CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Three years ago, then-freshman Jawad Williams watched several important streaks end for North Carolina.
He and his teammates finished 8-20 to snap a run of 32 straight 20-win seasons, and they failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 29 years. With that kind of history, Williams had little interest in the Tar Heels' mastery of Clemson.
"I couldn't care less, because I was here when we broke all those streaks," the senior said with a smile.
Williams scored 17 points on his 22nd birthday, sixth-man Marvin Williams added 14 and No. 4 North Carolina routed Clemson 88-56 on Saturday, leaving the Tigers 0-51 on the road in this series.
Clemson's futility in Chapel Hill is the longest active losing streak in the country; Princeton once won 52 straight home games over Brown for the all-time record.
"I have no way of explaining it, you can call it a quirk if you want to," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "I didn't talk about it with the team, except we think it's silly."
Silly or not, no one wanted to be a part of the first home loss to the Tigers.
"I feel sorry for the first team that does lose here," said Sean May, who had his fourth straight double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds. "Like Coach said, we didn't have anything to do with the first (48). We can't get caught up in that. When somebody does lose, they will survive and life will go on."
Raymond Felton had 11 points and nine assists for the Tar Heels (22-3, 10-2), who moved into a first-place tie with Wake Forest in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Sharrod Ford led Clemson (12-13, 2-10) with 13 points, but this one really never was in doubt, even though Tigers coach Oliver Purnell tried his best early on to motivate his players.
Barely 90 seconds into the game, he was up protesting a foul called on Sam Perry, and Purnell continued yelling at referee Gary Maxwell while the Tar Heels prepared to inbound the ball. Finally, referee Mike Wood heard enough and gave Purnell a technical, and two free throws by Jawad Williams made it 4-1.
"I sort of wanted to send a message that we didn't want to be called for touch fouls when they were being very aggressive on the other end," Purnell said. "I certainly wanted that message to be heard, and if they wanted to 'T' me up, they had to 'T' me up."
It quickly got worse after Purnell's technical.
North Carolina jumped to a 14-1 lead as the Tigers missed their first eight shots. They eventually got to 20-12 on a layup by Vernon Hamilton, but that was the last time the margin was less than 10.
"We wanted to come out and set the tone early," May said.
Marvin Williams started a 14-0 run by scoring off a nice assist from Felton, and all but one of the Tar Heels' baskets during the spurt came off an assist. Felton fed Jawad Williams for a dunk that turned into a three-point play, and Williams added another on the next possession after Rashad McCants had a steal.
David Noel led Scott for another layup, and May finished off the 2½-minute domination with a three-point play, banking in a jumper as he was fouled by Shawan Robinson to make it 34-12. A brief rally brought Clemson within 16, but Marvin Williams scored four consecutive points -- off assists from Felton and McCants -- and North Carolina cruised from there despite some shoddy ball handling.
The Tar Heels had 19 turnovers, four by Felton.
"We had a significant lead when we were up 20 at the half, but we hadn't taken very good advantage of the opportunities we had on the break," Roy Williams said. "I was unhappy with what we did on the break, fumbling the ball out of bounds, throwing it way. Overall, I was really pleased with the defensive end of the court."
After a layup by Ford cut the lead to 45-27 early in the second half, the Tar Heels outscored the Tigers 19-3 over the next few minutes to make the final 10 minutes nothing more than garbage time. Marvin Williams played a prominent role during this stretch, throwing a touch pass to Jawad Williams for a dunk and later adding a steal and a layup.
North Carolina eventually went ahead 80-41 and turned the final minutes over to the bench. Walk-on Charlie Everett gave what was left of the home crowd a thrill with a layup, giving him 11 points this season. Jesse Holley, normally a wide receiver on the football team, also got in the act, emphatically blocking a jumper by Jimmy Hudson in the final minute.
And the Tigers went home with another loss.
"It was motivation, we could have been part of history here," Clemson senior Olu Babalola said. "But we didn't have anything to do with most of those. There's nothing we can do about that."
