Friday, Nov. 23, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.
What: Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Invitational
When: Today and Saturday
Where: Orleans Arena
Teams: No. 1 North Carolina, No. 6 Louisville, BYU, Old Dominion, Hartford, Iona, Jackson State and South Carolina State
Tonight: BYU vs. Louisville, 6 p.m.; Old Dominion vs. North Carolina, 9 p.m.
Tickets: $94 and up (two-day packages only)
On the web: www.orleansarena.com
If you had to whittle the social calendar at the University of North Carolina to three dates, they would probably be the start of basketball practice, Selection Sunday and Bob McAdoo's Dance Party.
Actually, Bob McAdoo's Dance Party exists only in the imagination of some old writer at Saturday Night Live, who must have carried a torch for offensive-minded power forwards who starred at North Carolina under Dean Smith during the 1970s.
Big Dance parties, on the other hand, are more prevalent in Chapel Hill than independently owned coffee shops. The Tar Heels are like buzzer-beating baskets, upsets by No. 12 seeds and "Like a Rock" Chevy commercials - you can't hold an NCAA tournament without them.
This weekend, North Carolina, the nation's top-ranked college basketball team, headlines an eight-team field at the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Invitational at the Orleans Arena.
With all due respect to Rick Pitino and No. 6 Louisville and rugged Brigham Young of the Mountain West - and even Kansas and Florida, which battled long and hard in last year's Las Vegas Invitational championship game overtime thriller - when it comes to success, tradition and Dick Vitale's limited vocabulary, it doesn't get any better than North Carolina on a 94-by-50-foot slab of hardwood.
Unless, of course, Duke is suiting up in the other locker room. Then maybe it's just as good.
Program to succeed
If Green Bay, Wis., is Titletown, USA, then Chapel Hill, N.C., is its distant suburb. The North Carolina men's basketball team has won four NCAA championships (1957, 1982, 1993 and 2005) and 16 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament titles. Last January, Carolina posted the 1,900th victory in program history. Only Kentucky and the Harlem Globetrotters have won more.
Carolina's finest
Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Vince Carter, Shammond Williams, Ademola Okulaja, Billy Cunningham, Brad Daugherty, Hubert Davis, Raymond Felton, Phil Ford, Ed Cota, Tyler Hansbrough, Antawn Jamison, George Karl, Sean May, Bob McAdoo, Eric Montross, Sam Perkins, J.R. Reid, Kenny Smith, Jerry Stackhouse, Jeff McInnis, Rasheed Wallace, James Worthy, Brandan Wright, Mitch Kupchak, Marvin Williams, Matt Doherty - these are just some of the great ones who have hooped it up in Carolina Blue.
Oh yeah, and some guy named Jordan.
Coaches of the first class
North Carolina has had only five coaches since 1953 - and each has been named the national coach of the year. Frank McGuire was honored in 1957; Dean Smith in 1977, 1979 and 1983; Bill Guthridge in 1998, Matt Doherty in 2001; and Roy Williams in 2006. The year after Doherty was feted, the Tar Heels finished 8-20 - their only losing season since 1962 and the first time UNC failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament in 28 years. Doherty was forced out after three seasons as coach.
'Heels toe the line
The North Carolina basketball team shares its Tar Heel nickname with its home state. One version of the nickname's origin has it first being applied to North Carolinians during the Civil War.
According to the UNC Web site, there was a battle in Virginia where North Carolina troops fought alone after their supporting columns retreated. The victorious troops were asked in a condescending tone by Virginians who had retreated if there was "any more tar down in the Old North State, boys?"
"No, not a bit; Old Jeff's bought it all up."
"Is that so? What's he going to do with it?"
"He is going to put it on you'ns heels to make you stick better in the next fight."
Virginia is still retreating to this day, at least when Tyler Hansbrough, who would have made Old Jeff proud, gets the ball in the low post.
Carolina Blue
That's the color of the blazer Tar Heels coach Roy Williams sometimes sports on the sidelines. But do you know how "Carolina Blue" came to be North Carolina's primary color?
The school colors of light blue and white were first used around 1800 to distinguish between members of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Societies. Light blue and white have been considered North Carolina's colors for more than a century.
Another reason commonly given for the paler shade of blue, at least on bumper stickers, is that "God must be a Tar Heel because he made the sky Carolina Blue."
Maybe so. But I still think Roy Williams looks better in an understated tweed jacket.
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