Record: 33-7, 14-4 (2nd place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinals
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 6
All-ACC Players: Justin Jackson (1st), Joel Berry (2nd)
All-Americans: Justin Jackson (1st)
This was a throwback team. In an era when many of the top programs were full of one-and-done freshmen, this team played mostly juniors and seniors. In an era when teams emphasized the efficiency of the three-point shot, this team played inside out. It wasn’t that they couldn’t shoot threes; it was more like, why bother? We’re bigger than you, so we’ll get it inside, and on the off chance we miss, we’ll just get the rebound and try again. Of all the great rebounding teams Roy Williams had, this one may have been the best. They led the nation in offensive rebound percentage at 41.3% – 12% higher than the D-1 average of 29.3%. That means that 41.3% of the time they missed a shot, they got their own rebound. That’s a lot of extra shots.
They were deep. They played nine guys consistently until Kenny Williams got hurt, and then they played eight the rest of the way. Justin Jackson and Joel Berry were the stars. Jackson had one of the great breakout years in the history of the league. I would compare it to Josh Howard in 2003 or Chris Carrawell in 2000. He was pretty good before that, but there was nothing to indicate he was suddenly going to be a first team All-American.
They were skilled with the ball. They were 2nd in Division 1 in assists and 296th in turnovers. They were sneaky good in this regard; no single player was in the Top 10 in the league in assists per game, but five players averaged 2+ assists per game.
But the (not-so-)secret weapons were Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks. There wasn’t another team in the country that had two big men of this quality. Meeks was the rebounding machine and the better defender while Hicks was the more skilled offensive player. Between the two of them, they dominated the interior.
Going into the NCAA Tournament, they were ranked sixth in the AP poll. They had lost seven games, which is a lot for a #1 seed, but they got a lot of credit for strength of schedule. Prior to the tourney, they had already played 17 games against teams ranked in the Top 50 at kenpom. The ACC was really deep that year with eleven teams in kenpom’s Top 55, nine of which would go on to make the NCAA Tournament.
They survived a tough second round game against Arkansas. The Razorbacks led 65-60 with 3:28 remaining, but they didn’t score again. The Tar Heels had a much easier time of it in a Sweet 16 win over Butler where they were in control all the way. That set up a titanic regional final showdown with a Kentucky team that had beaten the Tar Heels 103-100 in the best game of the regular season. This team was loaded, with freshmen Bam Adebayo, De’Aaron Fox, and Malik Monk, who had dropped 47 on the Tar Heels in the regular season game. Just like the Arkansas game, the Tar Heels trailed by five in the closing minutes, and just like the Arkansas game, they went on a 12-0 run late to seize control of the game. Luke Maye was tremendous off the bench.
First up in the Final Four were the 9th-ranked Oregon Ducks, who had just knocked off #1 seed Kansas to win the Midwest region. Carolina didn’t shoot it well, but behind a monster game from Meeks, they dominated the interior. The Tar Heels took control early in the second half and although Oregon kept within striking distance, they could never close the gap. It was a game that wasn’t quite as close as the final one-point margin indicated.
In the final they faced a Gonzaga team that had lost one game all year. The ‘Zags led most of the first half, but the Tar Heels surged into the lead early in the second, and from there it was as close as could be. From about the 17:00 mark, no team had more than a four-point lead until the very end of the game. The game was disjointed and ugly, with 44 fouls called and neither team shooting well. In the end, it came down to the last few possessions, and like the Arkansas and Kentucky games, the Tar Heels knew how to close.
This team wasn’t stacked with NBA players. They had plenty of talent, mind you, but it wasn’t the overwhelming talent of a Duke or a Kentucky. What they had was a hard-nosed, cohesive, experienced, gritty, skilled group that had come within a hair’s breadth of winning the national championship in 2016 and came back determined to finish the job.