A Surprise Run in the Sunshine State

 

Brandon Costner drives during the 2007 ACC title game vs. UNC-CH.

If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

BY TIM PEELER
(c) NC State University, 2007

TAMPA, Fla. – The hurt was evident in the lockerroom, and NC State first-year head coach Sidney Lowe was OK with that. His Wolfpack fell, 89-80, to top-seeded North Carolina in the 2007 ACC Tournament Championship game, a contest that was essentially decided in the final 90 seconds.

The Tar Heels took the title by making free throws down the line and, based on the way they played here over three days at the St. Pete Times Forum, they could be in position to go on a roll in the NCAA Tournament that starts next week.

But what history may remember about the 54^th-annual league championship is that Lowe and his team made a statement about the future of the Wolfpack program.

 “We have a program on the rise,” said senior guard Engin Atsur. “It’s [Coach Lowe’s] first year, and he had a limited roster. I think we did a great job this year. It’s going to be much better next year.

“I think NC State is going to be back in the glory days.”

Atsur won’t return for that, of course, since his eligibility will end when this season is over. The Wolfpack will play in the National Invitation Tournament, which begins next week. It will go in with momentum, and just might be capable, depending on Atsur’s injured hamstring, of making a run in that 32-team field.

All-in-all, it’s not a bad position for a team that had a limited roster and a program that was picked in the preseason to finish last in the ACC.

Lowe wasn’t into taking any credit for that, but he does like what the future looks like.

“Most of these kids are coming back,” Lowe said. “With another year of experience, plus a couple more pieces we have to the puzzle, maybe they will get a little more credit based on what they did this year.

“And we are still not done yet.”

One player who certainly should have gained confidence over the last four days is redshirt freshman Brandon Costner, who was an All-Freshman team selection and a first-team All ACC Tournament pick. With 90 points in four games, he broke the NC State record for points in a tournament, which was shared by David Thompson (1975) and C.C. Harrison (1997).

“It doesn’t really mean much unless you win,” Costner said.

The left-handed forward will definitely head into next season as a featured player on the Wolfpack roster, along with Gavin Grant, Ben McCauley and Courtney Fells. Lowe should certainly have a collection of talent and a much deeper bench to choose from.

“The future looks bright for us,” Grant said. “Coach Lowe is a great coach and he is going to continue to funnel great players into NC State.”

But what many will remember about the Wolfpack’s four-day run here in Florida is gutty competitiveness of Lowe’s team, their effort on the court and their motivation to prove all doubters wrong. North Carolina coach Roy Williams expressed his admiration and respect for the way Lowe’s team played throughout the year.

“This is what Coach Lowe and his program are all about,” McCauley said. “He pushes us to win. He pushes us to the limit.

“This is the way NC State basketball is going to be played from now on.”

Costner, a freshman, scored 30 points.

North Carolina 89, NC State 80
March 11, 2007
St. Pete Times Forum

TAMPA, Fla. – NC State wasn’t too tired to make a comeback against top-seeded North Carolina in Sunday’s ACC Championship game. But Sidney Lowe’s team couldn’t pull off its fourth upset in as many days for the Wolfpack to win the 11^th ACC title in school history, losing 89-80 at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Trailing by 16 with 13:51 to play, the Wolfpack went on a scoring run led by junior Gavin Grant that cut the Tar Heels’ lead to 70-69 on a falling forward jumper sophomore Courtney Fells with five minutes to play in the contest. The Wolfpack made 14 of its first 20 shots in the second half during its run to erase the Tar Heels’ double-digit advantage.

However, the Wolfpack missed its next three shots and the Tar Heels made six consecutive free throws to seal the lead. UNC made its first 16 free throws in the second half.

It’s the 16^th ACC title for the Tar Heels, tying them with Duke for the most in ACC Tournament history.

Redshirt freshman Brandon Costner had another 30 points in the contest, for a four-day total of 90 to break the NC State scoring record for the ACC Tournament of 84 points, held by both David Thompson (1975) and C.C. Harrison (1997).

North Carolina took a 42-34 lead into halftime, primarily because the Wolfpack failed to make a field goal in the final 3:50 of the half, getting its only points on a pair of free throws by Costner, allowing the Tar Heels to grab the lead.

