By Adam Lucas

When they get the Tar Heels on their terms, Connecticut has enjoyed tremendous success against them.

It's just that the Huskies have rarely gotten the Heels on their terms.

The Feb. 13 matchup between the two powerhouses will be the sixth in the all-time series. Four of the previous five games have taken place in the state of North Carolina, with the lone exception being an 86-54 UConn shellacking in Storrs, Conn., on Jan. 19, 2002.

Other than that game--Carolina played without Jason Capel but it wouldn't have mattered, as Caron Butler scored a career-high 29 points to send the Heels to their fifth straight loss in a streak that would eventually reach six games--the Huskies have been largely on unfamiliar turf.

The series was christened at the Smith Center on Dec. 6, 1990, when Rick Fox's 18 points and 10 rebounds keyed a 79-64 Tar Heel victory in the now-defunct ACC-Big East Challenge. That victory was the first and only Dean Smith win over Connecticut, as the series is also the source of another oddball statistic: it's the only series in school history in which all the Heels' wins have been provided by different coaches. Smith notched one in 1990, Bill Guthridge got one in the 1998 NCAA Tournament, Matt Doherty earned one during the 2002-03 season, and Roy Williams captured one last season.

That Guthridge win was the final victory of the season for the 1998 team, as they bested the Huskies in the East Regional final at the Greensboro Coliseum. The win encompassed everything that made that team exciting--Antawn Jamison got his usual double-double (20 points, 11 rebounds), Shammond Williams added 19 points, Ed Cota handed out 9 assists, and Ademola Okulaja came off the bench in Carolina's alphabetical starting rotation to contribute 12 points.

The game also included the latest high-flying Vince Carter theatrics, as he had two highlight-worthy dunks among his 12 points. The first was a vicious stuff over Connecticut's 6-foot-11 Souleymane Wane, as Carter punctuated the dunk with a drum major's strut. The second was a 360 dunk that became the source of much mirth among his teammates, as they accused him of turning the "wrong" way on the 360 spin, going to his right instead of to his left.

Typically, Guthridge had the perfect deadpan comment regarding Carter's faux pas: "I've showed Vince a lot of films from when I played," Guthridge said. "I did it the right way."

After losing the abominable game in Storrs four seasons later, the Tar Heels have largely done things the right way against the Huskies in the last two meetings. They posted a 68-65 win in the Smith Center on Jan. 18, 2003, as Rashad McCants scored 27 points to help the Sean May-less Tar Heels win their 11th game of the season. One year later, McCants was crucial again, as he scored 27 points for the second straight year and made the game-winning three-pointer on crisp execution of Carolina's late-game "Long Beach" set.

Last year's contest, with the Huskies entering the game as the nation's top-ranked team and Carolina ranked a "lowly" ninth, turned into a vintage Roy Williams coaching performance. He spent the day before the game building up the Huskies to the media, calling them one of the best teams he had seen in college basketball since he became a head coach. He praised golfing buddy Jim Calhoun, who had guided a once moribund program into the nation's elite. He raved about Emeka Okafor, an immovable force in the paint.

Some of the praise was justified: the Huskies would eventually win the national title and Okafor was the second pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. But while he was touting the opponent in public, Williams was using a favorite psychological tactic with his team.

"I preached about how we can win this game but nobody believes we can," he said after the season. "I love being the underdog if we're really good. If we're not any good, I don't like it. But it's a great weapon if you can make a team that is really good feel that everyone is against you or that they're the underdog."

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. His book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about the book, click here.