0-52 — Time to ask for charity
From Sunday's Dispatch...
Usually, I have the utmost respect for the University of North Carolina and its basketball program. I’ve always admired Roy Williams and the Dean Smith Center is a great place to watch a college basketball game.
But for the next 24 hours, I have malice in my heart for all things Carolina blue.
I’m hoping for a gray sky today, just to avoid the hated hue. I’m hoping for a miracle — something that has never happened in 82 years or 52 tries.
What I’d really like today is to see Clemson leave Chapel Hill with a win.
My childhood team is 0-52 in the city limits of Chapel Hill. The Tigers are 0-21 in the Dean Dome and 0-32 in Carmichael Auditorium.
It’s sad, really. Remember when the Tar Heels shocked the college basketball world in the ‘01-’02 season by going 8-20? One of those wins was a 96-78 snoozer over Clemson on Feb 27, 2002.
Only seven of those 52 losses were decided by less than 10 points, including one-point losses in 1936 and 1974.
Clemson’s overall record against Carolina isn’t much better (19-119), and Clemson’s 34-18-1 football record against the sky blues doesn’t make me feel any better.
You would think that sometime over the last eight decades that the Tigers would have lucked out and won a game. But no, since 1926 the price of gas has gone from a penny per gallon to a rate 300 times that high and Clemson can’t win in Chapel Hill.
The Washington Generals won six games out of more than 13,000 against the Globetrotters in the years they’ve played, yet no Tar Heel has ever walked back to his dorm after losing a home game to Clemson.
There have been two World Wars, 14 presidents, seven popes, three ACC expansions and five generations of Capps men. And still, Clemson hasn’t found a way to knock off North Carolina in a game of basketball in Chapel Hill.
Is it Franklin Street? Maybe it’s the traffic on N.C. 15/501. Or perhaps its the fact that Clemson is a football school while the University of North Carolina is one of the elite programs in college basketball history?
It defies logic. It doesn’t make sense for the same two teams that share a conference to play 52 times and have the same result each time out. Surely, the law of averages would have to come into play somewhere, right?
This time around, Clemson can take comfort in the fact that it took Carolina to overtime earlier this season and only an on-fire night from Wayne Ellington saved the Tar Heels from losing in Littlejohn Coliseum. Maybe the Tigers can hope that jet-quick Tar Heel point guard Ty Lawson is still hobbled by a sore ankle.
Or maybe it’ll snow a foot, forcing a postponement of tonight’s game.
I’d love to boldly predict a Clemson victory, throwing caution to the wind and getting squarely behind the underdog. But it is written that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
I honestly believe that someday, while I’m still vertical, the stars will align and the boys from Tiger town will finally leave Chapel Hill with a victory. I also believe that it probably won’t happen today.
And it’s OK. I have a lifetime’s worth of experience with the pain of Tiger setbacks on the hill. Whether it was watching call after call go against Clemson as Carolina went to the foul line 59 times in a January game in 1998 or hiding my face as Rashad McCants torched the Tigers in a two-point loss in 2003, I know the misery of being a Clemson fan on these dark days.
Would it be too much to ask for just one win in the Dean Dome? You guys have four NCAA titles and 1,935 all-time wins. Can’t you spare one, tiny loss to your friendly neighbors to the south?
Heck, even Duke has been nice enough to let us win four games in Cameron Indoor Stadium. You don’t want the Blue Devils to be more charitable than you are, do you?
On Monday, I’ll go back to be a balanced, impartial observer of the ACC basketball scene. But today, I’ll do my duty and watch Clemson take loss No. 53 in Chapel Hill.
We’ll likely lose, but at least we’ll take it well. After all, we have loads of practice.
Contact the writer at
rcapps@hendersondispatch.com.
Usually, I have the utmost respect for the University of North Carolina and its basketball program. I’ve always admired Roy Williams and the Dean Smith Center is a great place to watch a college basketball game.
But for the next 24 hours, I have malice in my heart for all things Carolina blue.
I’m hoping for a gray sky today, just to avoid the hated hue. I’m hoping for a miracle — something that has never happened in 82 years or 52 tries.
What I’d really like today is to see Clemson leave Chapel Hill with a win.
My childhood team is 0-52 in the city limits of Chapel Hill. The Tigers are 0-21 in the Dean Dome and 0-32 in Carmichael Auditorium.
It’s sad, really. Remember when the Tar Heels shocked the college basketball world in the ‘01-’02 season by going 8-20? One of those wins was a 96-78 snoozer over Clemson on Feb 27, 2002.
Only seven of those 52 losses were decided by less than 10 points, including one-point losses in 1936 and 1974.
Clemson’s overall record against Carolina isn’t much better (19-119), and Clemson’s 34-18-1 football record against the sky blues doesn’t make me feel any better.
You would think that sometime over the last eight decades that the Tigers would have lucked out and won a game. But no, since 1926 the price of gas has gone from a penny per gallon to a rate 300 times that high and Clemson can’t win in Chapel Hill.
The Washington Generals won six games out of more than 13,000 against the Globetrotters in the years they’ve played, yet no Tar Heel has ever walked back to his dorm after losing a home game to Clemson.
There have been two World Wars, 14 presidents, seven popes, three ACC expansions and five generations of Capps men. And still, Clemson hasn’t found a way to knock off North Carolina in a game of basketball in Chapel Hill.
Is it Franklin Street? Maybe it’s the traffic on N.C. 15/501. Or perhaps its the fact that Clemson is a football school while the University of North Carolina is one of the elite programs in college basketball history?
It defies logic. It doesn’t make sense for the same two teams that share a conference to play 52 times and have the same result each time out. Surely, the law of averages would have to come into play somewhere, right?
This time around, Clemson can take comfort in the fact that it took Carolina to overtime earlier this season and only an on-fire night from Wayne Ellington saved the Tar Heels from losing in Littlejohn Coliseum. Maybe the Tigers can hope that jet-quick Tar Heel point guard Ty Lawson is still hobbled by a sore ankle.
Or maybe it’ll snow a foot, forcing a postponement of tonight’s game.
I’d love to boldly predict a Clemson victory, throwing caution to the wind and getting squarely behind the underdog. But it is written that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
I honestly believe that someday, while I’m still vertical, the stars will align and the boys from Tiger town will finally leave Chapel Hill with a victory. I also believe that it probably won’t happen today.
And it’s OK. I have a lifetime’s worth of experience with the pain of Tiger setbacks on the hill. Whether it was watching call after call go against Clemson as Carolina went to the foul line 59 times in a January game in 1998 or hiding my face as Rashad McCants torched the Tigers in a two-point loss in 2003, I know the misery of being a Clemson fan on these dark days.
Would it be too much to ask for just one win in the Dean Dome? You guys have four NCAA titles and 1,935 all-time wins. Can’t you spare one, tiny loss to your friendly neighbors to the south?
Heck, even Duke has been nice enough to let us win four games in Cameron Indoor Stadium. You don’t want the Blue Devils to be more charitable than you are, do you?
On Monday, I’ll go back to be a balanced, impartial observer of the ACC basketball scene. But today, I’ll do my duty and watch Clemson take loss No. 53 in Chapel Hill.
We’ll likely lose, but at least we’ll take it well. After all, we have loads of practice.
Contact the writer at
rcapps@hendersondispatch.com.
posted by Randy Capps at 1:23 AM
1 Comments:
Hey - they came SOOOO close!
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