Behind Costner’s scoring, Lowe’s team jumped out to an 18-12 lead in the first seven minutes of the game, as the Wolfpack tried to win its first ACC title since 1987.

The Wolfpack, who shot an even 50 percent from the field in the first half, made five of its nine 3-point attempts, including two each by Costner and sophomore Courtney Fells. But it gave away its lead away by committing three turnovers in a 50-second span, allowing the Tar Heels to tie the score at 21 and then re-take the lead on an inside basket by freshman Deon Thompson.

ACC Rookie of the Year Brandan Wright was practically unstoppable for the Tar Heels in the first half, scoring 14 points. However, sophomore Tyler Hansbrough, the Heels’ leading scorer, had just two points in the opening half. Hansbrough scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half, mostly att he

The two teams traded baskets until the three-minute mark, when North Carolina senior Wes Miller came off the bench to hit back-to-back 3-pointers in a span of just 20 seconds. The Wolfpack also gave up a layup to Wright with 25 seconds remaining in the half to give the Heels, who made 60.7 percent of their shots from the field, their eight-point lead.

As it did in its win earlier this year in Raleigh, the Wolfpack out-rebounded the Tar Heels 13-11 in the first half, including five offensive rebounds after getting an ACC Tournament-low zero offensive boards in Saturday’s win over Virginia Tech. The Pack also had 10 turnovers in the first half.

Lowe was looking to join NC State’s Everett Case (1954), Duke’s Vic Bubas (1960), NC State’s Press Maravich (1965) and North Carolina’s Bill Guthridge (1998) among the coaches who led their teams to championships in their first ACC Tournaments.

A Perfect Title Run

 

 

Celebrating NC State's 10th ACC title on the floor of the Capital Centre.

 

NOTE: This was originally posted on March 7, 2007, near the 20th anniversary of NC State's most recent ACC men's basketball championship on www.gopack.com. Reprinting here to get rid of garbled text, with a few updates and corrections. If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

BY TIM PEELER
(c) NC State University, 2007

RALEIGH -- It was the perfect path, with a near-perfect performance.

Jim Valvano took his 1987 team into the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament after one of the rockier regular-seasons he ever had. It was nothing compared to the near-fiasco of 1985, when he had to suspend Chris Washburn for most of the year and endured a lot of heat in the process, or his final year of 1989-90, after which he was forced to resign, but it was pretty close.

The season was pock-marked with potholes, including preseason injuries to Charles Shackleford, Walker Lambiotte and Vinny Del Negro, a loss to Division II Tampa in a game in which Valvano had to stay home because of a viral infection, the departure of the team's starting point guard, Kenny Drummond, and a loss to Virginia because Valvano and his staff didn't get the team out of its huddle in time after a late-game timeout. There was also the longest losing streak of Valvano's career, six in a row.

The outcome of the Virginia game was something else.

What else could have gone wrong?

Even the coach--you know, the guy who said "Never give up; don't ever give up"--was a little down on this particular edition of the Wolfpack.

"Our kids are trying very hard, but we're not winning because, to be honest, we're just not good enough," the coach said of his team at one point late in the season. "It's just a down year, a bad year."

Except for the beginning and, most importantly, the end. The Wolfpack opened the season with a remarkable win over Navy and center David Robinson in the Tip-Off Classic in Springfield, Mass., a game in which little-used junior guard Vinny Del Negro came of the bench to win the game's Most Valuable Player Award in the town where he grew up, a Valvano-esque ending if there ever was one.

Del Negro played an integral role in how that season ended as well. He was inserted into the starting lineup after Drummond left, his first consistent action after spending nearly two and a half years on the bench, mostly as a frustrated practice player.

Valvano made some further adjustments to the lineup, also inserting junior Quentin Jackson into the starting lineup at point guard, along with Del Negro in the backcourt, and a frontcourt trio of Lambiotte, Shackleford and Bennie Bolton. He brought senior Mike Giomi, in his only season at State after transferring from Indiana, and freshman Chucky Brown off the bench. That lineup led the Wolfpack to three consecutive wins to end the regular season.

"He tried Vinn Del Negro first at the point after Kenny left, then Kelsey Weems and then he gave me my opportunity," said Jackson, a one-time director of basketball operations for men's basketball under head coach Sidney Lowe. "For me, it was an easy transition. I had all this talent around me. We just needed somebody who could get everybody in the right position.

