One of the better Duke-UNC games, at least from Duke’s point of view, came on February 28th, 1998, when Carolina visited Cameron. UNC was ranked #3 and Duke #1, but the Tar Heels took a 12-point lead into halftime before stretching it out to 17 after the break.
But Duke wasn’t giving up. It had Elton Brand back after a serious foot injury and it was senior day for Steve Wojciechowski, who played with incredible ferocity.
Duke started coming back though and that Cameron energy took off. The Blue Devils
eventually came all the way back to earn Coach K his 500th career win, 77-75. Unbelievably, UNC blew four straight free throws in the last 3.8 seconds.
This game was also famous for the embrace between Coach K and Wojo, who may have been the player who most exemplified what Coach K valued in a player: endless effort, ferocious defense and an unwillingness to accept mediocrity.
This game also had a cool sidenote: earlier in the week, UNC guard Shammond Williams came over and hung out with the Crazies as they camped out. To the best of our knowledge, he’s the only UNC player who was ever curious enough to make the short drive to check out Krzyzewskiville. We’ve always thought well of him for that. Trivia: he had the first fan’s site dedicated to a player, Shammond’s World. You might be able to find it on the WayBack Machine or some other Internet archive.
