jimsumner
02-25-2010, 12:49 PM
[note: I pulled this out of a separate thread - it was too worthy to languish. -jk]
Last year was the 30th anniversary of the airball game. I wrote an article for Blue Devil Weekly about that game and a game earlier that season against Marquette that was the first network nationally televised game from Cameron.
The article is not on-line. This is the doc file portion dealing with the air-ball game. It should answer most of your questions.
"North Carolina made the short trip to Durham for the regular-season finale leading second-place Duke by a single game. It was the final home game for Spanarkel and a bunch of Duke reserves. It was Duke versus Carolina. The sell-out crowd was stoked, the regional television audience was primed.
Duke was ranked sixth nationally, two spots below the Tar Heels.
The game started normally. Duke won the opening jump. Duke missed inside but Vince Taylor scored for Duke on the putback.
Then it got weird. Play word association and it won’t be long before Dean Smith is linked with “four corners.” But Smith’s spread-the-floor-scheme usually was reserved for end-of-game-situations or games where North Carolina was overmatched, such as UNC’s 21-20 loss to Duke in the 1966 ACC Tournament.
UNC was far from overmatched. They had handled Duke 74-68 at home after losing to the Devils 78-68 in the Big Four. Still, Smith had instructed his team to run the four corners until Duke came out of its 2-3 zone and chased his team.
Three decades later, Spanarkel still is incredulous. “I was pretty surprised. Smith is a hall-of-fame coach. But this was a strategy you used if you thought you couldn’t win. They had a great team and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t come in with the attitude that they could play with anybody. It was two powerhouses but only one powerhouse wanted to play.”
Duke didn’t take the bait. Foster signaled his team to stay where they were. After all, Spanarkel says “we led 2-0 and we were prepared to win
2-0, if that’s what they wanted. “
The crowd started off perplexed and surprised, advanced to indignant, and then moved way past indignant. Dennard remembers hearing “a hissing sound coming from the Crazies. It just got louder and louder. It sounded like a frying pan. My feet started to burn.”
There were only a few interruptions. Carolina held the ball for 11 minutes after the opening Duke basket. Duke knocked a pass out of bounds. The visitors in-bounded and held the ball for two more minutes of cat and mouse. Finally, UNC’s Rich Yonakor was double-teamed in the corner and Spanarkel picked off a pass.
Gene Banks missed a 15-footer but Gminski grabbed the rebound and was fouled on the follow shot by Yonakor. He made one of the foul shots. It was 3-0, with 5:43 left in the half.
Spanarkel tied up Dave Colescott but UNC retained the ball on the alternate possession.
The crowd still was hissing. Dennard says that made Yonakor “anxious.” For some reason, at the 4-minute mark, the UNC junior decided to launch a set shot from the baseline. It missed. Everything.
Duke rebounded and began its third offensive possession. Gminski scored on a dunk.
Carolina tried to hold for the final shot but the flustered Yonakor was forced into a turnover. Spanarkel hit a bank shot. Carolina pushed the ball up court. Colescott beat the buzzer with a launch from mid-court but his shot also missed everything.
So, that’s it, 7-0, all the action for an entire half of basketball between two top-six teams. Three field goals made, one of two foul shots, three rebounds. The Tar Heels ended the half with no points, no assists, no steals. A complete white-wash.
Smith stated following the game that he only intended to run the four corners for the first half. Down 7-0, he really didn’t have a choice. Carolina played the second half straight up.
There was one curious carry-over from the first half. Whenever Yonakor touched the ball in the second half, he was met with the chant “air ball.” His missed shot in the first half had missed the rim, had missed the backboard, hitting only air.
It’s difficult to pin-point with absolute certainty the first time a phrase is used. But I’ve never heard of any credible example of an earlier usage of the now ubiquitous term “air ball.” It seems fair to state that the term was invented that night in Cameron Indoor Stadium and it certainly wasn’t scripted.
The fans in Cameron and those watching on regional television got the game they expected in the second half. Spanarkel, Gminski, Banks, Mike O’Koren, Al Wood running and jumping and scoring.
Playing in his final home game, Spanarkel was superb. Great Duke players like Dick Groat and Art Heyman had posted career games in their senior finales against North Carolina and Spanarkel might well have joined them under different circumstances. “I might have had a 30-35 point-game,” Spanarkel muses. “I was focused and ready.”
