EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., March 24 – Sitting at the press conference dais Saturday afternoon, Georgetown Head Coach John Thompson III, ever focused on the task immediately at hand, did his best to stamp out the nostalgic storylines that underlie his team’s Elite Eight matchup with North Carolina.
“I don’t have the sappy story that you want,” Thompson said when asked to recollect his father’s heartbreaking loss to Carolina in the 1982 Final Four. “But you know, I remember everything about it.”
Thompson may be reluctant to talk about the past, but rare is the college basketball fan who cannot recall the epic 63-62 battle between two of hoops’ most storied traditions. The game pitted a seasoned veteran and ACC athlete of the year James Worthy against phenomenal freshman Patrick Ewing (CAS ’85) on the floor, and featured two of the game’s most respected coaches in Dean Smith and John Thompson Jr. Oh yeah, and some kid named Jordan happened to hit the game-winning shot.
All eyes will be fixed on Continental Airlines Arena Sunday afternoon as the Hoyas and the Heels meet for only the second time since the affair in ’82. Current Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams, who was a dark-haired assistant on Smith’s staff that year in New Orleans, has gone gray with age but can still recall the emotions of that day with perfect clarity.
“It was just a wonderful, wonderful basketball game – how dominant James was, how intimidating Patrick was – just the focus of the game,” Williams said shortly after taking Thompson’s place behind the microphone. “If you loved basketball and didn’t care which team won, I think that would have to be a game that you would remember for a long time.”
For most of the actors in the latest volume in this epic saga, the magnificence of Worthy, Ewing and Jordan are but distant memories, highlights on the ESPN Classic reel repeated in the wee hours of the night.
“I remember that we beat them in 1982,” said North Carolina freshman guard Ty Lawson, who would not be born for another five years after Jordan launched his game-winner with 17 seconds remaining. “That’s the only thing I can remember.”
“I’ve watched it before,” Georgetown junior center Roy Hibbert said of the infamous shot. “We don’t have ESPN Classic in our hotel room, so I won’t be watching that, unfortunately. I’ll be in bed.”
Hibbert would be well-advised to rest up before tomorrow’s late afternoon tip. The 7-foot-2 center has been a non-factor early in each of the Hoyas’ previous two tournament victories, and faces a formidable low-post opponent in Tar Heels sophomore center Tyler Hansbrough, a reigning first team all-American. Hansbrough is a relative gray beard on a team dominated by first-rate freshmen Brendan Wright, Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington, who run Williams’ breakneck offense with flair.
Wright, who had 21 points to help Carolina claw back from 16 down and defeat USC on Friday night, will clash with Georgetown junior forward Jeff Green, who hit the game-winner against Vanderbilt to send the Hoyas into the field of eight.
“It’s going to be a tough matchup – he’s very long, you know,” Green said of the rangy Wright, who has a 7-foot-5 wingspan. “I just got to be aggressive with him and keep him away from the basket.”
Williams has worries of his own in stopping Big East player of the year Green, who has used the NCAA tournament to display the width and breadth of his extraordinary talent.
All season long, Williams has leaned on senior forward Reyshawn Terry to provide defensive prowess in the post and veteran leadership on the floor. Terry, who has suffered recently with a bout of strep throat, looked noticeably weaker in the limited action he saw Friday night against the Trojans and has dropped 12 pounds from his 6-fot-8, 232 lb. frame.
“Reyshawn is one of our better players, more experienced.” Williams said of Terry, who sat out of practice all week until the team’s shoot-around Friday morning. “We don’t know that we are going to have that. We’re hopeful. There’s just wasn’t a lot of gas left in his tank.”
Should Terry remain under the weather, Williams may look to force the Hoyas out of their half-court game by capitalizing on Lawson’s quickness. The freshman from Clinton, Md., has wowed audiences all season with an uncanny ability to blow past defenders.
It won’t be the first time many of the Hoyas have seen Lawson’s rapid gait. Hibbert starred alongside Lawson and sophomore guard Marcus Ginyard on the D.C. Blue Devils, an AAU team in the District. Lawson has fond memories of his boyhood team that captured two titles, and of a certain spindly teammate that hung around the paint.
“Roy was 6-foot-9, real skinny – he even had that bush he has now,” Lawson said of the 10-year-old Hibbert. “He was just real tall, and he pretty much played the same way he does now – we would throw it to him and he would turn around and dunk it.”
Ten years have passed since Hibbert jammed on the elementary school competition, but Hoya guards Jonathan Wallace and Jessie Sapp still look to feed the big man early and often.
Should Hibbert find himself in foul trouble, as he did Friday night against Vanderbilt, junior forward Patrick Ewing Jr. will have plenty of incentive to provide a spark off the bench.
The son of the exceptional talent that led Georgetown to the ’82 title game, the first of its three championship appearances in the ’80s, Ewing grew up hearing Jordan chide his father over that memorable night in the Louisiana Superdome that spawned a rivalry that lasted throughout each player’s professional careers.
“The significance of that game was tremendous and it has definitely been an interesting storyline,” the younger Ewing said, finally giving the herd of reporters what they had been searching since the two teams advanced the night before and set the stage for the classic rematch. “Mike usually got the upper hand, but we are going to try and get some payback tomorrow.”
