Record: 36-3, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national semifinal
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Tyler Hansbrough (ACC POY), Wayne Ellington (2nd)
All-Americans: Tyler Hansbrough (National POY)
This was the forerunner to the 2009 national championship team. In fact, the core of that team – Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green, and Deon Thompson – were together for three seasons from 2007-2009. All three teams were ranked in the Top 5 and each could have won the national championship. The 2007 team, despite its youth, had a tremendous year, winning the ACC regular season and tournament and reaching a regional final. Despite the one-and-done departure of freshman Brandan Wright, expectations were sky high for the 2008 team.
They opened with 18 consecutive wins and stormed to a 32-2 record, ACC regular season and tournament titles, and a #1 national ranking. The offense was overwhelming. The Tar Heels were the best offensive rebounding team in the country, bar none. They made free throws a huge competitive advantage, leading the nation in free throws made. Hansbrough, Ellington, Green, and Lawson all shot over 80%. They led the nation in two-point field goals made and led the ACC in two-point FG%. Like many of Roy Williams’ teams, they didn’t shoot many threes, but when they did, they shot them well. They were the most efficient offense in the country according to kenpom.
There were some minor vulnerabilities lurking. They were a good defensive team, but not a great one. They gave up 80+ points an awful lot for a great team. On the interior, they lacked a real shot-blocker (this is where Wright would have come in handy), and Hansbrough was never a great defender.
It was also an unusually easy schedule for a Carolina team. They scheduled Ohio State and Kentucky on the road, which sounds tough, but those programs were having down years. Their toughest nonconference game was probably the opener at Davidson with Steph Curry. The ACC was a bit down that year; after Carolina and Duke, Clemson was pretty good, and that was about it. Carolina was the only ACC team to make it to the Sweet 16 that year. So the gaudy record was a little bit deceiving. They weren’t quite as battle-tested as you might expect a 32-2 ACC team to be.
But nitpicking aside, this team was clearly a strong contender to win the national championship. They cruised through the East region without much of a challenge, setting up a showdown with fourth-ranked Kansas in the Final Four. What followed was one of the strangest games I can ever remember watching. Kansas got out to a shocking 40-12 lead in the first half. Carolina cut the lead to all the way to five with eight minutes left, and Danny Green had a good look at a three that rimmed out that would’ve cut it to two. From that point, Kansas dominated the last eight minutes and won going away.
But it doesn’t take away from a tremendous year for this group. 36-3, ACC champions, made the Final Four, stopped only by the best team in the country and eventual champion. And with no seniors and no underclassmen leaving early, it set them up perfectly for what was to come in 2009.