Month: July 2024

Record: 34-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in final
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Eric Montross (1st), George Lynch (1st)
All-Americans: Eric Montross (2nd)

If you had to choose one team that best epitomized Dean Smith basketball, what team would you pick? It would be a team that emphasized senior leadership, unselfish play, getting the ball inside, getting to the free throw line more than the opposition, acknowledging the passer, and meticulous preparation. It would be a team that lacked a superstar but came together as a unit and exceeded expectations.

There are several candidates. The 1971 team was a team that Dean mentioned frequently and clearly loved. The 1991 team was a team that made the Final Four without a superstar player. But to me, the team that best embodied the essence of Dean Smith was the 1993 national championship team. The senior leadership of George Lynch; the inside strength of Lynch and Eric Montross; the defensive toughness of Lynch and Derrick Phelps; an unselfish team that finished 12th in Division I in assists per game; a team that had six different players lead the team in scoring over the course of the season; a team that averaged 86 points per game without any individual averaging as much as 16; a team that made 63 more free throws than their opponents attempted; a team where all the bench players dutifully stood and applauded and Bill Guthridge never, ever failed to pat a player on the rear when he came out of the game.

But let’s go back to 1992. It was essentially the same team, but with Hubert Davis at shooting guard instead of Donald Williams. They were having an excellent year, humming along at 18-3, when out of the blue, they became the first North Carolina team since 1965 to lose four games in a row, including an embarrassing home loss to a bad NC State team that had lost nine straight coming into that game.

To their credit, the Tar Heels righted the ship somewhat, reaching the ACC Tournament final and playing respectably in the NCAA, but it still felt like a collapse and left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

With the same team coming back in 1993 except switching out Davis for Williams, Dean Smith could have panicked. A lot of coaches would have made change for the sake of change: personnel changes, transfers, benchings, staff changes, whatever. But you know Dean Smith wasn’t going to do that. He obviously believed in this group in spite of their shaky finish in 1992.

Well, it worked. The ’93 team was better in every way. Individually, everyone took a step forward. Montross was better, Lynch was better, Reese was better, Phelps was better. As a team, the Tar Heels were much better defensively. They rebounded better. They got more steals and forced more turnovers. In retrospect, the 1992 team was just young and ran into a tough spot in their schedule. They needed another year.

The Tar Heels did not play, for them, a particularly challenging non-conference schedule. The only marquee game was a December game against the Fab Five of Michigan in Maui. The Tar Heels lost that one 79-78. They were 10-1 going into ACC play.

The ACC was brutal that year. Six of the nine teams were ranked at some point during the season. All six of those teams made the NCAA Tournament, and four of them made the Sweet 16. You had Florida State with Cassell, Edwards, Sura, and Charlie Ward. Duke still had Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Wake Forest had Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress. Virginia was a Sweet 16 team with Cory Alexander and Junior Burrough. And Georgia Tech won the ACC Tournament behind James Forrest, Travis Best, and Malcolm Mackey. Going 14-2 against that ACC is a heck of an accomplishment.

The two losses came back-to-back on road trips to Wake and Duke. After that, the Tar Heels won their last nine regular season ACC games, with no game closer than 10 points.

Behind a stellar performance from Everett Case Award winner James Forrest, Georgia Tech upset the Tar Heels 77-75 in the ACC Tournament final. But it did little to dampen the spirits of Tar Heel fans as they were awarded the top seed in the East region.

After two easy games in Winston-Salem, things got tougher. In the Sweet 16, Carolina faced an Arkansas team with the same core group that would win the national title the next year. It was a tight game all the way. The Tar Heels were nursing a one-point lead with a minute to go when Williams got a back door layup to push it to three. Then Lynch made a tremendous defensive play to force an up-and-down turnover, the Razorbacks had to start fouling, and that was that.

Things didn’t get any easier in the regional final against seventh-ranked Cincinnati, coached by Bob Huggins and led by Nick Van Exel. Cincinnati took a 15-point lead in the first half, only to see it erased by a furious North Carolina run that closed the margin to one at half. The second half was tense and physical with several ties and lead changes. With the score tied at 66, the Tar Heels had two golden opportunities to win it in regulation. George Lynch’s turnaround with a few seconds left wouldn’t stay down. After the ball went out of bounds off Cincinnati with 0.8 seconds left, Dean Smith drew up a perfect play and actually got a wide open dunk for Brian Reese just as time expired – which Reese missed. In overtime, with the score tied at 68, Williams hit consecutive threes and that was all the Tar Heels needed.

In the national semifinal, Roy Williams and Kansas were waiting for the second time in the past three years. The Jayhawks were coming off an upset of #1 Indiana in the regionals – Bob Knight’s last great Indiana team. It was one of those games where Carolina was always ahead, but never comfortably. The Jayhawks cut it to three inside three minutes, but Williams hit yet another huge three to push the lead to six, and that was all the Tar Heels needed.

I can’t tell you anything about the final against Michigan that you don’t already know. It was great game between two evenly matched teams, and you know what happened at the end.

I sometimes wonder how Dean Smith’s legacy would have been different if he had lost that game. As great as he was, with “only” one national championship, would he still be regarded as one of the top five coaches of all time? Wooden, Rupp, Krzyzewski, Knight, Williams, and Calhoun each have at least 3 titles. I think without that second title, Smith would be considered seventh, behind that group. With it, he’s right in there. I’ve never been sure how to compare Wooden to the others. Obviously what he accomplished from 1964 to 1975 is unparalleled and probably unattainable. On the other hand, in the 17 years prior to 1964, he didn’t do that much, and he retired younger than the others. By contrast, Smith, K, and Williams had sustained success over longer periods of time. They were able to adapt to so many changes in the game and still be successful.

