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mt Satlu ®ar INSIDE MONDAY MARCH 31,1997 UNC’s tournament run ruined by Arizona bhiSß iSBP w ' ; " wSHEs^v^'- SPECIAL TO THE DTH/JOHN WHITE North Carolina center Serge Zwikker wipes a tear from his eye following the Tar Heels' season-ending defeat to the Wildcats on Saturday night. Reality revisits Tar Heels after 16 straight victories BY ROBBIPICKERAL SENIOR WRITER INDIANAPOLIS lt took 16 games for North Carolina to hit the wall two months, 640 game minutes, multiple injuries and a few very close rails But Saturday evening at the RCA Dome, the Tar Heels hit a hard slab of concrete face first. And it wasn’t just an Arizona team that blocked the Tar Heels’ path to an NCAA cham pionship game berth. It was finally, inexplica bly, themselves. The 66-58 national semifinal loss to the Wildcats left Vince Carter stunned, Ademola Okulaja shaken and Serge Zwikker in tears. “We just had one of those bad days,” freshman point guard Ed Cota said. That’s an understatement, especially for a squad that has not had a ‘bad day’ since it lost Jan. 29 at Duke. “It’s hard,” said Shammond Williams, who shot l-of-13 for the game. “I take this loss personally.” So did his teammates, because the defeat was a stunner. The Tar Heels looked loose early in the game, going up by as many as 11 on a bevy of acrobatic crowd-pleasers from Carter. The sophomore leaper scored 16 of his 21 points in the first half includ ing two alley-oops, a reverse jam and a hanging fast-break layup and foul. Carter & Cos. looked comfortable, but they might have gotten a bit too comfortable. “We got so excited there at the beginning, when our shots were falling, SEAC protests new road construction BY MARVA HINTON ASSISTANT UNIVERSITY EDITOR While most UNC students were thinking about the road to the Final Four, Student Environmental Action Coalition members had another road on their minds. SEAC members stood outside the Smith Center before Saturday’s showing of the UNC-Arizona basketball game and passed out fliers to protest the pro posed construction of anew road. - The $1.2 million road will connect Ram’s Head parking lot to Manning Paid political advertisement The 1996 N.C. governor's race cost less real money than past races. Page 2 m and maybe we thought they’d just keep falling and we could start to make wild shots,” said senior Charlie McNairy, who played less than a minute in his final game as a Tar Heel. “And ... that big run, it might’ve hurt us in the long run, because after that, we did start taking shots that just weren’t our normal shots.” UNC uncharacteristically rushed its offense, taking a whopping 74 shots for the game. But even the 23 that did fall were hard fought, as everything seem ingly came up short or drifted long. “It just seems like nothing we threw up went through,” said sophomore Antawn Jamison, who finished with 18 points and 11 boards. “It was one of those days that you hope never hap pens.” But the Tar Heels played uncharac teristically in other areas, too. Not only did they record their worst shooting performance (31.1 percent) in at least two decades, they were a step off in hustle plays, the team’s trademark. “They just out-hustled us today, grabbing a lot of loose boards and loose balls and really getting down the court,” Cota said. That was the difference, because the Wildcats struggled to locate the rim as well, hitting just a third of their shots. “We had opportunities, even with our bad shooting, if we would’ve just limited them to one shot and gotten every loose ball,” Okulaja said. “That killed us.” In the end, Arizona managed to con vert when UNC could not. The Tar Heels seemed to lose the poise they had carefully cultivated over the last 16 games, and the ‘Cats pounced, forcing UNC into a collision with the cold wall of defeat it had man aged to dodge for 56 days. Drive. Critics have complained that Ram’s Club mem bers who have access to the lot will unfairly bene fit from the tax funded road. “SEAC as a whole, along with members of the (Chapel Hill) Town Council, feel this is a raw deal,” said Lauren SEAC Coohairman ANDREW PEARSON opposes anew road to the Smith Center. It’s a loss; that’s all I can think about. And it hurts. Vince Carter Love me, love me Beck, The Cardigans and Atari Teenage Riot rocked a Raleigh concert that had everyone dancing. Page 4 # H, JSBm a k•! § \ | / KSHHHhi I * M \ I It^mi WPiJ m jfR Ii j&ijSiHß SPEOAL TO THE DTH/IOHN WHITE Following a 66-58 national semifinal defeat to Arizona, Tar Heel forward Makhtar Ndiaye, guard Vince Carter and forward Antawn Jamison (from left) walk disconsolately to the locker room. Loss dampens anticipated downtown chaos BY ROB NELSON ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR AND TORI DAVIS STAFF WRITER Police had