from beyond the arc. The Heels also played 20 minutes of that game without a true center on the court, trying to field their best five players as much as possible. It was a disappointing end for a team regularly considered to be one of the best Tar Heel teams not to win a national title.
Next: Three Takeaways from UNC-Gonzaga
In all, it was a good year for the Heels set against one of the hardest acts to follow in all of sports. Unfortunately, some of the freshmen (via injuries and redshirts) from this team would last long enough to witness the disastrous 8-20 season five years later.