Record: 33-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: Raymond Felton (1st), Sean May (1st), Jawad Williams (3rd), Rashad McCants (3rd)
All-Americans: Sean May (2nd)

Which team was better, 2005 or 2009 North Carolina? It’s a tough, tough call. Both teams lost four games, both lost in the semis of the ACC Tournament, both went on to win the national championship. Both were inside-oriented teams who didn’t shoot a lot of threes, but were efficient when they did. Both teams played at a lightning-quick tempo led by a blindingly fast point guard. Both teams were experienced, returning pretty much everyone from the year before.

One difference you can point out is that the 2009 team was everybody’s preseason #1, because the 2008 team was so good and everybody was back. The 2005 team wasn’t like that. The 2004 team was very good, but their 19-11 record didn’t show it. They had played the toughest schedule in the country and lost a bunch of close games in a ridiculously good ACC. I don’t want to say the 2005 team flew under the radar – they were preseason #4 – but they weren’t the odds-on favorites to win the national championship.

In particular, the 2004 team did not have a championship-caliber defense. They gave up 75 points per game and were 228th among Division I teams in opponents’ Effective FG%. If they were to take a step forward, Roy was going to have to get them guarding better.

It was tough to get a read on this team early. Their first game was a mystifying 11-point loss to Santa Clara, a game the Heels scheduled on their way out to Maui. They didn’t lose another non-conference game, but the schedule wasn’t that difficult. They got a nice win over Kentucky, but that was the only ranked non-conference team they played. Going into conference play, they were ranked third in the nation.

After opening with home wins over Maryland and Georgia Tech, the Tar Heels traveled to Winston-Salem to take on fourth-ranked Wake Forest. Chris Paul dominated the game, tallying 26 points, 8 assists, and 5 steals against just 1 turnover in leading the Demon Deacons to 95-82 win.

After that setback, the Tar Heels got back to pounding the rest of the ACC, winning their next five games by an average of 22 points. They were 18-2 going into their annual visit to Cameron Indoor to take on 17-2 Duke. Carolina came out on the short end of an ugly, grinding 71-70 game that dropped Roy Williams to 0-3 against his archrivals.

The Tar Heels quickly got back to their winning ways, running their record to 25-3 going into the rematch with the Blue Devils. This one was a Blue Blood classic. With 19 seconds left and Carolina down by two, Felton was fouled. He made the first and missed the second. Somehow Marvin Williams came out of a scramble with the ball and sank the game-winner.

“The put-back that Marvin Williams had at the end of the game at the Smith Center was the loudest moment of any arena I’ve ever seen in my life,” [Roy] Williams recalled. “Whether it was Allen Fieldhouse, Rupp Arena, Stillwater for Oklahoma State, at that moment, it was the loudest I’d ever heard a basketball arena be and what a great win and thrill it was for us that day.” 

In the ACC Tournament, the second-ranked Tar Heels played a terrible semifinal game against Georgia Tech. The Jackets advanced behind a game-high (and, probably safe to say, career high) 35 from Will Bynum.

After two easy games, a talented Villanova team awaited in the Sweet 16. The Tar Heels survived this one 67-66, not without help from a controversial traveling call that negated a potential tying bucket for the Wildcats. The regional final was another battle, this time with Wisconsin. Sean May had 29 to lead the Tar Heels to an 84-78 victory and a berth in the Final Four against Michigan State. After trailing at half, Carolina caught fire in the second half and sprinted to an 87-71 win.

And so the final that everyone wanted was set. Illinois and Carolina had been the two best teams in the country all year. The 37-1 and top-ranked Illini were talented, experienced, big, and tough. Their guard trio of Luther Head, Deron Williams, and Dee Brown was perhaps unlike anything we’ve ever seen in college basketball. Try to find another team with three guards who each averaged over 12 points and 3.5 assists per game.

Carolina dominated the first half, running out to a 13-point lead. Illinois used a 10-0 run midway through the second half to tie the game at 65. The Heels retook the lead on a Felton three, but Illinois battled back again to tie it at 70 on a three by Head with 2:32 remaining. The Illini wouldn’t score again. Marvin Williams tipped in a wild McCants miss, and that’s all the Tar Heels needed. Illinois missed several decent-to-good looks in the last two minutes, Felton added the final margin at the line, and Roy Williams had his first national championship.

Sean May‘s 2005 tournament performance is arguably the greatest ever by an ACC player. That is a strong statement, but I stand by it. In six games he averaged 22 points and 11 rebounds on 67% shooting. In the final, he scored 26 on 10-for-11. I covered this topic in more depth in my ACC 100 post on Sean May.

Record: 32-4, 15-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Juan Dixon (ACC POY), Lonny Baxter (2nd), Steve Blake (3rd), Chris Wilcox (3rd)
All-Americans: Juan Dixon (1st)

One of the most compelling storylines in sports is the Almost Team. They’re clearly one of the best, they’re right there, they’re oh-so-close, but there’s a final hurdle they just can’t clear. Maybe it’s one team they can’t beat, or a tournament round they can’t get past. Think of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s, the Red Sox of the early 2000s, the Jim Kelly-era Bills, or the Pistons of the late 1980s. Will they get over the hump, or won’t they?

