Today I ask you to look at your calendar, 2 questions: Is it March? Do you remember March 5th and its significance? Check your calendar. It isn’t my birthday, and it isn’t a national holiday, but for Tar Heel fans, March 5th is sacred. It is the fourth anniversary of the greatest ‘spoiler’ mission in the history of the sport, or any of that sort. Still, it is the 4th anniversary of a top-2 moment in Carolina Basketball History. As Michael William Krzyzewski would lose his final game in the building that he built, he would lose to Hubert Davis, a first-year head coach who was having a down season by Carolina standards.
The backstory: Duke had a phenomenal season, including blowing out the Heels in the Dean Smith Center a month earlier, and was looking to continue that season. The Heels were having a mediocre year, as Hubert Davis was trying to bring Carolina Basketball back to the top of the country, but he had struggled. Being on the NCAA Tournament bubble, Hubert Davis’ season finale was also the Career finale in Cameron Indoor Stadium for Coach K.
The game was glorious, a tunnel of all Duke players to have played under the legendary coach, would later be crowned “The Tunnel of Love,” paying homage to Caleb Love and his phenomenal performance in March, and later in April against Coach K. As the final 5 minutes are my favorite, seeing celebrities crying, I still watch the girls dressed as ‘Big Bird’ bawling their eyes out because they realized the $5,000 they spent on a ticket didn’t buy a win. It’s hard to feel bad for someone who pays the price of a mid-sized sedan just to watch their team lose.”
But how does one celebrate this event 4 years later? well there are many ways to do so. You can put coachkhomestreak.com on a Facebook post, followed by putting it on this very post; you can write articles in memory of it. Or you can just do the simple thing that my brother and I discussed on the way to school this morning. Just rewatch the full replay. It’s great. You can watch Brady Manek have the quickest release ever, or Caleb Love throwing a lob to Armando Bacot, RJ davis hit a few 3s, and last and my personal favorite, watch Theo John a Duke player at the time look like an idiot for saying the following “Everybody savage until they get face to face with one” Armando Bacot showed John the inverse of that quote: It’s easy to talk about being a savage until a 6’11” monster from Richmond hangs 23 and 7 on your head in your own building.
All things considered, March 5th is always a great day. Just remember if you’re having a bad day, that you did not pay 5,000 US Dollars to watch your favorite team/favorite coach lose to a hated rival (Unless you were there, then I have nothing to say, hope the concessions were at least good)
