Remember the 80s – A Golden Era of ACC Basketball

General NCS Basketball Sports Junkies Tradition151

I was chatting with a UNC fan colleague yesterday, who is also a world-class ACC historian (could have a great conversation with SFN commenter noah). He has an extensive game collection, and recently acquired tape of the first State/Carolina matchup in 1984. You may remember that as the year the Wolfpack opened with a repeat upset of again #1 Houston…and it went rapidly downhill from there. The Pack finished 4-10 in ACC play, and IIRC, lost to Florida State in the first round of the NIT. What I did not remember was how very good the ACC was that season. Virginia was the #6 seed (out of EIGHT, remember) in the ACCT, but made the Final Four, losing to Houston in OT. Wake Forest finished at .500 in league play, but made the regional final (also losing to Houston, by a mere 5 points).

One of my fondest wishes is for the ACC to start its own “classic” channel or series, or put out a DVD set with highlights and full games from ACC play in the 1980s. For the Wolfpack fan, this would include the 4OT game against Wake, the 1987 ACCT run, and of course, 1983.

Please share your own memories below (I would love more details on the regional final runs by the Pack in 1985 and 1986), and answer these 1980s ACC trivia questions:

– Name the Wolfpack starting five in the first game against UNC in 1984 (I got 3 correct).
– How many ACC teams qualified for either the NCAAT or NIT in 1985?
– Who was the last ACC team to go winless in league play, and in what year did they do it?
– Three ACC teams made the regional finals in 1985, but all 3 lost to Big East foes. Name the ACC teams and their corresponding Big East opponents.

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

General NCS Basketball Sports Junkies Tradition

151 Responses to Remember the 80s – A Golden Era of ACC Basketball

  1. ChuckAllYall 06/15/2007 at 8:43 AM #

    Since we’re in the mood of rambling off random lists to guide us through this summer doldrum, how about a best of “that guy is STILL here” list. I’m sure everyone has had those moments while watching games, when you see dudes that have seemingly received 6-7 years of eligibility. I’d have to say my (least) favorites are Ralph Kitley from Wake, and more recently Jason Cain from Virginia…….damn I hate that guy and his starter ‘stache. He was frequently a thorn in our side.

  2. noah 06/15/2007 at 9:00 AM #

    “Rich Yonaker, late 70s.”

    Right before my time then…the Dudley Bradley steal was the first State game I can remember watching. The first State football game I can recall was the Buckner game…I mean the Penn State game with the 84 yard field goal as the clock ran out where Satan himself came down and carried the ball through the goalposts. I always wondered what Bo Rein would have said if you had pulled him aside after that game and said, “Trust me…it just gets worse from here.”

    Both the 85 and 86 State games in Reynolds were classics. The 85 game was the one where Nate throws Lo an alley-oop from about halfcourt.

    Southern Durham can now boast David Garrard as one of their famous graduates. You’re probably right about Daugherty’s age. He was a lot younger than most of the people in his class. That was one of his big upsides when the NBA draft rolled around. His back problems eventually made that sort of a moot point.

  3. BJD95 06/15/2007 at 9:03 AM #

    First, knock off the flame war and personal back and forth dreck. This is not meant to be a message board, and we don’t feel that kind of shit provides any value to our readership. I’ve cleaned up a bunch of comments already, and will shut the thread down if you can’t contain yourselves.

    Second, Jason Cain was entertaining b/c he presented me with the opportunity to give him my favorite pejorative nickname – “Prison Bitch.” I was greatly disappointed that it never caught on.

    For UNC, I really liked Donald Williams for dedicating his Final Four MVP award to V. I felt really bad for cheering for Michigan…at least I did for a few minutes. I like Larry Brown for recommending Sid.

  4. noah 06/15/2007 at 9:06 AM #

    “how about a best of “that guy is STILL here” list.”

    Easy for me….Bryant Stith. Every year, every GAME…that guy was just Mr. Consistency. Scored in double-figures in 123 of career 131 games. He’s Virginia’s all-time leading scorer…seems like he’s in the top five all-time in the ACC too.

