UNC Basketball: 11 Historical Games and Moments against Duke
Feb. 4th, 1961: #4 Duke 81, #5 UNC 77 (The Fight): Years of tension and animosity between the two programs finally exploded inside Duke Indoor Stadium that February night, however there were a number factors that led to the brawl in 1961.
There was the game at Carolina in 1957 when the student running the scoreboard forgot to add 2 points to the scoreboard causing Duke guard Bobby Joe Harris to foul Tommy Kearns who hit the winning free throws for the 75-73 win to preserve the Heels undefeated season.
There was the game in 1958 at Duke that led to a feud between Tar Heel coach Frank McGuire and Duke football coach Bill Murray after Murray accused McGuire of grandstanding when he requested a police escort off the floor after fans rushed the court following a Duke win.
Then, there was the infamous Art Heyman. Heyman had signed a letter of intent to play at UNC as the latest member in McGuire’s Underground Railroad from New York, however back in that time a student was not considered enrolled at the school until they registered for classes. Add in the fact that McGuire and Heyman’s stepfather almost got in a fight and the Long Island native ended up at Duke playing for Vic Bubas.
The freshman game that night prior to the varsity game was brutal, it featured five Tar Heel players fouling out and two others ejected which meant the Heels had to finish the 79-52 loss with only three players on the floor. Heyman was at the center of everything in this game, him and Doug Moe almost came to blows in the first half. Moe had shut down Heyman in the finals of the Dixie Classic tournament holding him to 5 points, the next day Heyman cut Moe’s picture out of the newspaper and taped it to the wall in his dorm.
After that McGuire walked down to the Duke bench to confront a trainer for talking to his players. At halftime Heyman punched a Carolina male cheerleader for touching him when he was headed to the locker room. Then with 9 seconds left in the game Heyman gave a hard foul to longtime rival and fellow Long Island native Larry Brown, Heyman had told Brown he would join him at Carolina before switching to Duke. Brown had not forgotten that and threw the ball at Heyman setting off bench-clearing brawl that lasted around 10 minutes. Heyman claimed that he was kicked by alligator shoes, a McGuire trademark.
While 10 policemen and one offical Jim Millis tried to restore order the other offical Charlie Eckman hid behind the basket. The fight resulted in Brown and Heyman along UNC’s Donnie Walsh being suspended for the rest of the ACC season which ended the seasons for Brown and Walsh since UNC was on probation and McGuire pulled the team out of the conference tournament. McGuire would resign at the end of the season.