Record: 26-6, 12-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in Final Four
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Larry Miller (ACC POY), Bob Lewis (1st)
All-Americans: Larry Miller (2nd)
1967 was one of those great turning points in ACC history. The previous four years had been dominated by Vic Bubas’ Duke teams. The Blue Devils won the regular season outright all four years (a feat equaled only by 1997-2000 Duke), won the Tournament in three of those years, and reached the Final Four three times.
Dean Smith was entering his sixth season at North Carolina. His teams had been moderately successful, compiling a 41-29 ACC record, but he had yet to achieve anything notable. He hadn’t won the regular season or the Tournament, or even reached the final. But with ACC leading scorer Bob Lewis and budding superstar Larry Miller returning, expectations were higher coming into the 1967 season. The Tar Heels were ranked 9th in the preseason AP poll – still behind Duke, which was ranked 4th. The Blue Devils had lost senior standouts Jack Marin and Steve Vacendak, but there was still plenty of talent with sharpshooter Bob Verga and junior big man Mike Lewis.
The Tar Heels put everyone on notice with an early season win at Kentucky. In early January, they suffered their first loss of the season against a Princeton team that would eventually go 23-2 in the regular season. Five days later, they traveled to Cameron Indoor to face the Blue Devils. Two seasons before, the Tar Heels had snapped Duke’s 29-game home ACC winning streak, but overall, Dean Smith was 2-10 against the Blue Devils. Carolina gritted out a 59-56 victory. They would go on to beat the Blue Devils two more times on their way to Dean Smith’s first ACC championship. It was truly a changing of the guard; the Tar Heels were to be the preeminent ACC program for many years to come, while 1967 marked the beginning of a period of decline for Duke that would see them vanish from the national scene for a decade or so.
Obviously Miller and Lewis were great players, but what really put this team over the top in 1967 was the impact of sophomores Rusty Clark, Bill Bunting, and Dick Grubar. Somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of Lewis, Miller, and later Charlie Scott, this trio won three regular season titles, three ACC Tournaments, and went to three Final Fours in their three years on varsity. Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good career.
In the regional semifinal, Carolina found themselves facing the same Princeton team that had defeated them in January. This time, the Tar Heels survived an overtime thriller to advance to the regional final, where they had a more comfortable victory over Boston College behind 31 points from Lewis. In the national semifinal against Dayton, the Tar Heels could not stop the Flyers’ Don May, who scored 34 points and pulled down 15 rebounds. That loss spared them from having to face the most dominant team in the history of college basketball – 1967 UCLA.
No one could have anticipated what Dean Smith and his program would accomplish over the next 30 years. But it all started in 1967.
What was this team good at? It looks like they were pretty good at everything. They led the league in FG% at 47.2% and were second to South Carolina in opponents FG% allowed at 41.7%. That 5.5% disparity in FG% explains a little over 7 points of their 11 point average scoring margin. The other 4 points is explained by also getting more shots than their opponents, which means rebounding and turnovers. They were a good if not great rebounding team, and while the statistical record doesn’t allow us to make definitive statements about their turnover margin, it seems likely that it was a combination of turnovers and rebounding that allowed them to get more shots than their opponents.
Miller was highly efficient from the floor at a high volume, taking roughly 25% of the Tar Heels’ shots. His mediocre free throw shooting detracted a bit from overall efficiency, but he was still a terrific offensive player. Lewis was a little less efficient than Miller but still good, not as accurate from the floor but much better from the line. Clark and Grubar were highly efficient as well. All five starters except for Bunting had a True Shooting Percentage over 50%.