Record: 33-7, 14-4 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Brice Johnson (1st)
All-Americans: Brice Johnson (1st)
This team did something that seems impossible in modern basketball: they were a great offensive team but a poor three-point shooting team. They were last in the ACC in three-pointers made per game. They were third-to-last in three-point FG%. I looked back at the most efficient offenses in the country over the last 20 years according to kenpom, and I have no hesitation in saying that this team is the worst three-point shooting team of that group. But they were the most efficient offense in the country in 2016. How did they do it? Three things: 1) they absolutely dominated the offensive glass; 2) they took care of the ball; and 3) they were incredibly efficient on two-point shots.
That frontcourt. Brice Johnson, Justin Jackson, Isaiah Hicks, and Kennedy Meeks. This group collectively made 689 two-point shots, converting at a 58% clip. Johnson had just an unbelievable year – 17 points per game on 61% shooting, 78% from the line, one of the best rebounders in the country, Top 10 in the league in steals, Top 10 in blocks. Kenpom rated him as the best player in the country that year, just ahead of the actual ACC Player of the Year Malcolm Brogdon. I don’t know who was better and I have nothing negative to say about Brogdon – but Johnson was really good.
Marcus Paige and Joel Berry were terrific in the backcourt as well. Paige’s numbers went down over the course of his career, but if you look at it, it’s due to the fact that it wasn’t until 2016 that Carolina had another guard. Prior to that year, his backcourt mates had been Leslie McDonald and Nate Britt. When Berry emerged in 2016, Paige finally had that complementary player, and while it took away from his numbers a bit, it worked out beautifully for the team.
There was a puzzling early season loss at Northern Iowa – I assume that was the “homecoming game” for Marcus Paige – and a couple other shaky moments. But the Tar Heels closed the regular season with a resounding win in Cameron Indoor and were ready for the ACC Tournament.
I always got the feeling that Roy Williams was annoyed by the existence of the ACC Tournament, but once he got there, the competitive juices started flowing and he wanted to win as badly as anybody. This was a tournament that more or less followed the script. Carolina and Virginia were the two best teams with the two best players, and they squared off for the championship. The only regular season meeting had been won by the Cavaliers on their home court just two weeks earlier.
It was a tense, tight affair. Virginia maintained a slim lead for most of the game until a 15-2 run by the Tar Heels starting about midway through the second half turned a four-point deficit into a nine-point lead. Virginia cut it back to three, but couldn’t get any closer. It was kind of a turn-the-tables game in that it was Virginia who dominated the glass but couldn’t make a shot. Brogdon was outplayed by Joel Berry, who was rewarded with the Everett Case Award as the tournament MVP.
The Tar Heels earned the top seed in the East region. As NCAA tournaments go, they had a pretty easy time of it. There was really no point in any game prior to the final where they were in danger of losing. I don’t think they ever trailed in the second half of any game. They had a relatively easy path. The #2 and #3 seeds in their region lost, so as a result their regional final matchup was against Notre Dame, a team they had just beaten by 31 in the ACC Tournament. Their national semifinal opponent was surprise Midwest region winner Syracuse, who had taken down Virginia in that regional final.
But their luck with easy opponents ran out in the final. Villanova was the best team in the country and had been all year. It was a classic final between the two best teams. Carolina played a terrific game and came up three points short. Brice Johnson, by the way, had a better tournament than Most Outstanding Player Ryan Arcidiacono. Had it not been for the modern convention that the MOP always comes from the champion, Johnson would have been the easy choice.
Behind Johnson, this was an extraordinarily balanced team. It’s one of the few teams in my Top 50 that doesn’t have an individual player in my ACC Top 100. Nobody else averaged as much as 13 points, 6 rebounds, or 4 assists. But the top five players behind Johnson – Paige, Berry, Hicks, Meeks, and Jackson – were all very good players. Nate Britt and Theo Pinson gave them good minutes off the bench. It was a team where guys accepted their roles and embraced a certain style of play, and it worked.
UNC Offensive Rebound % Under Roy Williams, National Ranking Among D1 Teams (ACC Ranking in parentheses):
Of Roy Williams’ 18 Carolina teams, 10 of them were the best offensive rebounding team in the ACC, none was worse than third, and none was worse than 21st nationally except the forgettable 2013 team. That does not happen by accident. A remarkable record.
- 2004 – 11 (2)
- 2005 – 15 (2)
- 2006 – 9 (1)
- 2007 – 9 (2)
- 2008 – 1 (1)
- 2009 – 21 (3)
- 2010 – 16 (3)
- 2011 – 21 (1)
- 2012 – 10 (1)
- 2013 – 77 (3)
- 2014 – 13 (1)
- 2015 – 5 (1)
- 2016 – 3 (1)
- 2017 – 1 (1)
- 2018 – 3 (2)
- 2019 – 16 (3)
- 2020 – 12 (1)
- 2021 – 1 (1)