Nine years ago today, N.C. State didn’t have a chance. It was facing No. 1 North Carolina, which at the time featured future NBA All-Stars Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter, in the Dean E. Smith Center.
The Wolfpack, 21-point underdogs, may not have been given a chance by most observers, but it handily beat the Tar Heels 86-72 that day behind 31 points, including eight 3-pointers, from senior C.C. Harrison.
Harrison said the game being in Chapel Hill was a motivating factor for him.
“It’s a real basketball atmosphere. If you can’t get motivated and get yourself focused to play in Chapel Hill, you can’t do it anywhere,” Harrison said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I definitely had a confidence when I played in Chapel Hill.”
Ishua Benjamin, the other senior on the 1998 team, said he could see quickly that something was different with the team the day of the victory.
“Going out there, you could see a change in atmosphere on the bus ride over there. It was just extremely quiet,” Benjamin said. “Down in the locker room, everybody was just focused on the task at hand, and that was the main difference that I could tell.”
Big win for the program
Benjamin said the game, which he still talks about today with his kids and teammates, was a point of pride for him and the program.
“Everybody talks about the Duke and Carolina rivalry, but it’s just as big a rivalry for State and Carolina to get to play against each other. And I think that was just a moment of respect for us at the time,” Benjamin said. “The past couple years we were the doormats to everybody else, one of those teams that nobody ever expected us to really step up like that and beat a team like that.”
Harrison said that in spite of his team being such a big underdog, it wasn’t even that close of a game.
“Coming into the game 21-point underdogs, we pretty much [were] in control that whole game,” Harrison said.
Benjamin said he remembered Harrison saying “this is my house” during the victory celebration. Harrison noted the team hadn’t forgotten UNC’s celebration of a 74-60 win earlier in the season at Reynolds Coliseum.
“They [were] kind of arrogant about that,” Harrison said. “And I’m sure we remembered how they reacted after they beat us in Reynolds.”
Similarities between ’98 and ’07
The ’98 State team entered its game at Carolina 14-11 overall and 4-9 in the ACC.
Nine years later, the Pack is 14-11 overall and 4-8 in conference play as it visits the fifth-ranked Tar Heels tonight at 9 p.m., but Benjamin said the similarities between the two teams don’t end there.
“The teams are very similar. Basically, you’ve got the same type of rotation, probably had a six, seven-man rotation. Guys were hurt, had a tendency to get hurt. A lot of guys were playing out of position,” Benjamin said. “The team was young at the time.”
Where are they now?
Benjamin and Harrison are still best friends and were in each other’s weddings.
Harrison is a professional basketball player in France, and he has one son.
Benjamin, after years of playing overseas, lives in Raleigh and is a mentor for the Raleigh Elite program of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). He has two boys.
Both still keep up with State basketball, too.
“I played at State, so my ties are to State, and I keep up with everything. Trust me, if we lose a game, I hear about it. If we win a game, I hear about it,” Benjamin said. “That’s one of the things — I will always have pride in playing for N.C. State.”
Benjamin said he hopes the program will get back to having that sense of pride, which he said has been missing in recent seasons. He added having former player Sidney Lowe, who won his first game against UNC 83-79 on Feb. 3, as coach is helping bring back that pride.
“Everything he talks about — building a tradition, bringing tradition back, wanting guys to come back to the program and to give back to the program and just wanting to see old faces being [around] — it’s been a long time since you’ve seen that,” Benjamin said.
Harrison follows the team in different ways — namely in a new program he has on his computer that allows him to watch live games. He said the team’s point guard this season is its pivotal player.
“I definitely think Engin Atsur is the key to the Wolfpack’s success — that’s for sure,” Harrison said.
He said he was able to watch the UNC game earlier this season and one of the Virginia Tech games, and he said it was a big accomplishment to knock off the Heels earlier this season.
“For him to come in and get those guys to come out and focus and play hard and play for 40 minutes like they did against a team like Carolina, who’s playing 10, 11, 12 guys, hat’s off to him because he definitely got his players to buy in to whatever he told [them],” Harrison said.
But Benjamin cautioned that the challenge that awaits the team tonight will be much greater than what it faced 18 days ago.
“It’s a big difference between playing at home and going over there to play. That’s two totally different teams. They’re so different when they’re at home. So I hope that when we go there that [we] can still maintain that composure and keep that confidence up,” Benjamin said. “It looks like the guys are doing a good job of that right now.”