Duke extended its lead, forcing UNC to foul. It was 41-32, with 30 seconds left, when Gminski grabbed a missed Carolina shot. He was fouled hard, and reacted with an elbow to Wood’s face. Gminski maintained that he hadn’t heard a whistle and was just trying to protect the ball.
Dennard agrees. “I doubt that it was on purpose. G-man wasn’t that kind of guy.”
Nonetheless, Gminski and Smith exchanged pleasantries before the situation was defused. Gminksi was ejected.
Steve Gray shot the personals for Duke and O’Koren the technicals for Carolina. All four were made and it was 43-34. Carolina played score and foul, Duke made its foul shots, and the game ended 47-40. Each team scored 40 points in the second half.
Spanarkel led all scorers with 17 points, missing only one of his nine field-goal attempts. Gminksi added 9 points and 5 rebounds. Wood scored a dozen for North Carolina.
Smith explained his logic following the game. “The 2-3 zone is the strength of their defense and we wanted them to play man-to-man.” Foster dead-panned “We had a chance to score eight points [in the first half] and we scored seven, which is pretty efficient. And our defense was flawless.”
Spanarkel could be forgiven if he blamed Smith for trying to ruin his senior night. But he’ll have none of that. “That first half made the game distinctive. Holding a team scoreless for a half has to be a first for modern basketball. Beating Carolina and having a 7-0 half made for a double dose of enjoyment.”
Dennard adds “Jim just didn’t have that kind of ego. None of us did. Carolina holding the ball wasn’t going to ruin our day. Losing the game would have. We had a sense of the collective. No one thought it was about them. “
Carolina got a measure of revenge a week later, beating Duke in the ACC Tournament finals. A week after that both teams ended their season with losses in the NCAA Tournament, a combined disaster still known as “Black Sunday.”
Regardless of how the season ended, nine-thousand fans and a Duke basketball team still carry a first-hand memory of that strange night when they watched a talented North Carolina go an entire half without scoring a point, or even hitting the rim. It’s a pretty safe bet that we won’t see that again."
Last year was the 30th anniversary of the airball game. I wrote an article for Blue Devil Weekly about that game and a game earlier that season against Marquette that was the first network nationally televised game from Cameron.
The article is not on-line. This is the doc file portion dealing with the air-ball game. It should answer most of your questions.
"North Carolina made the short trip to Durham for the regular-season finale leading second-place Duke by a single game. It was the final home game for Spanarkel and a bunch of Duke reserves. It was Duke versus Carolina. The sell-out crowd was stoked, the regional television audience was primed.
Duke was ranked sixth nationally, two spots below the Tar Heels.
The game started normally. Duke won the opening jump. Duke missed inside but Vince Taylor scored for Duke on the putback.
Then it got weird. Play word association and it won’t be long before Dean Smith is linked with “four corners.” But Smith’s spread-the-floor-scheme usually was reserved for end-of-game-situations or games where North Carolina was overmatched, such as UNC’s 21-20 loss to Duke in the 1966 ACC Tournament.
UNC was far from overmatched. They had handled Duke 74-68 at home after losing to the Devils 78-68 in the Big Four. Still, Smith had instructed his team to run the four corners until Duke came out of its 2-3 zone and chased his team.
Three decades later, Spanarkel still is incredulous. “I was pretty surprised. Smith is a hall-of-fame coach. But this was a strategy you used if you thought you couldn’t win. They had a great team and I don’t understand why they wouldn’t come in with the attitude that they could play with anybody. It was two powerhouses but only one powerhouse wanted to play.”
Duke didn’t take the bait. Foster signaled his team to stay where they were. After all, Spanarkel says “we led 2-0 and we were prepared to win
2-0, if that’s what they wanted. “
The crowd started off perplexed and surprised, advanced to indignant, and then moved way past indignant. Dennard remembers hearing “a hissing sound coming from the Crazies. It just got louder and louder. It sounded like a frying pan. My feet started to burn.”