  5. ncsslim 06/15/2007 at 9:19 AM #

    The Bradley steal cut a lot of hearts out. We had come back from all appearances, an insurmountable lead, and had possession with the lead with virtually no time left. I was not at the game, but was at the point where I would turn over to Woody just to hear him whine. The joke was on me (of course, Bradley picked Clyde clean and dunked at the buzzer). I fell flat on my face in my apt in W Raleigh where I was a student at the time. I spent a lot of time those days flat on my face, but this one, I will always remember.

    Bradley had previously been the “defensive stopper” (read: no bball talent to speak of whatsoever), but this particular year he was continually finding himself at the right place at the right time and had become the darling of all heels, especially Woody, and the media in general. He couldn’t even elevate off of one foot on a running dunk; even on a breakaway (which he seemingly had 6,323,215 that particular season) he had to come to a semi-stop and leave off both feet. I hated the guy and am very dissappointed to read that all do not share that opinion. Very, very dissappointed. Which means of course, good things will come your way.

  6. BillyTheKid 06/15/2007 at 9:30 AM #

    I saw David Garrard ALMOST beat Northern Durham (a state power house at the time) all by himself one year at Durham County Stadium. We hadn’t beat Northern in like 20 years at the time. Talk about a MAN playing with boys. Noah do you remember George Durham? He was a SHS grad that played BB for UNC-W. He was a year behind Hunter and broke most of his scoring records.

  7. noah 06/15/2007 at 9:32 AM #

    I wasn’t living in North Carolina at the time. We lived in the sticks and didn’t have cable…but a friend of my father’s did. So we went to his house and watched the game.

    My dad managed to hold it in until we got into the car….but…whew.

    I was too young to really GET why that was such a heartbreaking moment. For that and the PSU game…we lost, but I slept fine that night.

    The first game that really broke my heart as the Notre Dame game in 1983. We ran the clock down all the way and set up a shot for Terry Gannon (my favorite player)…and he missed it.

    That was the year I got into baseball. I was a big Dale Murphy fan and a big Jim Rice fan (yeah, the 80s were just f-ing GREAT for baseball). So, I got to watch the Braves blow a big lead at the end of the ’83 season. I got to watch them trade Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby (and Rick Behenna) for Len Barker. I got to Brad Komminsk stink up the place. I got to watch them gradually become as bad as they were in the 70s. The 1988 season when they lost 200 games in a row to start the year was particularly brutal.

    And then as a Red Sox fan, I got to watch the ’86 series. I got to watch Boggs and Clemens leave. And Jim Rice retire early. And watch them trade Schilling, Steve Finley, and Jeff Bagwell (because who needs Bags when you’ve got Scott Cooper!). I saw the Tom Brunansky years.

    And then I’m a State fan. So when I watch something like “Midnight Express,” I can’t help but think, “What’s that guy crying about?”

  8. noah 06/15/2007 at 9:40 AM #

    My one exposure to S. Durham was actually Garrard’s first varisty game. I was covering high school football at the time. Garrard had thrown for something like 300 yards in a HALF for the JV team and his coach had pulled him and basically, he got called up. : )

    I got directions to S. Durham and it turned out that they were to the OLD high school. I barely made it to the game on time and climbed up in the press box and the PA announcer and the scoreboard guy were about to pee their pants talking about Garrard.

    They were playing one of the last really good Fuquay teams. S. Durham lost, but Garrard put on a show. He threw for about 350 yards and ran for another 100 and kept them in it all game. This was before the Chrone’s and before he gained a lot of weight. He was still a star shortstop. Every pass was a laser. Fuquay only had a couple of guys all year that they couldn’t stop. In their first game, Triton did it with Clayton White as their QB. Garrard did it….and in their first playoff game, E. Randolph absolutely buried them (scoring on nine of 11 possessions, only the clock running out at the end of each half stopped them).