"I had nothing to lose. What was coach going to do, start someone else? He had already tried everyone else."

The Wolfpack entered the ACC Tournament at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, with a 17-14 overall record and a 6-8 mark in the ACC. It was seeded sixth in the eight-team event.

But, as happened in 1983 under Valvano, there was a little tournament magic going on. The Wolfpack upset No. 17 Duke in overtime in the first post-season meeting between Valvano and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, thanks primarily to Del Negro's eight overtime points.

It the survived a double-overtime thriller against Wake Forest and diminutive guard Muggsy Bogues, in part because Valvano made a late change in his starting lineup, replacing Lambiotte with Brown, who scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Del Negro continued his inspired play, scoring 15 points and grabbing a career-high 12 rebounds.

The Wolfpack's reward for surviving the overtime contests was a championship game meeting with North Carolina, which had won 16 straight games against ACC opponents, sweeping 14 straight in the regular season and beating Maryland and Virginia in the tournament. Like the Wolfpack, however, the Tar Heels were pushed to double-overtime in the semifinals, before finally vanquishing the Cavaliers, 84-82.

Sunday, both teams were a little winded, but the title game didn't disappoint anyone who was eager to see the old rivals play. Valvano had his team control the tempo on a Tar Heel squad that had averaged 91.3 points per game that year, and with a minute left to play, the Heels were holding on to a slim 67-66 advantage. The Wolfpack had made all of its free throws in the game and shot better than 56 percent from the field in order to stay with the heavily favored Heels.

With 14 seconds to play, Del Negro was fouled and sent to the free-throw line. The 89 percent free throw shooter calmly hit both shots, giving the Pack a 68-67 lead. But the Tar Heels had one final chance to win the game.

Jackson remembers going to the bench after those free throws and telling Valvano to take him out of the game.

"Look, the only way they can beat us is if Kenny Smith touches the ball," Jackson told the coach. "I can't guard him. Take me out and put Kelsey Weems in and go to our box-in-one."

Valvano, the ACC king of junk defenses, did just that. Weems prevented Smith, the All-America point guard, from touching the ball in the final possession. The Tar Heels did get off two shots to win the game, but both Joe Wolf and Ranzino Smith missed jumpshots, and the Wolfpack won its 10th ACC tournament title.

Tournament MVP Vinny Del Negro

Del Negro, an unlikely winner of the Everett Case Award as the tournament's most valuable player, gave Valvano all the credit for keeping the team calm in the final minute against a team that was loaded with talent.

"In the timeout before the free throws, his mentality wasn't 'Let's see if Vinny makes these free throws,'" Del Negro said. "It wasn't 'If he makes them' or 'What are we going to do when he misses.' It was always 'After Vinny makes these free throws, Kelsey, I want you to deny the ball, keep your man in front of you.'

"He was just so good at instilling confidence in a young player in a tense situation. It was a huge moment because we needed to win the tournament just to get into the NCAA Tournament. And beating North Carolina is always a huge thing, especially in a game of that magnitude. For me, it was the great culmination of a frustrating first couple of years at NC State. It was a great feeling."

Jackson wasn't surprised to see Del Negro play well in the tournament. The two had been performing with each other ever since arriving in the fall of 1984 with junior college transfer Nate McMillan, high school All-America Chris Washburn and John Thompson, in one of the nation's top recruiting classes that season.

"When we came here, we all came in knowing we could play at this level, but we also respected the guys who were before us: Ernie Myers, Terry Gannon and Spud Webb," Jackson said. "So I wasn't surprised Vinny did well, because I watched him every day in practice for three years.

"He just finally got his opportunity."

Brown was also a hero of the championship game, scoring a career-high 18 points and grabbing 11 rebounds against the Tar Heels.

"That was one of the most gratifying things in my career," he said more than two decades later.

The Wolfpack received the ACC's automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament, but didn't last long, losing in the first round to Florida in Syracuse, N.Y. It was a game that paired Valvano and his team against former Wolfpack coach Norm Sloan and his top assistant Monte Towe, who both helped NC State win the 1973 and '74 ACC titles and the 1974 NCAA Championship.

