Sooners and Heels have history
Mar 28, 2009
Tags: ACC
Who could ever forget the 40 foot shot that Duke's Jeff Capel hit in 1995 to send his Blue Devils and Carolina into a second overtime in perhaps the most memorable college basketball game in history. Capel could never have imagined that almost 15 years later he would get another chance to knock off his bitter rival, only this time as the coach of Oklahoma.
In 1995 Capel and the Blue Devils were way over matched by guys like Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace, but this time Capel has likely national player of the year Blake Griffin to help him take on the top seeded Tar Heels. Capel has joked that he doesn't correct people when they say they saw his game winning last-second shot. He knows the shot didn't win the game but was still maybe the greatest shot in the Duke-UNC rivalry. I bet he would trade that moment for a win on Sunday that would advance his Sooners to the Final Four in just his third season.
Capel is only 34 years old and I bet when he sees that light blue it will make him want to throw on a jersey and lace'em up himself. Hopefully for him he will have better success as a coach than he did as a player, Capel went 1-7 against the Tar Heels. Capel's finest moment as a player came in the exact spot the Sooners find themselves in on Sunday.
In the Elite 8 as a freshman he knocked down two huge three-pointers in a second half comeback win over top-seeded Purdue to advance the Devils to the Final Four. He can use that experience to show his guys, look I've been in the exact position you guys are in, and I pulled it off. Capel seems to have that "it" that great coaches have, his team has great skill and they play really hard and really smart. They will provide a great test for the Tar Heels, and honestly they owe them one.
Let me take you back to 1990 when Billy Tubbs had maybe his most dominant Sooners team. They were the overall top seed and faced off with Dean Smith and an eighth seeded Carolina team that honestly wasn't that good. Nobody thought the The Tar Heels had a chance, but they went toe to toe with the highest scoring team in the nation, and with :8 seconds left ran a final play for a young kid named Rick Fox. Fox drove the lane and dashed Oklahoma's championship dreams with a bank shot as time expired. That shot is still the only buzzer-beating victory in North Carolina's rich NCAA history.
So it comes down to Oklahoma and Carolina for a trip to Detroit, and what could be sweeter for a former Blue Devil than to knock off Carolina to get to your first Final Four? You can bet that both Capel and the Sooners are looking for a little sweet revenge.