prepared for it, businesses had counted on it and students had prayed for it. But the post-game celebration on Franklin Street never came to be. “It would have been a big celebration had the Tar Heels won,” said a Chapel Hill police officer who asked to remain unidentified. The officer said he thought even if the outcome of the game had been dif ferent, the celebration would not have been too large because many students were away for the Easter holiday. Chapel Hill Police Lt. Tim Presley said the loss saved his officers from putting plans into effect for Monday night. “We like to see the Tar Heels win, See REACTION, Page 5 Attanas, SEAC co-chairwoman. “It uses taxpayer money for something that only benefits a small number of people.” But in an earlier interview, Director of University News Services Mike McFarland said the road would help anyone leaving the Smith Center. “The road won’t be exclusively for basketball games,” McFarland said. “It will also serve to better facilitate the flow of traffic during concerts and other Smith Center events.” Andrew Pearson, SEAC co-chair- See SEAC, Page 5 Hip-hop hooray Anew student group, Hip-Hop Nation, is hoping to make hip-hop big in North Carolina. Page 5 .* ilp ftoii. , 115 tJjf daf v fS§| 'V DTH/MISTI MCDANIEL Students crowded into bars and restaurants on Franklin Street to await the outcome of the UNC-Arizona basketball game Saturday night. The Tar Heels were defeated 66-58 in the semifinal game of the NCAA tournament. Next DTH editor to be selected Saturday ■ Four candidates will be interviewed by a panel composed of 11 students. BY MARY WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER Four students have applied to be the 1997-98 editor of The Daily Tar Heel. Erica Beshears, Laura Godwin, Michael Kanarek and Richard Ray are vying to be the newspaper’s 131st editor. An 11-student panel will select the next editor based on applications and an Today's Weather Sunny; low 60s Tuesday Sunny; high 50s. Candidates outline goals and ideas See Page 11 hour-long inter view with each candidate on Saturday. Beshears, a junior journalism major from Wilkes County, currently holds the position of DTH writing coach. Beshears said she hoped to make the paper stronger through computer-assist ed reporting, which would allow writers to supplement stories with statistics. The figures will make the articles more jour nalistically sound, she said. Godwin, a junior communication studies major from Winston-Salem, now serves as DTH managing editor. 104 yean of editorial freedom Serving the students amUhe University community since 1893 News/Featural/ Arts/Sports: 962-0245 r 962-1163 p intle 20 Chapel HiU, North Carolina © 1997 DTH Publishing Corp. AH rights reserved. Cold shooting spells disaster for Tar Heels BY ALEC MORRISON SPORTS EDITOR INDIANAPOLIS —After 16 games of heating up as the contest went on, North Carolina worked backwards Saturday. The result was another early exit from the Final Four. East Regional champion and No. 1 seed UNC started on a tear before going stone cold in a 66-58 loss to Southeast champion Men's basketball Arizona 66 UNC 58 Arizona, a No. 4 seed, before a crowd of 47,028 at the RCA Dome in the NCAA semifinals. The Tar Heels (28-7), who won 16 straight with a lethal second-half punch prior to Saturday’s loss, shot 28 percent from the floor in the second period and couldn’t stop Arizona (24-9) from can ning clutch shots down the stretch. So for the third time in UNC’s last four Final Four trips, the Tar Heels fell in the semis. Arizona, the only team to beat UNC twice this season, faces Kentucky tonight for the NCAA title. “We were running our offense, but we just couldn’t get the shots to fall tonight,” UNC guard Shammond Williams said. “That’s just the bottom line.” Williams, the ACC Tournament and NCAA East Region MVP, might have felt the pain more than any Tar Heel. He hit his first shot of the game, a 3- pointer to give UNC a 3-2 lead, but fin ished 1 of 13 from the field. Perhaps UNC did run its offense, but Arizona put wrinkles in the Tar Heel schemes all night. The Wildcats hound ed Williams at the perimeter, constant- See ARIZONA, Page 5 Godwin said she wanted to make edi torials stronger. "The editorial page is extremely important,” Godwin said. “Thirty-six thousand people read it a day. It needs to raise issues and to raise awareness.” Kanarek, a sophomore journalism major from Jacksonville, currently works as the DTH copy desk editor Kanarek said he wanted to improve the paper’s visual side with the support of creative students specializing in graphics and photography. He also plans to have more in-depth stories, he said. See EDITOR, Page 5
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 31, 1997, edition 1
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