Nothing, however, detracted from winning the unlikely ACC title, and beating the heavily favored Tar Heels.

"We basically played a perfect game," said Jackson, who made all three of his shots in the contest and had four assists. "We made all our shots from the free-throw line (14-for-14 for the game). We shot well from the field (56.6 percent). We hit the shots when they were about to make runs.

"For us, it was a Big Four Tournament within the ACC Tournament," Jackson said. "And that made winning the title that much more gratifying."

An NC State-UNC Trophy Idea

 

NOTE: If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

© Tim Peeler, 2023

Someone asked me on Twitter what the trophy should be for the NC State-UNC-CH football rivalry. So I answered:

You refer, of course, to the Croatan Cup (TM), an ornately carved pine cone decorated with dogwood petals and a cardinal perched on top, hewed from an old-growth Long Leaf Pine. It sits on a triangular platform made of construction cones from I-40, I-85 and I-95.

Winner gets to take it home, but when they try to take it to the next year's game, it mysteriously won't be there.

For the next 365 days, the winner also gets to fly its logoed flag over the USS North Carolina in Wilmington to designate flagship status and atop Mount Mitchell so it can be seen from six states.

The game ball will be delivered to the appropriate stadium by (picture below):

Pregame military flyover should be a good mix of fighters from Cherry Point, Bragg and Seymour Johnson, with a light drizzle of paratroopers from the 82nd Airbourne, preferably unarmed.

The pregame coin toss will be conducted by the sitting governor. The coin will feature O. Max Gardner as heads and Jim Hunt as tails. Care will be provided by UNC Hospitals.

After every kickoff trained canine mascots, Plott hounds named Murphy and Manteo, will alternate retrieving the tee from field, with a great roar from the crowd. Care will be provided by NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine.

Halftime activities will be sponsored by the City of Asheville, which is halfway back to New York from Florida.

Title sponsor ideas:

• Bojangles

• Cheerwine

• Krispy Kreme

• RTI

In case of a tie, instead of overtime, one player from each team will be selected to complete a difficult challenge to decide the game. This will be called The Virginia Dare.

Winning coach will receive a bouquet of Venus Flytraps and doused by cooler full of Texas Pete. (Goggles not provided.)

The game's MVP will be required to shout "I'M GOING TO TWEETSIE" when accepting the Croatan Cup on behalf of his team.

Every player on losing team will receive a one-day pass to Carowinds (South Carolina side only).

Fans will be required to attend church the immediate next Sunday wearing a tie or scarf in the color of the winning team. Like Christmas and Easter, attendance will be mandatory. Other faith communities will similarly participate.

 

Innocent Fun, Contemplated: NC State vs. UNC Football

NOTE: If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause to keep posts like this free of ads.

© Tim Peeler, 2023

By and large, the NC State-North Carolina football rivalry has been relatively prank free, likely because of an admonition given by one of the state’s foremost leaders at the turn of the 20^th century.

Writing in NC State's Red & White student newspaper, the sports editor said: “Innocent fun in all may be contemplated, but is in the highest degree reprehensible and should receive more than passing consideration.”

The scolder, writing in 1903, was future North Carolina governor O. Max Gardner, who played football at both NC State, as an undergraduate, and UNC, as a graduate law student. For the most part, students from both schools have listened to him – at least for football.

Basketball has been a different matter, as students have been much more active, generally with spray paint and stolen trinkets such as championship banners.

Students from UNC have painted NC State’s iconic and hallowed Free Expression Tunnel and the base of the Memorial Tower on Hillsborough Street so often that the NC State Student Government hosts an annual “Ram Roast” pep rally at the Brickyard before every home basketball game against UNC to protect the tunnel from light blue paint.

For years, throughout the 1970s into current times, the student newspapers printed fake editions of the other school’s paper to not-so-gently stir up passion for the rivalry. Usually, UNC’s Daily Tar Heel generates a spoof issue during football season and NC State’s Technician prints a spoof issue during basketball season for the Tar Heels’ trip to Raleigh.

Here, without in any way endorsing vandalism or violence, are some of the better pranks through the years.

