62. York Larese, UNC, 1959-1961

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

I was a pretty good shooter. Coach McGuire and Duke’s coach, Vic Bubas, both called me the best shooter they had ever seen while I was in college. – York Larese in What It Means to Be a Tar Heel.

York Larese was another in the long line of outstanding New Yorkers who migrated to Chapel Hill to play for Frank McGuire.  Lennie Rosenbluth, Tommy Kearns, Joe Quigg, Pete Brennan, Doug Moe, Larese, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham… I’m probably missing a few.  Basically every good player they had was from New York except for Lee Shaffer, who was from Pennsylvania.  Rosenbluth and Cunningham are the best of the group.  Not far behind is Larese, who might be the best ACC player you’ve never heard of.

Start with this: Larese made first team All-ACC three times.  Only 25 players have ever done that.  And these weren’t particularly close votes.  In 1959, he tied Lou Pucillo for most votes; in 1960, he was fourth, well ahead of the fifth-place finisher; in 1961, he was unanimous along with Len Chappell, Moe, and Art Heyman.  He never won ACC Player of the Year, but all that tells you is that he wasn’t as good as Chappell and Heyman.  Larese made some kind of All-America team (some second team, some third team) all three years.  So he was recognized nationally as an outstanding player.

Larese had an unorthodox free throw routine. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say he had no routine at all. He shot the ball instantly when he received it from the official. Sort of the anti-Alonzo Mourning, you might say. But it was effective; Larese shot 87% as a junior to lead the league.

All three of the 1959-1961 teams Larese played on finished 12-2 in the ACC regular season, but they didn’t fare well in tournament play.  In 1959, the Tar Heels got pounded in the final by NC State.  But the Wolfpack was on probation, so UNC went to the NCAA Tournament anyway, where they promptly lost to Navy.

Then in 1960, the Tar Heels were upset in the ACC Tournament semifinals by Duke, a team they had beaten three times in the regular season by at least 22 points.

In 1961, UNC was ranked in the Top 10 all season, but they were on probation and therefore ineligible for the NCAA Tournament.  For some reason, the Tar Heels elected not to participate in the ACC Tournament, unlike NC State who was in a similar situation two years before.  So Larese and Moe ended their college careers with an overtime win over Duke in the last regular season game.  The only other teams in ACC history not to participate in the ACC Tournament (not counting the 2020 COVID-shortened event) are Maryland in 1991, Syracuse in 2015, and Louisville in 2016.

Bring back the old schedules, I say.  Carolina used to do a December road trip every year, followed by the Dixie Classic.  None of this modern practice of starting the season with a series of games against the Sisters of the Poor.  Here’s what Larese’s teams did.  In 1958, they traveled to Louisville, where they played Notre Dame and sixth-ranked Northwestern on back-to-back nights.  After returning home, they played Yale, #7 Michigan State, and #2 Cincinnati on consecutive days in the Dixie Classic.

In 1959, State and Carolina played Kansas and Kansas State in some sort of contrived little tournament on back-to-back days in Raleigh.  After a short break the Tar Heels traveled to Lexington to play Kentucky and St. Louis.  Finally, they came back home and played Minnesota, Duke, and Wake Forest in the Dixie Classic.

Then in 1960, the Tar Heels went out to the Midwest and played Kansas State, Kansas, and Creighton, three road games in four days.  In the Classic, they played Maryland, Villanova, and Duke.

Wouldn’t it be fun if teams still did this?