Sometimes the momentum towards a breakthrough seems to build steadily over time. Think of Rafa Nadal. He played Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final three straight years from 2006-2008 when Federer was the best player on the planet. In 2006, Federer won in four sets. Considered a clay court player, Nadal was praised for putting up a spirited fight on grass, but Federer was in control. In 2007, Nadal’s improvement was evident. Federer won in five exhilarating sets, but for much of the match Nadal looked like the better player. You came away thinking “how much longer can he hold this guy off?” When they met again in 2008, it seemed like the pressure had built up so much that the dam was going to break – and it did. Nadal outlasted Federer 9-7 in the fifth set in one of the greatest matches ever played.

But these storylines don’t always have happy endings. (Ask Lefty Driesell.) It takes something extraordinary after repeated heartbreaking failures to keep picking yourself up, finding ways to get better, and perhaps the hardest thing of all, truly believing you can win. I have immense respect for those teams who finally get over the hump.

Maryland 2002 is one of those stories. Through the 2000 season, Maryland had had 16 teams over the 47 years of the ACC that finished in the AP Top 20 (only Duke and Carolina had more). Six of those teams finished in the Top 10. They’d had great coaches in Driesell and Williams and great players in Bias, Lucas, Elmore, McMillen, and King.

And what did they have to show for all that excellence? Two ACC Tournament titles, zero Final Fours, and a lot of heartbreak. Fair or not, the storyline of Maryland’s first 47 years in the ACC was one of unfulfilled promise, bad luck, and missed opportunities.

Gary Williams’ first really good team was the 1995 team led by ACC Player of the Year Joe Smith. They were ranked in the Top 10 most of the season. They made it to the Sweet 16 before losing to an outstanding UConn team with Ray Allen. It was a joyful run for Terps fans who were happy to be nationally relevant again and excited for next year. Unfortunately for them, Smith turned pro after the season, and that set them back a bit. They still made the tournament the next few years, but it wasn’t until 1999 that Williams moved the high water mark up. That team (#47 on my list) was one of the best in the nation, and when they lost in the Sweet 16 to St. John’s, it felt like a missed opportunity and a “here we go again” moment for Maryland fans. Then Steve Francis unexpectedly turned pro, and the 2000 team took a small step backward.

At this point, Williams had made the tournament seven straight times, but he hadn’t gotten past the Sweet 16. Fans were feeling that old familiar feeling that their coach and their program couldn’t win the big one. All the more challenging is that they were trying to climb the ladder while Duke was in the midst of one of the great stretches of all time with their juggernaut teams from 1998-2002, and North Carolina under Bill Guthridge had reached the Final Four in both 1998 and 2000. It must’ve felt like an impossible uphill battle.

But there were signs. Maryland had swept the Tar Heels in 1999, split with them in 2000, and finished ahead of them in the ACC standings both years, so that no longer felt like an immovable object. As for Duke, the breakthrough came on February 9, 2000, when the Terrapins walked out of Cameron Indoor with an immensely satisfying 98-87 victory over a Duke team that had been running roughshod over them and everyone else for a few years. A month later, Maryland reached the ACC Tournament final for the first time in Williams’ tenure before losing the rubber match to Duke. But those subtle signs of progress were lost on Maryland fans after the Terps, as a #3 seed, were humiliated 105-70 by an unranked 20-11 UCLA team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Despite the terrible finish, there were plenty of reasons for optimism going into 2001. Everyone was back from the previous year, and the Terps had added highly touted freshman big man Chris Wilcox. With such a talented roster, Maryland was ranked fifth in the national preseason poll. But a 1-3 start got them behind the eight ball right away. After a February 14 home loss to Florida State, Maryland stood at 15-9, 6-6 in the ACC and was barely clinging to a spot in the Top 20.

At that point, something clicked. A 16-point win at #23 Wake Forest, a blowout win over a not very good NC State team, and a home win over #16 Oklahoma gave the Terps some momentum going into another visit to Cameron to take on second-ranked and eventual national champion Duke – on Shane Battier‘s Senior Night no less. Improbably, for the second straight year, Maryland walked out with a decisive 91-80 win, and Juan Dixon was the best player on the court. They followed with a 35-point blowout of a Top 10 Virginia team. Suddenly Maryland was on fire.

A two-point loss to Duke in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament was disappointing, but did little to dampen the sense that this Maryland team had turned a corner. Sent out West as the #3 seed, they survived a scary opener against George Mason, then mowed down Georgia State (coached by Lefty!) and Georgetown to reach the regional final where they faced second-ranked, 31-2 Stanford. The Cardinal had an impressive resume, having beaten Duke on a neutral court earlier in the season, and they were playing close to home in Anaheim. Maryland was unfazed. Lonny Baxter dominated Stanford’s highly touted frontcourt, Dixon was his usual efficient, ball-hawking self, and the supporting cast was solid as Maryland ran away with with an 87-73 victory to send them to the first Final Four in school history – where a fourth game against Duke awaited. Maryland fell apart in the second half of that game with turnovers and fouls, and Duke streaked to the national championship.

That is a very long preamble, just to get to the season that we’re actually talking about. But I don’t think you can fully appreciate what happened in 2002 unless you understand what led up to it. It wasn’t something that came out of nowhere. Gary Williams’ program had been chipping away at the edifice of the ACC elite, knocking down one barrier after another. Going into 2002, Terence Morris was gone, but everyone else was back, and the Terps had a deep, experienced, complete team led by seniors Dixon, Baxter, and Byron Mouton. They were ranked second to Duke in the preseason poll.