• As early as 1933, NC State students banded together to steal UNC’s live mascot, an adult sheep named Rameses, from the Orange County family farm where it lived. When leadership groups from NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke got together on Nov. 14, 1933, to discuss improving relations among the student bodies, just before the State-Carolina football game, Rameses disappeared from Jack Hogan's farm. The mascot was returned before the game. Jack Hogan was a former football player at UNC. His family has provided a home for every Rameses mascot since 1925. It was at this time that NC State students began raising money to purchase a live wolf for its home football game. The school went through several of those through the years (1935, 1947, 1966 specifically), and it was never stolen. Since 2010, State has used a Tamaskan husky named Tuffy, which resembles a live wolf, to serve as its game-day mascot.
•  In 1935. State students marched two cows and a sheep onto the field of Riddick Stadium, right in front of sitting governors Ehringhaus and Gardner. The sheep was rumored to have been kidnapped from the Hogan farm, but it was not. The feisty lamb escaped from custody just before kickoff and romped around the Riddick field.
  
• In 1942, after a delegation of UNC students defaced a building on NC State’s campus with chalk graffiti, four carloads of NC State College students sneaked over to Hogan’s farm in Chapel Hill to steal the UNC mascot, Rameses III, the week before the annual rivalry. The front half of the ram was turned red with a vegetable dye, and the back half was turned blue. UNC officials were upset and threatened to cancel the annual contest. “All athletic relations may be discontinued if students from both schools lose their heads and start a serious fracas,” said UNC system comptroller W.D. Carmichael, a former UNC basketball player and university administrator who has gymnasiums at both schools named for him. State’s entire student body gathered at Riddick Stadium and voted unanimously to return the ram. Most of the UNC student body was on hand the day before the game for the sheep’s return, but another group of State students stole Rameses III from the first group of State students before it could be returned. “Our neighbors can get our ram, but never our goat,” wrote the Daily Tar Heel. Student leaders all met for dinner at a Chapel Hill restaurant. Unlike most low-budget World War II-rationed gatherings, mutton was not served. NC State responded with its second consecutive win over the Tar Heels after a 13-year winless drought.
• In November 1947 NC State students painted red “NCS” letters on seven locations around UNC’s campus, including the Institute of Government’s Highway Patrol Training area and Quonset Hut No. 8.
• Wake Forest once tried to steal North Carolina’s mascot from Hogan Farm in 1965, but got the retired version of Rameses VII, not the newly incarnated Rameses VIII. Later that year, Duke students stole Rameses VIII before the annual Duke-UNC game.
• On Oct. 15, 1982, the Daily Tar Heel published a fake edition of NC State’s student newspaper, the Technician, just before the two schools played a football game in Chapel Hill. In response, during basketball season Technician published a fake edition called the Daily Tar Hell, which included, among other things, a photo of Dean Smith laying naked at center court of Carmichael Auditorium. The next day, NC State beat the defending national champion Tar Heels in Reynolds Coliseum, thanks, in part, to a ginned up student body and an overheated Smith, who got two technical fouls in the game. The next edition of Technician read: “Dean loses clothes on Friday, cool on Saturday.”
• In 1986, the two editors-in-chief wagered on the football game, both agreeing that the winning school would be recognized by having the losing school’s newspaper printed in the color of the winning team. When NC State beat UNC at Kenan Stadium by one point, 35-34, the banner of the Daily Tar Heel was printed in red. It was State’s first win in eight seasons against the Tar Heels.
• On Feb, 25, 1996, NC State students were blamed when Rameses XXIII was repeatedly stabbed, gutted and disfigured on the Hogan family farm just before the 1996 ACC basketball tournament. However, it was later discovered the death was caused by an intoxicated man seeking food, not a college prank.
• Following a spate of light blue creativity in the early 2000s at NC State's Free Expression Tunnel that made a lot of money for Big Spray Paint, State loyalists retaliated by painting "NCS" in red on several Chapel Hill landmarks, including the iconic Old Well. After drawing widespread condemnation from administrators on both campuses, student and social media and adults throughout the state, in 2005 the NC State Student Ambassadors turned the school's traditional pregame pep rally into a twice-a-year branded event called the Ram Roast, where groups and organizations spend three-hour shifts protecting the tunnel from an azure future. It's held before the football rivalry game between the two schools and home basketball games against the Tar Heels.  Through the years, it featured players, coaches, entertainment and prize giveaways and is still ongoing.