NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : It’s Fire vs. Ice: Sooners Meet the Tar Heels

When Oklahoma and North Carolina play today in the second round of the Midwest Regional, it will be more than merely another NCAA tournament game between high-profile programs. It will be a clash of cultures.

Oklahoma fire vs. Carolina cool, the winner advancing to the Midwest semifinals in Dallas to face either Arkansas or Dayton, who will meet in today’s other second-round game at the University of Texas’ Erwin Center.

If Carolina’s Dean Smith is college basketball’s Mr. Control, Oklahoma’s Billy Tubbs is its loosest cannon.

Tubbs favors junior college players and four are in his starting lineup. In 29 years at Carolina, Smith has recruited only one JC player, Bob McAdoo.

“They can come at you with bigger, stronger, more highly publicized players,” Tubbs said. “I mean, you’ve got to be a Parade All-American to be even considered (by North Carolina). We’re outnumbered in Parade All-Americans.”

“They rely on JC All-Americans,” Smith replied. “We rely on high school All-Americans. I prefer college All-Americans.”

This hasn’t been a normal year for the Tar Heels, who staggered into the tournament with 12 losses--four in their last six games--and are the eighth-seeded team in the Midwest.

North Carolina entered the tournament shooting 49.7%, its worst percentage in 19 seasons. Point guard King Rice is shooting only 40% from the floor.

North Carolina has a big front line and used its bulk effectively in beating Southwest Missouri State in the first round of the tournament. The Tar Heels will have to use it again to neutralize Oklahoma’s quickness.

Oklahoma and Carolina have met only once, early in the 1982-83 season at a tournament in Hawaii. The Tar Heels won, 77-69, and, as Smith remembers it, Tubbs was miffed afterward.

“After the game, he said something like, ‘Who do they think they are?’ ” Smith said. “I didn’t understand.”

The outburst probably was merely part of the OU-against-everybody routine that Tubbs has perfected in his 10 years at the school.

Perhaps trying to pull his team out of the funk that caused it to struggle against 16th-seeded Towson State in the first round, he used Friday’s news conference to berate the media for dwelling on recent incidents involving Skeeter Henry, the senior guard who leads the Sooners in scoring.

Henry, who likes to put a charge in Oklahoma fans by firing imaginary six-guns, drew a technical for spitting on a Kansas State player during the Sooners’ Jan. 16 loss to the Wildcats, and he received another technical during the Towson State game.

“Hammer me. Don’t hammer my damn players,” Tubbs said. “They’re good people. Skeeter Henry is a good person. Talk about his classroom turnaround. Go to the gutter or the ghettos if you want to write that other trash.”