  9. BillyTheKid 06/15/2007 at 9:53 AM #

    Yeah, I went to the OLD Southern. I remember watching Brad Komminski hit something like 106 homeruns for the Durham Bulls (at the OLD DAP, the one in the movie). We all thought he was a god, too bad he couldn’t hit a curve ball in the show.

  10. packbackr04 06/15/2007 at 11:12 AM #

    SFN: Let’s not turn this into a Herb thread. Thanks.

  11. quad87 06/15/2007 at 11:53 AM #

    Actually, iirc, Dudley Bradley stole the ball with about four seconds left after State had come back from 21 down at halftime. Clyde dribbled into the corner of the frontcourt just over the midcourt line (which has puzzled me to no end over the years). Bradley steals, scores, then we inbound and get it to Kenny Matthews for a last second 30 footer that bounced off the front of the rim.

    I was 11 years old and the game was a Wednesday 9:00 game (back when an ACC double-header during the week was special). The parents let me watch the game on a little portable TV they put in my bedroom. It was the first game (and one of the very few games) that really made me cry my eyes out. It was terrible. In fact, I’m tearing up just thinking about. But if nothing else, it permently sealed into my heart a deep hatred for UNX.

  12. StateFoxer 06/15/2007 at 12:55 PM #

    This has nothing to do with the current thread, I just thought it might be a nice Friday story for some fellow Pack fans.

    I live in Montana and every other person out here wears a Tarheel hat. Last night I casually asked one of these people if they liked the Heels. They responded with, “Ohh yeah, I love them. I really like Kansas too!”

    So I say, “Wow, you must be a huge Roy Williams fan”

    They respond with, “Well I haven’t gotten to see him play in a while, but he is pretty good.”

    Huh? Say what you will about their huge athletic fund, I for one am glad we don’t have a moronic bandwagon following. Sorry about the rant.

  13. noah 06/15/2007 at 1:02 PM #

    I’m trying to think if there was ever a State game that made me cry. I remember being mortified by the Tampa game in 1987. And Murray State in 1988. I remember being swallowed by a very large cloud of blackness when we lost to Maryland every mothergodsonofableepingwhatthefriggingsumratzzitfrazzit year in football during the Rivers years….

    I remember WANTING to bawl my eyes out a hundred times (but going into that male, full body-clinch of emotional constipation).

    The only two times I remember tears were the ’83 AFC playoffs and Fulton Walker and his two…TWO…consecutive fumbles on kickoffs as the friggin’ Seahawks beat Dan Marino and the Dolphins. And Game 7 of the ’86 WS. Game 6 kicked me in the balls, but game 7 just certified the unmitigated, unadulturated unfairness of it all.

    There are a couple of sounds that I’ll remember all my life. The sound of the crowd during Whit’s last shot in 1983…it sounds like the symphony right before the big power chord at the end of “A Day In The Life.”

    And the sound of Mark Bellhorn’s late home run clashing off the foul pole in Yankee Stadium in Game 7 in 2004.

    That’s what victory sounds like.

  14. CaptainCraptacular 06/15/2007 at 1:32 PM #

    Closest I’ve come to tears was after making eye contact with the old pack granny while walking out of the O-rena after the collapse against Vanderbilt.

    Not close to tears, but I spent quite a while in that same black funk after those Maryland losses as well, especially PRs senior season.

  15. CaptainCraptacular 06/15/2007 at 1:37 PM #

    Oh yea.. I did shed quite a few tears when Dallas and Roger Staubach came back from 34-21 with 3 minutes left to beat the Skins 35-34 and knock them out of the playoff picture on the last day of the regular season in 1979. I was 11, and that was the worst fan related misery I can remember experiencing before or since.

  16. BillyTheKid 06/15/2007 at 1:47 PM #

    Noah, you’re a Dolphins fan?!? No Way!?! That ALMOST makes up for you being a Redsox fan, almost. I think I come closer to crying tears of joy when the Pack wins than crying when they lose. As a Duke fan growing up in Durham I do remember crying when Duke lost to UNC in the 1979 ACCT. I also remember crying everytime Duke played a football game when I was a kid, but that is a whole other story. Now I think I just get “kick the dog mad” when State loses. After an hour or two my wife knows it’s okay to be in the same room with me again.