They lost the opener to a young but talented Arizona team. Wins over Temple, Illinois, and UConn got the Terps’ ranking back to #2 before a clunker of a loss at Oklahoma, an eventual Final Four team.

It was a bit of a weird year in the ACC. With North Carolina in the Matt Doherty doldrums, there was a chasm between Duke/Maryland and everyone else. NC State was OK, Wake Forest as OK, Virginia was OK, but it wasn’t that meat grinder of a schedule that you typically associate with the ACC. Duke and Maryland split their regular season games with each team winning handily at home. Maryland coasted through the rest of the ACC schedule and finished atop the standings with a 15-1 conference record. The ACC Tournament figured to come down to a rubber match with Duke, but NC State had other ideas. The Wolfpack played a beautiful semifinal game, crushing Gary Williams’ ACC Tournament hopes yet again.

As much as that loss must have hurt, Maryland was still the top seed in the East region. The Terps cut through their regional opponents like a buzzsaw, culminating with a 90-82 win over a UConn squad that featured Caron Butler, Emeka Okafor, and Ben Gordon. Juan Dixon was balling, scoring 29, 29, 19, and 27 in the four regional games.

The national semifinal against Kansas was one of the most entertaining Final Four games ever. Like Maryland, Roy Williams’ Jayhawks had lost only four games and had dominated the regular season in their conference only to lose in the tournament. Both teams played at a very fast pace and had extremely skilled offensive players. It was a shootout. Baxter got into early foul trouble and ultimately played just 14 minutes. But the Terps had quality depth in Ryan Randle and Tahj Holden, and of course they had Dixon. JD scored 33, Chris Wilcox chipped in 18 points and 9 boards, and Steve Blake dished out 11 assists to lead Maryland to a 97-88 victory.

Instead of Duke waiting in the final, it was Indiana, the team that had upset the Blue Devils in the regionals. The Hoosiers went on to beat Kent State and #3 Oklahoma to reach the national final. After beating #1 and #3 on the way to the final, I’m sure the Hoosiers thought they could do anything. But their magic ran out. They managed but 52 points on 34% shooting in a championship game that wasn’t very pretty.

It’s so hard to win a national championship, and it’s that much harder for a non-blue blood program. Not only do you have to beat all the other great teams, but you have to beat back the ghosts of failures past. What an amazing job by Gary Williams of putting this team together and then executing at the highest level in the NCAA Tournament. They earned everything they got.

Record: 34-4, 13-3 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: Ty Lawson (ACC POY), Tyler Hansbrough (1st), Danny Green (3rd)
All-Americans: Tyler Hansbrough (1st), Ty Lawson (2nd)

North Carolina came into the 2009 season as the clear preseason #1. The 2008 team (#28 on my list) had finished 36-3 and reached the Final Four, and the only departures from that team were role players Alex Stepheson and Quentin Thomas. Their six top scorers – Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green, Deon Thompson, and Marcus Ginyard – were all back. Add to that three McDonald’s All-Americans – Larry Drew, Tyler Zeller, and Ed Davis – and the Tar Heels had a championship-caliber roster.

Ginyard unfortunately hurt his foot and missed the season. But if it slowed the Tar Heels down, you couldn’t tell. They took down Kentucky, Oregon, Notre Dame, and Michigan State in non-conference play as they raced to a 13-0 start. But their first two ACC games were clunkers – a home loss to Boston College and a road loss at Wake Forest.

After a get well game against a weak Virginia team, the Tar Heels got things rolling. They won 13 out of their last 14, including a sweep of Duke. The only blemish came in an overtime loss at Maryland in which Greivis Vasquez had 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists – one of the greatest triple-doubles in ACC history. Their regular season run culminated with a Senior Day win over Duke.

Going into the ACC Tournament, the main concern was the health of Ty Lawson who had injured his toe running into the basket stanchion. He played through it in the second Duke game, but he was hurting. Roy Williams, prioritizing the NCAA Tournament as he always did, made the decision to sit Lawson for the ACC Tournament in hopes that he would be ready for the NCAAs. Without Lawson, the Tar Heels struggled to beat Virginia Tech in the quarters and fell to Florida State in the semis. But Roy had bigger things in mind than a mere ACC championship.

It paid off. When Lawson returned for the second round game against LSU, he looked like his old self, and the Tar Heels were off and running. I’m trying to find some drama in the NCAA Tournament, but there just wasn’t any. Carolina controlled every single game. They covered the spread in every game. They led at half in every game. Their closest margin of victory was 12 points. The championship game against Michigan State was over at halftime. This team dominated the NCAA Tournament like few teams have.

Hansbrough was more or less his usual self, but Lawson and Ellington were the biggest stars. Ellington averaged 19.2 points on 55% from the field and 53% from three. Lawson averaged 20.8 points and had 34 assists against 7 turnovers in the tournament. In the final against Michigan State, Lawson had eight steals.

This group was just about perfect on offense. Everything you want – high FG%, didn’t turn it over, got to the line a lot, made free throws, great offensive rebounding team. They didn’t shoot a lot of threes, but when they did, they made them. On defense, their one vulnerability was defending the three-point line. They allowed ACC opponents to shoot 37.1% from three. One of the keys to their NCAA Tournament run was tightening that up. In their six tournament games, opponents shot 35-131 from three – a 26.7% clip.

It was one of those teams that if you wanted to have any chance to beat them, you had better score, because you knew they were gonna score. You weren’t going to beat this team 56-55. Once they shored up their perimeter defense, there were no weaknesses left. There was nothing to attack. They were a team on a mission to finish the job they left unfinished in 2008, and they did exactly that.

