CHAPEL HILL __ If experience is the best teacher, then after watching North Carolina’s improbable 103-93, double-overtime escape at the Smith Center on Sunday night, one thing is certain: Clemson will never win a men’s basketball game at Chapel Hill.

This, surely, was Clemson’s best chance to end a streak of futility that began in January of 1926, when Calvin Coolidge was President of the United States. Fifty-two times previously, the Tigers came to play at Chapel Hill and 52 times they left as losers, matching the most one-sided rivalry in major-college annals. Rarely were the games close.

This time, of all times, it appeared things were going to be different.

Clemson entered the game knowing it could play with these Tar Heels. The Tigers had come within an eyelash of beating North Carolina at home a month ago, losing in overtime after going head to head, stride for stride with what was then the nation’s top-ranked team. What's more, Clemson arrived at the Smith Center fresh from a 31-point win at Virginia, the most decisive ACC road victory in program history.

The Tar Heels were without injured Ty Lawson, their offensive initiator, for the second straight contest. They also were groping to fathom a relatively uninspired performance in their last outing, a home defeat at the hands of Duke. “After the Duke game, everybody was looking for excuses, ‘Oh, we didn’t have Ty, we didn’t have this,’” UNC junior Danny Green said.

The Heels opened against Clemson as if still hung over from the loss to the Blue Devils, and the Tigers pounced immediately, forcing seven turnovers in the first five minutes. Coach Roy Williams thought his team was “timid and tentative with everything,” and fretted that he might be “looking at a 30-point butt-kicking.”

Clemson led 45-34 at halftime, controlled action at both ends, and should have been farther ahead.

During intermission, the North Carolina locker room was quiet until injured Bobby Frasor and senior Quentin Thomas, making his third career start, and then Tyler Hansbrough exhorted their teammates, “Don’t get your heads down.”

The message did not produce immediate results. During the second half Clemson built the largest leads any opponent enjoyed against the Tar Heels all year. Several times, the Tiger advantage ballooned to 15 points.

When James Mays scored for Clemson with 3:12 left, giving his team an 11-point cushion, deliverance seemed at hand for the long-downtrodden program.

But the weight of history, the currents of the game, and the imperatives of a program that under Dean Smith made improbable escapes seem routine, all dictated otherwise.

“I told our guys, we just keep playing,” said Williams, who learned the game at Smith’s side. “We can’t do anything about the stuff that’s behind us, but we can do something about each and every possession, doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. I know that sounds plain and simple and corny, but that’s exactly what I was telling them. Do exactly what we ask you to do.”

Suddenly, just as the Carolina car appeared headed over the cliff, the momentum shifted.

The open looks from 3-point range that were fueling the Tigers were no longer there. Tired Clemson players did not come toward passes, allowing UNC’s defense to force one, then another, then a third straight turnover. Meanwhile, Green hit a follow shot, then Hansbrough dunked an offensive rebound.

Hansbrough would finish with 39 points, one short of his career high, along with 13 rebounds and three steals, the last a diving effort near midcourt in the second overtime.

“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to coach him. I’d like to coach that big sucker about 13 more years,” Williams said of Hansbrough, a junior. “When he leaves, I’m going to consider I’m the luckiest guy in the world to have coached him.”

Yet it was a pair of 3-pointers by Green, a dud against Duke, sandwiched around a three by Clemson’s Cliff Hammonds, that reacquainted both Tar Heels and Tigers with destiny.

“Danny made those threes, and all of a sudden they started believing a little bit more,” Williams said of his players.

The coach also reserved special praise for Thomas, greeted during player introductions with a cooed “Q” from the crowd.

The third-string point guard, often maligned and seldom employed for significant periods until Lawson’s injury, made a crucial layup to tie the score at 82-82 to force overtime. He also hit a pair of free throws, only his 21st and 22nd of the season, to force the second extra period.

“It definitely feels good,” he said of his 9-assist, 45-minute effort. “It’s a confidence booster for myself.”

Not until the second extra session did the Heels lead by more than one basket.

“If I live to be a 106, I won’t be any prouder of any group of kids than I am of that bunch right there,” Williams said of a team that improved to 22-2, 7-2 in the ACC. “They were amazing.”

A few minutes later, Hammonds, who had 31 points for the Tigers, but none in overtime, patiently stood in a Smith Center hallway answering questions about this latest painful addition to Clemson’s awful streak at Chapel Hill. He laid the blame for the defeat on wavering focus and inadequate conditioning.

Someone asked the senior if, based on UNC’s win, he could foresee another 53 consecutive wins by the Tar Heels. Hammonds wasn’t buying.

“I’m 0-3 against North Carolina here,” he said. “That’s what the players that come after me are going to look at. They’re not going to look at the streak, 0 and 50, whatever. You’re just trying to win one game at a time. I think our program is on the rise. I don’t think it’s going to be 50. I think it’s going to be sooner (rather than) later before it happens.”

Unfortunately for orange-clad Clemson, now 17-6 on the season and 0-forever in Orange County, experiences indicates otherwise.