There were only a few interruptions. Carolina held the ball for 11 minutes after the opening Duke basket. Duke knocked a pass out of bounds. The visitors in-bounded and held the ball for two more minutes of cat and mouse. Finally, UNC’s Rich Yonakor was double-teamed in the corner and Spanarkel picked off a pass.
Gene Banks missed a 15-footer but Gminski grabbed the rebound and was fouled on the follow shot by Yonakor. He made one of the foul shots. It was 3-0, with 5:43 left in the half.
Spanarkel tied up Dave Colescott but UNC retained the ball on the alternate possession.
The crowd still was hissing. Dennard says that made Yonakor “anxious.” For some reason, at the 4-minute mark, the UNC junior decided to launch a set shot from the baseline. It missed. Everything.
Duke rebounded and began its third offensive possession. Gminski scored on a dunk.
Carolina tried to hold for the final shot but the flustered Yonakor was forced into a turnover. Spanarkel hit a bank shot. Carolina pushed the ball up court. Colescott beat the buzzer with a launch from mid-court but his shot also missed everything.
So, that’s it, 7-0, all the action for an entire half of basketball between two top-six teams. Three field goals made, one of two foul shots, three rebounds. The Tar Heels ended the half with no points, no assists, no steals. A complete white-wash.
Smith stated following the game that he only intended to run the four corners for the first half. Down 7-0, he really didn’t have a choice. Carolina played the second half straight up.
There was one curious carry-over from the first half. Whenever Yonakor touched the ball in the second half, he was met with the chant “air ball.” His missed shot in the first half had missed the rim, had missed the backboard, hitting only air.
It’s difficult to pin-point with absolute certainty the first time a phrase is used. But I’ve never heard of any credible example of an earlier usage of the now ubiquitous term “air ball.” It seems fair to state that the term was invented that night in Cameron Indoor Stadium and it certainly wasn’t scripted.
The fans in Cameron and those watching on regional television got the game they expected in the second half. Spanarkel, Gminski, Banks, Mike O’Koren, Al Wood running and jumping and scoring.
Playing in his final home game, Spanarkel was superb. Great Duke players like Dick Groat and Art Heyman had posted career games in their senior finales against North Carolina and Spanarkel might well have joined them under different circumstances. “I might have had a 30-35 point-game,” Spanarkel muses. “I was focused and ready.”
Duke extended its lead, forcing UNC to foul. It was 41-32, with 30 seconds left, when Gminski grabbed a missed Carolina shot. He was fouled hard, and reacted with an elbow to Wood’s face. Gminski maintained that he hadn’t heard a whistle and was just trying to protect the ball.
Dennard agrees. “I doubt that it was on purpose. G-man wasn’t that kind of guy.”
Nonetheless, Gminski and Smith exchanged pleasantries before the situation was defused. Gminksi was ejected.
Steve Gray shot the personals for Duke and O’Koren the technicals for Carolina. All four were made and it was 43-34. Carolina played score and foul, Duke made its foul shots, and the game ended 47-40. Each team scored 40 points in the second half.
Spanarkel led all scorers with 17 points, missing only one of his nine field-goal attempts. Gminksi added 9 points and 5 rebounds. Wood scored a dozen for North Carolina.
Smith explained his logic following the game. “The 2-3 zone is the strength of their defense and we wanted them to play man-to-man.” Foster dead-panned “We had a chance to score eight points [in the first half] and we scored seven, which is pretty efficient. And our defense was flawless.”
Spanarkel could be forgiven if he blamed Smith for trying to ruin his senior night. But he’ll have none of that. “That first half made the game distinctive. Holding a team scoreless for a half has to be a first for modern basketball. Beating Carolina and having a 7-0 half made for a double dose of enjoyment.”
Dennard adds “Jim just didn’t have that kind of ego. None of us did. Carolina holding the ball wasn’t going to ruin our day. Losing the game would have. We had a sense of the collective. No one thought it was about them. “
Carolina got a measure of revenge a week later, beating Duke in the ACC Tournament finals. A week after that both teams ended their season with losses in the NCAA Tournament, a combined disaster still known as “Black Sunday.”
Regardless of how the season ended, nine-thousand fans and a Duke basketball team still carry a first-hand memory of that strange night when they watched a talented North Carolina go an entire half without scoring a point, or even hitting the rim. It’s a pretty safe bet that we won’t see that again."