Record: 35-5, 13-3 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Kyle Singler (1st), Jon Scheyer (1st), Nolan Smith (2nd)
All-Americans: Jon Scheyer (2nd)

I love the composition of this team. In Singler, Scheyer, and Smith, you had one of the great trios in ACC history holding down the two guard spots and the wing. Those three guys basically never came out of the game.

Then, in the frontcourt, you had tremendous size in Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas, and the Plumlee brothers. Their jobs were to play defense, get rebounds, set screens, and occasionally get a garbage basket off an offensive rebound or a dish from one of the big three.

It worked beautifully. The three S-boys each averaged over 17 points and two assists. They took about equal numbers of shots. Each was an excellent three-point shooter, each one could drive, each one could pass. It was impossible to defend. When they missed, one of the giants usually grabbed the rebound as the Blue Devils were one of the nation’s best offensive rebounding teams.

And on defense, the size inside allowed them to take away the three, even if that meant giving up a few drives. Duke ranked second nationally in three-point FG% defense at 28.3%, and only ten teams in Division I allowed fewer three-point attempts as a percentage of total shot attempts. As a result, the Blue Devils averaged less than four made threes allowed per game for the season, which must be close to some kind of record in the modern era.

It was a masterfully constructed team. Pretty much any way you tried to attack them, they had you.

They did lose five games, all on the road: Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, NC State, Georgetown, and Maryland. In a couple of those games, Singler, Scheyer, and Smith all had poor shooting games. Rare but not impossible. In a couple of the others, teams were able to find soft spots on the interior. Duke’s guys were big, but none individually was an exceptional defender or great shot-blocker. A few skilled big men such as NC State’s Tracy Smith, Georgia Tech’s Gani Lawal, and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe were able to have their way inside.

But they finished the regular season at 26-5 and ranked fourth in the country. The ACC Tournament started slowly as Duke faced Virginia in Tony Bennett’s first season. The Cavaliers weren’t very good, but they showed that signature defense in holding Duke to 57 points, its lowest total of the season. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to score 46. The semifinals and finals were not as close as the scores indicated. Duke led both games wire to wire and neither had any real drama.

Duke was the top seed in the South region. In the regionals, the Blue Devils showed their versatility. They won their Sweet 16 game against Purdue with defense, holding the Boilermakers to 37% shooting and owning the glass to overcome a subpar offensive performance. In the regional final, Duke had to survive an 0-for-10 performance from Singler. They did, thanks to nine threes from Smith and Scheyer and 22 offensive rebounds. Baylor led 61-60 at the under 4:00 timeout, but a four-point play by Smith (made free throw, missed free throw, offensive rebound, three) ignited a 12-1 run that sealed the game.

The national semifinal against #6 West Virginia was a tour de force performance. The Mountaineers were one of the few teams in the nation who could match Duke in size and rebounding. But they couldn’t match them on the perimeter. Singler, Smith, and Scheyer combined for 63 points, 17 assists (mostly to each other), and 3 turnovers. Each player individually had at least 19 points and 5 assists. Duke’s big guys just tried to play defense and stay out of the way as the Blue Devils cruised to a 78-57 win.

The national championship pitted Duke against upstart Butler. The Bulldogs had made a memorable Cinderella run through the West region, beating top seed Syracuse and second seed Kansas State in the regionals and Michigan State in the semis. Butler hung their hat on an outstanding defense that hadn’t allowed any opponent in the tournament to score 60 points. As it turned out, that was the magic number in the final, too.

It was one of those tense games where nobody could get a comfortable lead. The first half was back and forth. Duke took a narrow lead early in the second half, and the rest of the game was Butler getting it to a one-possession game, and Duke pushing it back to two. With about a minute left, Butler closed it to 60-59 with the ball, and the game really came down to that possession. Gordon Hayward took a high-arcing, fall-away baseline jumper with Zoubek’s hand in his face, a difficult shot but one that Hayward looked comfortable taking. It was on line but hit the back of the rim. After Duke made one free throw to stretch the lead to two, Hayward had a great look at an open, on balance 40-footer that nearly banked in.

I have a theory around how this team was put together. I have no evidence, mind you, it just makes sense to me. Think about the 2005-2009 Duke teams. Every year they were highly ranked but couldn’t get out of the Sweet 16. These teams were guard-oriented teams that were a bit soft in the middle. The 2006 team in particular was a terrible inside team, which sounds strange for a team with Shelden Williams, but look at the stats.

Meanwhile down the road, Carolina won the 2005 national championship by absolutely dominating the paint. The dominated the paint in 2007 when they swept Duke and in 2009 when they swept Duke again and won another national championship.

Watching all this, Coach K realized that something had to change. He was tired of watching his teams get bullied by their archrivals and come up short in the NCAA Tournament. He decided to go out and get as many big, tough guys as he could find, so that for once his team would be the bully. But he did it in a really smart way that didn’t bog down their guard-oriented offense.

This is an important aspect of the genius of Coach K. He reinvented his approach and his team several times during his career. Most coaches would have looked at Duke’s records from 2005-2009 and told themselves, we were really good but things just didn’t bounce our way. Coach K was honest enough with himself to say, even though we are in the Top 10 every year, this isn’t good enough and we have to change. It takes vision and courage to change things that are really good to get them to great. He was never afraid to do that.

