A look back at the only two triple doubles in North Carolina basketball history

Fear not if you struggle to remember the unique position Brendan Haywood and Jason Capel occupy in North Carolina men’s basketball history. Even the head coach who watched them pull off the feat in person had to repeat it just to make sure it was true.

“Are you saying these are the only two guys to have a triple-double in the history of Carolina basketball?” Matt Doherty said in a recent phone interview.

Indeed, Wednesday marks the 19-year anniversary of Haywood’s triple-double against Miami on Dec. 4, 2000: 18 points, 14 rebounds and a school-record 10 blocks. Two games later, against Buffalo, Capel matched his teammate with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists on Dec. 17.

In 109 seasons of North Carolina basketball, nobody’s done it before that 13-day stretch. Or since.

There have been plenty of near misses — including just last month, when star first-year guard Cole Anthony went for nine points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in a win over Elon and almost changed the trajectory of this story. But for now, Haywood and Capel stand alone.

“Understand: whenever you’re the first at Carolina for anything positive, it’s a huge thing,” Capel told The Daily Tar Heel.

By 2000-01, star guard Ed Cota had graduated. But Capel said the Tar Heels returned “mostly everything else” from a team that stormed to the Final Four as a No. 8 seed: Joseph Forte, Haywood, himself, Kris Lang and, once football season ended, two gifted athletes in Julius Peppers and Ronald Curry.

The team entered its Dec. 4 home game with a 3-2 record under Doherty, then in his first year as head coach after Bill Guthridge’s retirement. The opponent: Miami, which was then in the Big East Conference.

Capel missed some of that game with a back injury, but he remembers the first half well. Namely, Haywood’s defense, which helped limit the Hurricanes to 7-39 shooting in the opening 20 minutes and gave him 10 blocks by game’s end.

Not only was the senior an excellent athlete — a graceful floor-runner at 7 feet and 268 pounds — but he was an excellent jumper. Or, as Capel put it, a strategic jumper.

Long arms. Great timing. A master of angling. Someone who knew when to leap to meet an attacking player at his peak. There’s a reason he holds all of UNC’s career and single-season block records.

“That’s who Brendan was,” Capel said.

After UNC’s 67-45 win, Haywood downplayed his 18-14-10 line, the first triple double in school history, but agreed such a performance doesn’t “happen every day.”

Thirteen days later, his sophomore teammate, Capel, was two rebounds from reaching the same milestone. Not that he had any idea. That’s where Doherty came in.

The coach had always followed a mantra his eventual successor, Roy Williams, taught him at Kansas: if someone’s close to a milestone, let them know.

So with 3:15 left in an eventual 95-74 win over Buffalo, Doherty alerted Capel: he was two rebounds away from UNC’s second ever triple-double. He told him he had another minute or so to get it done.

Reserve forward Brian Bersticker played his part with a few deliberate, space-clearing box-outs — Capel is quick to credit him for that. Two boards later, the triple double was complete. Capel added one extra rebound for good measure and finished with a 16-11-10 line.

“Those are great feats, man,” Doherty told the DTH. “Great feats.”

As detailed by former UNC sports information director Rick Brewer in a 2000 column, previous Tar Heels may very well have hit double digits in three stat categories — only for record-keeping to hold them down. The NCAA didn’t permanently log assists until 1983-84 and steals and blocks in 1985-86.

That, for example, eliminated star forward Billy Cunningham, who recorded 33 points, 16 rebounds and 11 assists against Virginia in 1965, according to the Charlotte Observer. Alas, without assists as an official stat, it didn’t stick.

Others have been close. Brewer noted Charlie Scott, Walter Davis, Mike O’Koren, George Lynch and Rick Fox flirted with a triple-double before Haywood and Capel recorded one.

In recent seasons, others such as J.P. Tokoto (15-8-7), Joel Berry II (8-7-10) and Kennedy Meeks (13-12-7) have been on the cusp.

Capel said he’s surprised neither Danny Green nor Theo Pinson ever went for one, especially the latter. As a senior in 2018, Pinson became the first UNC player and eighth ACC player to average 10 points, five rebounds and five assists in a single season.

“Look, man, it’s hard,” Capel, now an assistant coach at Pittsburgh, said. “It’s not an individual accomplishment.”

A hot shooting night from teammates and a good dose of luck may be involved. But until another UNC player — Anthony, anyone? — records one, Haywood and Capel’s performances stand alone atop the pedestal.

“That’s a tremendous honor,” Doherty said. “Here we are 20 years later talking about it.”

@chapelfowler

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