In any other year early-April would be a time for reflecting on the Elite 8 and looking forward to the Final 4, but this year is not like any other year. Instead, we will spend the week reflecting on champions of the past, from a famous coach who won the 1947 NCAA title as a player to a Hall of Famer who led her team to a perfect 34-0 season in 1986. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel continues our 8-part series with Buzz Peterson, who talked about winning the NCAA tourney as a player in 1982 and the NIT as a coach in 2001.
In the 1981 McDonald’s All-American game Michael Jordan had 6 STL and set a game-record 30 PTS (including 2 FT with 11 seconds left) in the East’s 1-PT win over the West: how on earth were you named 1981 North Carolina high school POY over Jordan (who averaged a triple-double for Laney High School in Wilmington: 29.2 PPG/11.6 RPG/10.1 APG)!? Michael always says that the only reason I won the award is because there were 7 major newspapers in North Carolina and my dad owned 6 of them…but there is no truth to that at all! I always ride him and let him know that he was not Player of the Year. I do not know how I won it: neither of our teams won the championship that year. That is really my only claim to fame over him.
Jordan became your roommate at UNC and was later the best man at your wedding: what was he like as a roommate, and what do you remember about your bachelor party? When we went to school he was just another freshman coming in and nobody knew how good he was going to be. He was driven, a hard worker, and a very determined person so he became better and better every year. Once Coach Dean Smith worked on his defense he became a much better ballplayer. He had the size, the length, and all the skills to become a very good player. MJ was in my wedding along with Davis Love III and Brad Daugherty: we had a good time and played a lot of golf with Davis that week.
You won 4 ACC regular season titles while playing for Coach Smith at UNC: what made him such a great coach, and what the most important thing you ever learned from him? Coach kept everything pretty simple: there was not a lot of complicated stuff but he really taught discipline both on and off the floor. Whether you were the 1st man or 16th man no one was treated differently. He always corrected the little stuff and paid attention to detail.
In the magical 1982 NCAA tourney title game Jordan scored 16 PTS including a jumper with 17 seconds left in a 1-PT win over Georgetown: why did Smith trust a freshman to take the final shot, and was everyone just stunned after Fred Brown accidentally passed the ball right to tourney MOP James Worthy at the end of the game? What is interesting is that Georgetown coach John Thompson had been 1 of Coach Smith’s assistants at the 1976 Olympics. They were very close friends and he knew what we were going to run in our zone offense. He knew that Sam Perkins or James Worthy was going to the elbow block so he was not going to let either of them take the shot. We made a skip pass to Michael and I was actually surprised that he took the shot, but that is just how he is. He was determined to hit the winning basket and he knocked it down. I think everyone was stunned with Fred Brown’s pass. After James missed his FTs there was kind of a scramble: James was way behind the play and Fred just threw it back to him before he realized that it was a guy in a different-colored jersey.
In Jordan’s final home game in 1984, Matt Doherty took an inbounds pass the length of the court and hit a 15-footer with 1 second left in regulation en route to clinch a 2-OT win over Duke (as the Tar Heels became the 1st ACC team in a decade to go undefeated in conference play): how do you explain the intensity of the Duke-UNC rivalry as someone who has seen it up close and personal? It is a fun game. It was not as intense during my 1st year because Virginia was our rival and they had Ralph Sampson, but toward the end of my career it became Duke. I have always felt like the fans were involved in it more than anything else and they made it a bigger thing than it was. We played a lot of pickup ball with each other and knew each other well. It is quite a game now: Coach K made Duke better and better and it has become pretty intense.
You were named SoCon COY twice in a 3-year span at Appalachian State: what did it mean to you to win such outstanding honors? We just had good players and good assistant coaches who recruited great players for us. They did a great job and we were very fortunate to win the league. We were so close in the final year: it was tough to get by Davidson/Charleston.
What are your memories of the 2001 WAC tourney title game in your 1st/only year as coach at Tulsa (freshman Carl English scored 25 PTS including a leaner with 1.8 seconds left in regulation in a 6-PT OT win by Hawaii)? That was a gut-wrenching loss. You have some tough losses in your career and that was one of them. I thought that we were going to the NCAA tourney and we were right there but they hit a shot at the buzzer. It was so close: Hawaii was playing really good basketball at that time.
Take me through the magical 2001 NIT:
Kevin Johnson had 22 PTS/10 REB in a 3-PT OT win over Minnesota: how were you able to keep your team focused after blowing an 18-PT lead in the 2nd half? We were up and playing pretty well but we knew they would make a run. Kevin was a heck of a ballplayer. That group was tough-minded and were not going to go down easy. It was an interesting run that year. We changed the offense a little bit: Coach Smith helped us do some different things and then we tweaked it. After we beat UC-Irvine at home I remember Coach Smith telling me that in order to beat teams from better conferences we would have to play a different type of basketball so we changed our offense altogether. Our kids were determined/hard-nosed and we shot the ball pretty well.
Greg Harrington scored 14 PTS and made a basket with 2.6 seconds left in a 2-PT win over Mississippi State: did you think that Derrick Zimmerman’s 3-PT shot at the buzzer counted, and what was the reaction like in your locker room after a video review showed that the basket did not count? I knew that he was out-of-bounds because I saw it happen right in front of our bench. I remember referee Larry Rose called it. The call on him stepping on the line was big: there was a delayed response but we were very excited. A lot of those young men had never been to New York. It all happened so fast: I had to go up a couple days later and then the team came up after that.
NIT MVP Marcus Hill scored 24 PTS to beat Alabama and win the title: what did it mean to you to win the title, and how were you able to hold the Tide’s leading scorer Rod Grizzard scoreless for most of the game? Our kids played hard-nosed defense and would grind it out most of the time. Marcus had a great game. We had different players stepping up on different nights: they were just a determined team.
In 2007 you became Director of Player Personnel for the Charlotte Bobcats: why did you take the job, and how did you like working for Jordan? Michael and I had talked about it before: he said he was going to buy the team and wanted me to think about taking the job. I had coached all of my life and was intrigued by it. I enjoyed it, but after coaching college kids for so long and having the academic side and influencing the lives of young men I just missed being around a team. It was a great experience being in an NBA front office. I enjoyed being around Michael and it was like we were back in college as roommates. It was pretty neat working hand-in-hand/side-by-side with other people in the organization.
In 2010 you were hired as coach at UNC Wilmington after having winning records at each of the 4 previous schools where you were a head coach: how did you like the job? I enjoyed my time in Wilmington: I just wish there were more wins. We had some APR issues and lost some scholarships when I 1st took over so it was a little bit of a struggle but I feel like the program is headed in the right direction. I was very encouraged by our younger kids and was glad to be there: they just need to keep grinding it out.