N.C. — He wasn't Air Jordan yet, and N.C. State wasn't looking like a national champion, either. But when UNC and State met on Jan. 19, 1983, Jordan and the Tar Heels had the upper hand. WRAL.com is looking back to N.C. State's 1983 championship run in conjunction with Tim Peeler of GoPack.com. Throughout the season, we'll take you back 25 years to the day as State roars toward the national title. Today, watch WRAL's original video and read Peeler's account of when those teams met in Chapel Hill.

By Tim Peeler

GoPack.com

CHAPEL HILL _ Jim Valvano and Dean Smith passed each other as they walked off the court Wednesday night at Carmichael Auditorium, the leaders of two teams headed in opposite directions.

“I think Dean may have said it best, when he told me ‘I think we may have had too many people for you,’” Valvano said after the game, a 99-81 victory for the Tar Heels. “They are the best team we’ve faced this year by far. I know they are hot right now, but the scary thing is they are going to get better.”

The Wolfpack (8-4 overall, 2-2 ACC) has lost three of its last four games, including setbacks at Missouri and to No. 2 Virginia at home. Worse still, the Wolfpack remains without senior guard Dereck Whittenburg, who returned to the team’s side after surgery on Friday to insert a pin in his broken right foot.

Whittenburg sat helpless on the bench, watching his teammates make just 36 percent of their shots from the field in the 18-point loss. Senior forward Thurl Bailey picked up three fouls in the first five minutes of the game trying to stop UNC’s Sam Perkins, while sophomore center Cozell McQueen had four fouls in the first half.

“It looked like as soon as the game started I had three fouls,” Bailey said. “After that there really wasn’t much I could do to get back into the flow of the game. Some of the fouls that went against us were questionable I thought. Don’t get me wrong, I think they would have beaten us anyway. I’ve never played against a team that played that well.”

Meanwhile, the defending national champion Tar Heels, after three missteps in their first six games, have won 10 in a row, and the talent to win many more, as they showed throughout in a contest in which they never trailed and suffered only one tie, 2-2.