Record: 26-5, 13-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Jeff Mullins (ACC POY), Buzz Harrison (2nd), Hack Tison (2nd), Jay Buckley (2nd)
All-Americans: Jeff Mullins (2nd)

OK, I just got done writing about 1963 Duke. What am I going to say different about 1964 Duke? Well, it was a different team. National Player of the Year Art Heyman was gone. Jeff Mullins was now the leader. Veterans Jay Buckley, Hack Tison, and Buzz Harrison were back. But what really put this team over the top were the additions of Jack Marin and Steve Vacendak from the freshman team.

The ACC in 1964 was pretty terrible. The distance between the first and second-place teams was never so great. Wake Forest, who finished second, probably wasn’t one of the 40 best teams in the country. The rest of the league was just plain bad. Duke had one close game in the ACC all year. They won their ACC Tournament games by 31, 16, and 21.

But Vic Bubas was smart. He knew his team needed to be tested against good competition, and he knew he wasn’t going to get it in the ACC. So he scheduled a really challenging non-conference slate:

• Beat #7 Ohio State 76-75 on a neutral court
• Beat West Virginia 86-81 on the road
• Lost to Vanderbilt 97-92 in overtime, on the road
• Lost to #3 Michigan, 83-67, on the road
• Lost to #1 Kentucky, 81-79, on a neutral court
• Beat Tennessee 67-65 in double OT, in Greensboro
• Beat #4 Davidson 82-75 at home

Every one of those opponents was probably better than the second-best team in the ACC. Notice that only one of the games was at Cameron. If you like analogies, Duke in 1964 was like a modern-day Gonzaga. They dominated a relatively weak league and played a brutal non-conference schedule to test themselves against the best. So when the NCAA Tournament came, they were ready.

Duke received a bye to the regionals, which were conveniently held at Reynolds Coliseum. They dominated #7 Villanova behind 43 points and 12 boards from Mullins. In the regional final, they annihilated UConn 101-54 in a game the Blue Devils led by 35 at halftime.

The Final Four brought a rematch with #2 Michigan, who had beaten Duke handily earlier in the season on their homecourt. The Wolverines featured two All-Americans in Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin. This time, behind a balanced scoring effort led by Buckley’s 25, the Blue Devils triumphed to advance to the national championship game. Where they had the misfortune to meet undefeated UCLA. Starting this very year, the Bruins put a stranglehold on the national championship which they would not relinquish until John Wooden’s retirement after the 1975 season.

Teams to Place Four Players on First or Second Team All-ACC:

• 1964 Duke: Mullins (1), Harrison (2), Tison (2), Buckley (2)
• 1972 UNC: McAdoo (1), Wuycik (1), Chamberlain (2), Karl (2)
• 1975 Maryland: Lucas (1), Davis (2), Howard (2), Brown (2)
• 2012 UNC: Zeller (1), Henson (1), Barnes (1), Marshall (2)

A Rabbit Trail on Style of Play

I commented in an earlier post on late 1960s North Carolina about what we can infer about style of play for long-ago teams from the scant statistical record. This team is interesting in that regard as well.

We have field goal percentages both offensively and defensively, so we know that part. We can see from FG/FT attempts and opponents’ FG/FT attempts which teams took more shots than their opponents. What we lack is the detail behind why that is that case. If a team takes more shots than their opponents, either they are winning on the glass or they are winning on turnover margin. But for teams from the 1960s, we have no data at all on turnovers. We have total rebounds, but we don’t have offensive vs. defensive rebound breakdown. So how do we know what they were good at, exactly?

Raw rebound margin is not as useful as you might think as to whether a team is truly good at rebounding. To understand why, imagine a game between a very good shooting team (Team A) and a very poor shooting team (Team B). Team A goes 40-for-60, missing 20 shots. Team B goes 20-for-60, missing 40 shots. Team A gets 40 rebounds to Team B’s 20. Team A is the better rebounding team, right?

Not necessarily. Remember that the defense has an inherent advantage over the offense in getting rebounds. So when Team B misses, Team A should get the rebound, and vice versa. In this case, Team B missed many more shots, so Team A had many more defensive rebound opportunities. In actuality, Team A’s 40-20 advantage on the boards is exactly what we would expect if Team A and Team B are equally good at rebounding. Team A’s apparent advantage is only because Team B missed so many more shots.

I came up with the concept of Expected Rebounds to account for this. It’s based on the fact that the defense gets the rebound on a missed field goal about 2/3 of the time on average. Free throws are a different story; offensive rebounds on free throw attempts are very rare.

So a crude, quick-and-dirty formula for calculating Expected Rebounds is:

(2/3 * opponents’ field goal misses) + (1/3 * own field goal misses) + opponents’ free throw misses

This isn’t perfect, of course; offensive rebounds on free throws are rare but not zero, and not every missed free throw even results in a rebound, unless you’re counting deadball rebounds, etc. But as a rough indicative measure, it will do. The idea is that if a team has more rebounds than its expected rebounds, it must be a good rebounding team.

Let’s look at an example. 1963 Duke had the following stat lines:

Team	FG	FGA	FT	FTA	Reb
Duke	984	1926	528	784	1468
Opponents	819	2037	431	611	1127

Using my formula from above, Duke’s Expected Rebounds would be:

2/3 * (2037 – 819) + 1/3 * (1926 – 984) + (611 – 431) = 1,306

Doing the same calculation for Duke’s opponents:

2/3 * (1926 – 984) + 1/3 * (2037 – 819) + (784-528) = 1,290

Since Duke got 1,468 rebounds, well above their expected 1,306 rebounds, this supports that they were, in fact, an outstanding rebounding team. We’ll call the difference between actual rebounds and expected rebounds (1,468 – 1,306 = +162) the True Rebounding Margin.