  17. ChuckAllYall 06/15/2007 at 1:56 PM #

    I wanted to run out on the field and choke TA after the Maryland game River’s senior year.

  18. ChuckAllYall 06/15/2007 at 2:03 PM #

    Actually, I guess he took care of the choking on his own.

  19. chris92heel 06/15/2007 at 2:10 PM #

    Cried after the 81 loss to IU and the skins loss to the raidas in the super bowl.

    got in fights after the 87 and 88 ACCT finals.

    sat in stunned dejection after game 7 of the 91 World Series.

    blacked out for hours after the UNC loss @ UVA in 1996.

    Cried some tears of joy after the heels won it all in 2005 – seeing Jackie, Jawad, and Melvin embrace on the court after all they’d been through got to me.

  20. kool k 06/15/2007 at 2:19 PM #

    Losing to Maryland in football makes me angry…I seem to remember Aubrey Shaw fumbling while running out the clock a few years back up in College Park and they ended up winning…the Rivers 0-4 era was just a “Resevoir Dogs” type amusement park for the Terps on my opened wounds…as far as hoops, my 2 most dissapointing and angry defeats are the 89 ACC Tourney and the 04 ACC Tourney…I am also upset that my older brother was born in 1973 and I wasn’t born until 1978, so I was not alive for the 1974 ACC tournament, which of course would have been the crown jewel of my existance…Thanks Mom and Dad

  21. Redblogger 06/15/2007 at 2:26 PM #

    Way off topic. But guess who was in my office this morning.

    That’s right “Hoot” Gibson. (not the dead one) But former State football player.

    Nice link

    http://www.ncshof.org/inductees_detail.php?i_recid=270

  22. RAWFS 06/15/2007 at 2:28 PM #

    I wanted to run out on the field and choke TA after the Maryland game River’s senior year.

    Why he didn’t just play smart football and get down before that hit still escapes me.

    Being a good football player is also knowing game situation.

  23. BillyTheKid 06/15/2007 at 2:30 PM #

    Hey Noah, have you ever been to the thedolphinsmakemycry web page? It’s pretty cool, no where near as cool as statefansnation but still pretty cool.

  24. noah 06/15/2007 at 2:38 PM #

    “Noah, you’re a Dolphins fan?!?”

    I was. I was a huge Dan Marino fan. I switched to pulling for the Panthers once they came into existence. Fortunately, that dove-tailed nicely with Marino’s retirement.

    “sat in stunned dejection after game 7 of the 91 World Series.”

    Twins and Braves? You know, that was such a DAMN good WS that I couldn’t be upset. I was far more upset the way the Braves choked away the series against Toronto. If they had a good closer instead of the corpse of Jeff Reardon, they would have won that series easily.

    “blacked out for hours after the UNC loss @ UVA in 1996.”

    Ohhhh, I can imagine. As a State fan, sorry, but that game has all kinds of special joy attached to it for me. I remember watching that game and just WILLING UVa to victory. It was me…I take the credit for it. Right before the big interception and run-back, I was thinking, “okay, just get a sack…force a fumble. Make ’em put it in the air and pick it off. Just don’t let them call a running play. They CANT run the ball here. They have to throw it.”

    And I remember Aubrey Shaw fumbling away that game in College Park. 1990, I think. The game was over. They had no TOs. We didn’t have to get a first down at all. We couldn’t QUITE go knee-down yet…but it was close.

    And I won’t blame TA anymore for that fumble. You can find that clip on YouTube. The fullback comes through the hole and should have gone left to seal off the running lane. Instead, he DOUBLES-BACK to block someone who is ALREADY engaged with a lineman! The safety for the Terps damn near killed TA on that hit. Holy god, what a hit.

  25. noah 06/15/2007 at 2:39 PM #

    “Hey Noah, have you ever been to the thedolphinsmakemycry web page?”

    No, I’ll check it out.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Leave a Reply