North Carolina Continues Mastery Over Clemson in Basketball

Forget the 1972 Miami Dolphins and their overrated season. So, they went 17-0. That's nice. The streak I'm talking about is three times as long as that.

It took double overtime, but the North Carolina Tar Heels extended their home winning streak over the Clemson Tigers to 53 games with a 103-93 win Sunday night.

When this streak started in 1926, Calvin Coolidge was the President. And it didn't matter if it was Coolidge or Hoover or Roosevelt or Truman or Eisenhower or Kennedy or Johnson or Nixon or Ford or Carter or Reagan or Bush Sr. or Clinton or Bush, the one thing you could count on was the Tar Heels beating the Tigers in Chapel Hill.

It didn't matter who was coaching North Carolina - Harlan Sanborn or James Ashmore or George Shepard or Walter Skidmore or Bill Lange or Ben Carnevale or Tom Scott or Frank McGuire or Dean Smith or Bill Guthridge or Matt Doherty or Roy Williams - they all were undefeated against Clemson at home.

It didn't matter who was coaching Clemson - Josh Cody or Joe Davis or Rock Norman or Banks McFadden or Press Maravich or Bobby Roberts or Tates Locke or Bill Foster or Cliff Ellis or Rick Barnes or Larry Shyatt or Oliver Purnell - a trip to Chapel Hill meant a loss.

And it's not like Clemson has been a doormat or has had poor players. Skip Wise, Tree Rollins, Billy Williams, Larry Nance, Vince Hamilton, Horace Grant, Elden Campbell, Dale Davis, Sharone Wright, Greg Buckner, Terrell McIntyre, Will Solomon and Ed Scott are just some of the stars that have passed through Clemson in the past 30 years.

It's not surprising that Clemson has a losing record in Chapel Hill. My guess is that every ACC team does. But it is amazing that they haven't won once. Odds are that one time Clemson would play good and Carolina would stumble. Or one time Clemson would have a better team. But fate has just not smiled on the Tigers.

Even during the Matt Doherty era, when the Tar Heels went back-to-back seasons without making the NCAA Tournament and finished below .500 in the ACC, Clemson could not break through.

The latest setback might have been the cruelest one of all.

The Tigers jumped out to a 14-point lead. They took an 11-point advantage into halftime. After a Demontez Stitt layup with 8:56 to play, Clemson led 68-53.

But Carolina proceeded to hit 11 of its next 15 shots, including four 3-point baskets, to force overtime.

Clemson had a three-point lead in the first overtime but was unable to seal the deal. In the second overtime, foul trouble finally did in the Tigers. Tyler Hansbrough and Wayne Ellington combined for 11 of the team's 13 points in the second overtime and lifted the Tar Heels to victory.

Earlier this season, Kansas State ended a 24-game home court losing streak against Kansas. Multiply that by two and you start to get close to Clemson's futility.

The win by Carolina meant that this is now the longest home-court win streak against a single opponent in college basketball history. In 2003, Brown finally emerged victorious over Princeton, which ended a 52-game road losing streak that dated back to 1908.

I'm tired of hearing stories of the smug 1972 Dolphins celebrating when the last unbeaten team loses a football game. I want to hear about Tree Rollins and Larry Nance and Horace Grant and Elden Campbell and others getting together to sip champagne when Clemson finally beats North Carolina in Chapel Hill.