When you compare the 1964 team to the 1963 team, something interesting jumps out at you. The 1963 team shot 51.1% from the field compared to 40.2% for its opponents – a huge 10.9% advantage in FG%. The 1964 team, however, had only a 4.1% advantage in FG%, and yet their average scoring margin was actually greater than the 1963 team (+15.0 vs. +14.2). What does that tell you? It tells you that the ’64 team made up for the relative decline in FG% margin by getting more shots than their opponents, which means they were either a great rebounding team or great at turnover margin or both.

What does Expected Rebounds tell us for 1964?

Team	FG	FGA	FT	FGA	Reb
Duke	1028	2163	551	771	1426
Opponents	872	2009	399	612	1279

Duke Expected Rebounds: 2/3 * (2009 – 872) + 1/3 * (2163 – 1028) + (612 – 399) = 1,349

Opponents’ Expected Rebounds: 2/3 * (2163 – 1028) + 1/3 * (2009 – 872) + (771 – 551) = 1,356

Duke’s True Rebounding Margin = Actual Rebounds – Expected Rebounds = 1,426 – 1,349 = +77. Good, but not nearly as good as 1963 Duke’s +162.

Let’s summarize what we’ve learned. 1964 Duke had a slightly larger scoring margin than 1963 Duke. And yet 1963 Duke had a higher FG%, a lower FG% allowed, and was a better rebounding team. How is this possible? There is only one way: 1964 Duke must have had an exceptional turnover margin, much better than 1963 Duke. That is literally the only way that all those things can be true. (I’m fudging a little bit by ignoring the impact of free throws, which is the other factor we haven’t considered. 1964 Duke was a little better than 1963 Duke in that regard, but not nearly enough to explain the scoring margin.)

It still doesn’t tell us everything we’d like to know. There are two sides to turnover margin: forcing turnovers, and avoiding turnovers of your own. Was 1964 Duke exceptional at forcing turnovers, or exceptional at taking care of the ball, or both? There is no data to tell us that. We could perhaps conjecture that the addition of Vacendak, an outstanding point guard, helped the turnover margin, and that perhaps the subtraction of Heyman may have hurt their rebounding, but helped their turnover margin. But we’re just guessing.

Record: 37-3, 12-2 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Johnny Dawkins (1st), Mark Alarie (1st)
All-Americans: Johnny Dawkins (1st)

At some point, I have to do a post or series of posts on the best years ever for the ACC. It seems like every year I look at from the mid-1970s through the early 2000s, I can’t believe how good the league was. 1986 is like that.

At the top of the league, Duke, Carolina, and Georgia Tech were in the Top 10 all year long, every single poll. Those three teams collectively also held down the #1 ranking all year. Georgia Tech was #1 preseason; they quickly ceded it to Carolina, who held it until mid-February, handing it off to Duke, who held it the rest of the way.

After the big three, you had NC State, Virginia, and Maryland. NC State finished 7-7 in the ACC, but they were ranked much of the year, had non-conference wins over #12 UNLV and #16 Louisville, and reached the Elite Eight. Maryland had Len Bias, and the best they could do was 6-8 and a 6th place (out of eight) ACC finish.

Shoot, seventh-place Clemson was a good team, and they went 3-11 in the conference. They beat 32-3 Bradley on a neutral court and made the third round of the NIT.

(I will concede that last-place Wake Forest was terrible.)

Duke’s only two regular season losses were back-to-back in mid-January. After a 16-0 start, they went to Chapel Hill to play also-undefeated Carolina. It was, not coincidentally, the first game in the Dean Dome. The Tar Heels pulled it out 95-92. Then the Blue Devils had to go to Atlanta to face #4 Georgia Tech, and they dropped that one as well.

They wouldn’t lose again until the national championship game. On the back nine of the schedule, they picked off Georgia Tech easily in the rematch, won a squeaker at NC State, notched nonconference wins against ranked opponents in Notre Dame and Oklahoma, and closed the regular season with an 82-74 Senior Day win over the Tar Heels.

The ACC Tournament final was a rubber match with defending champion Georgia Tech. If you’re like me – an old guy who grew up with the 1980s and 1990s ACC – go back and watch this game. It will remind you of everything you loved about ACC basketball. What stood out to me was how good Georgia Tech was. Mark Price, John Salley, Duane Ferrell, Tom Hammonds, and Bruce Dalrymple? That’s a heckuva team. It was a one possession game for most of the second half. In the last four minutes or so, the teams kept trading the lead. It came down to one possession. After a slick turnaround by Alarie gave Duke a one-point lead, Cremins called timeout with 37 seconds left to set up a play. He wanted to get a shot for Price, but Dawkins denied it. Price dished to Craig Neal, who was on the floor only because Dalrymple had fouled out. Neal’s contested 17-footer was well short, Duke grabbed the rebound, Georgia Tech had to foul, Dawkins made the free throws (of course), and that was the ballgame. No three-pointer, so if you were down three with less than ten seconds left, the game was basically over.

In the NCAAs, after a first round scare against Mississippi Valley State in which Duke didn’t take the lead until midway through the second half, the Blue Devils mostly coasted through the rest of the region, taking advantage of some upsets elsewhere in the bracket and playing a relatively easy schedule (including a regional final win over David Robinson and Navy) to reach the Final Four.

