Texas Tech basketball classics: Red Raiders shatter Tar Heels in 1996 Tourney

In 1996, the Texas Tech basketball team picked up one of the biggest wins in program history by taking down North Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament so let’s revisit that unforgettable game.

Twenty-four years ago on this day, the Texas Tech basketball team was the talk of the nation long before anyone had heard of Chris Beard.  That’s because, in the second round of the 1996 NCAA Tournament, the Red Raiders took down North Carolina 92-73 in the game that featured the most memorable single play in Red Raider basketball history, Darvin Ham‘s backboard shattering putback dunk.

So as we sit around in self-isolation and try to figure out how to deal with no NCAA Tournament, we can at least go back down memory lane and revisit one of the most special moments in Red Raider history.  Of course, if you are a child of the 1990s like I am, you might not have too many memories of this game at all.

Being 15 at the time, I was not yet a Red Raider fan despite growing up just two-and-a-half hours from Lubbock.  Thus, what I know of the fantastic 1995-96 team, which went 31-2 and won the final Southwest Conference championship ever is what I’ve heard about from those who got to enjoy that ride first-hand and virtually the only highlight that anyone shows from that season was Ham’s dunk against the Heels.

It was indeed an impressive team.  In fact, after watching this game again, I think that particular Red Raider squad would have been more than capable of competing for a Big 12 title in the modern age of the game.

That’s because that team seemed a bit ahead of its time in the sense that it had a number of versatile and positionless players who were athletic enough to do a little bit of everything on the floor.  What’s more, in an age when plodding big men and physical post play still dominated the game, Tech was an up-tempo, aggressive team that wanted to score quickly and run teams ragged thanks to the unreal athleticism head coach James Dickey had at his disposal.

In fact, the Red Raiders averaged 82.2 points per game that season.  By comparison, no 2019-20, no team in the Big 12 averaged more than Kansas’ 74.5 per game.

But the prevailing theme of this game was whether or not Texas Tech was being given the amount of respect that a 29-1 team would seem to warrant.  During the game, the CBS broadcast crew pointed out that Tech was one of only four teams in the tournament to have lost two or fewer games on the season.  The other three teams (UMASS, Kentucky, and UCONN) were all awarded No. 1 seeds.

Meanwhile, Tech was just a No. 3 seed thanks in large part to the weakness of the SWC, which sent only one other team (Texas) to the tournament.  Thus, the Tech players and coaches had to spend most of the days leading up to the game with North Carolina talking about whether or not they were being taken seriously.

Playing the most prominent team in the game and the most legendary head coach perhaps in the history of college basketball, Dean Smith, was a tremendous opportunity for Tech to make a statement and that’s exactly what they did.  Playing in Richmond Virginia in the heart of ACC country meant that the contest was essentially a road game (Chapel Hill, NC is just a 2:42 drive from Richmond) but that didn’t matter to the Red Raiders.

So let’s go inside this classic Texas Tech basketball victory and enjoy once again one of the greatest moments in program history.  And we will start by looking at the opponent, which featured some of the most legendary names in the history of basketball.