That set up a titanic Final Four showdown with second-ranked Kansas. Duke had beaten the Jayhawks all the way back on December 1. Since then, Kansas had lost only two more games and were riding a 16-game winning streak. It came down to a few possessions at the end of the game. Freshman Danny Ferry made a couple of big plays, Kansas wasn’t able to convert a few opportunities, and the Blue Devils advanced to the national championship game.

Duke led for most of the game, but it was never a comfortable lead, and Louisville just executed a little bit better in the last few minutes of the game. Duke had good looks down 66-65 and 68-65, but they wouldn’t go down, and that was the game. In the final analysis, Duke’s interior defense didn’t get it done. Louisville’s frontcourt of Pervis Ellison, Herbert Crook, and Billy Thompson had 48 points on 21-for-31 from the field. There were too many point-blank looks. Part of it is that Jay Bilas and Mark Alarie were in foul trouble for much of the game which may have forced them to play softer than they normally would. Regardless, Duke still could’ve won the game by knocking down a couple of open shots late, but it didn’t happen. They were a better team than Louisville, but they weren’t better on that particular night.

For more context on this team, check out my post on Johnny Dawkins where I wrote in depth about the Duke Class of ’86. That group of Dawkins, Alarie, Bilas, and David Henderson was exceptional. But they needed Tommy Amaker to get them over the top. Speaking of Amaker, remember the pass-first point guard? The floor general and defensive stalwart who had as many assists as points? The ACC had a lot of those guys over the years – Amaker, Steve Blake, Jimmy Black, Craig Neal, Derrick Phelps, Steve Wojciechowski… is it just me, or is that type of player gone now, or at least rarer?

Record: 35-3, 16-2 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: Kyle Guy (1st), De’Andre Hunter (1st), Ty Jerome (2nd)
All-Americans: None

The 2018 loss to UMBC must have shaken the Virginia program to its core. But Tony Bennett is a high character guy and a great coach, and I’m guessing that once he was able to gain some perspective and look dispassionately at the situation, he realized that loss happened because his team needed to get better.

In particular, the 2018 team was not great on offense. Their Effective FG% was only 98th in D-1. They were not a good offensive rebounding team. Their defense was so good that it bailed them out of some pedestrian offensive performances. When their defense inexplicably broke down against UMBC, they had no answers on offense.

What changed in 2019? Actually, not that much from a personnel perspective. Devon Hall and Isaiah Wilkins graduated and were replaced by freshman Kihei Clark and transfer Braxton Key, respectively. But the biggest change was that the core three – Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, and De’Andre Hunter – got a year older and a year better. Hunter, in particular, took a major step forward from a key reserve in 2018 to a star in 2019.

Don’t be fooled by their points per game stats. Guy, Jerome, and Hunter averaged “only” 44 points collectively, but that’s because of Virginia’s slow tempo. They were actually incredibly efficient offensive players – arguably the best trio of offensive players of any team in the country.

Virginia’s only two losses in the regular season were to #43 Duke, whom they battled all year for the top spot in the polls. After a disappointing loss in the ACC Tournament semis to Florida State, the Cavaliers headed to the South region as the top seed.

I had forgotten that they were down fourteen to Gardner-Webb in the first round. After what had happened with UMBC the year before, there must have been thoughts of “here we go again”, but to their credit, the Cavaliers steadied themselves and dominated to second half to win going away. Breathing a little easier, they dismantled Oklahoma in the second round with little trouble.

It was tight the rest of the way. In the regionals, they survived an ugly game against Oregon where neither team could make shots. That set up the unforgettable regional final with Purdue. Purdue’s Carsen Edwards was absolutely on fire, hitting 10 threes and putting the Boilermakers in position to win with five seconds left when Jerome was fouled and went to the line for a one-and-one. He left it way short (gotta say, it looked like a choke), but Virginia’s Mamadi Diakite did a great job getting a hand on the rebound and tapping it back. He tapped it so hard that Kihei Clark had to run back to three-quarter court to retrieve the ball. Clark had the presence of mind not to panic but to pass it back to Diakite, who hit a 10-footer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime where Virginia pulled out a five-point victory.

The national semifinal against Auburn was, if possible, even more dramatic. The Tigers mounted a furious second-half comeback and had opened up a four-point lead when Guy hit a tough three to cut it to one. A Virginia foul sent Auburn to the line where they made the first but missed the second. Auburn had fouls to give and used them effectively, forcing Virginia to inbound with just 1.5 seconds left. Guy got a decent look at a three and missed, which would have ended the game, but the officials called a controversial (but correct, in my opinion) foul. Guy, to his eternal credit, made all three free throws, and after Auburn’s desperation attempt failed, the Cavaliers were headed for the final versus Texas Tech.

How about one more nail-biter for good measure? This was a well-played, back-and-forth affair. Hunter hit the biggest shot, a three to tie the game at the end of regulation and send it to overtime. By this point, Virginia had played and won so many close games that they were ready for the moment. Five minutes later, the Cavaliers were national champions.

1983 NC State may have been the Cardiac Pack, but this Virginia team takes a back seat to no one when it comes to I-can’t-bear-to-watch moments. Their last three tournament games were as close as close could be – two decided in overtime, the other a one-point game that was snatched from the jaws of defeat in the final seconds.

Interesting fact: since 2007, five teams have finished in the kenpom top 5 in both offensive and defensive efficiency: 2008 Kansas, 2010 Duke, 2016 Villanova, 2019 Virginia, and 2024 UConn. All five won the national championship.