Author: thesnac

Record: 35-4, 13-3 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Shane Battier (ACC POY), Jason Williams (1st), Nate James (3rd)
All-Americans: Shane Battier (National POY), Jason Williams (1st)

We’ve talked extensively about the 1998-2002 Duke run of greatness. All five of those teams are in the Top 50, but this one is the best. Actually, in my heart of hearts, I think the 1999 team was a little better, but I can’t justify ranking them ahead considering this team won the national championship.

After the incredible 1999 team, there were a lot of departures. Trajan Langdon graduated; Elton Brand, Will Avery, and Corey Maggette turned pro; and Chris Burgess transferred. The key returnees in 2000 were Battier, Chris Carrawell, and Nate James. To that group, they added four highly regarded freshmen in Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer, and Casey Sanders. The 2000 team wound up being better than expected. Carrawell, Battier, and James all made huge leaps forward, and Williams, Dunleavy, and Boozer were great.

Coming into 2001, expectations were sky-high. Carrawell was the only significant loss, and another highly-touted freshman in Chris Duhon was set to take his spot in the rotation.

The ACC was stacked as usual. Five of the ACC’s nine teams were ranked in the Top 10 at some point during the season. North Carolina, in Matt Doherty’s first year, returned the core (minus Ed Cota) of the 2000 Final Four team. Maryland was on the rise with the core group that would win the national championship the next year. Virginia and Wake Forest were both really good. And Georgia Tech was a solid team that went on to make the NCAA Tournament.

Duke came out hot, grabbing the #1 ranking when Arizona lost early. They swept a difficult early non-conference stretch with wins over Villanova, Texas, Temple, Illinois, Temple again, and Michigan. Their last nonconference test was a late December game in Oakland vs. #3 Stanford. The Cardinal pulled out a one-point victory in what seemed like a Final Four preview (Maryland would eventually mess that up by beating Stanford in the NCAA Tournament).

Duke responded by winning their next nine games, including a 42-point drubbing of #10 Virginia and a 23-point win over #9 Wake Forest. The last game of that streak was the 98-96 overtime “Miracle Minute” classic over Maryland at Cole Fieldhouse in which the Blue Devils came from ten points down with less than a minute to play to tie the game and win it in overtime. That ran the Blue Devils’ record to 19-1.

Meanwhile, down the road, North Carolina was putting together a run of their own. Coming into their first meeting with Duke, the Tar Heels had won 14 straight and were up to #4 in the polls. Both teams were undefeated in the ACC. The game was yet another Blue Blood classic as Carolina pulled out an 85-83 victory. After a Dunleavy three tied the game with 3.9 seconds left, Battier, trying to get a steal, was called for bumping into Brendan Haywood with 1.2 seconds left. The 49% foul shooter calmly stepped up and made both. Chris Duhon’s 50-foot heave at the buzzer was oh-so-close, but hit off the back iron. The Blue Devils were left to lament the 14 free throws they missed.

After a few easy wins, Duke dropped another tough road game to #12 Virginia – payback for the 42-point beatdown they suffered in the first meeting. The next-to-last game of the regular season was the rematch with Maryland. The Terrapins took another step forward in their coming of age by going into Cameron and taking an 11-point win. Carlos Boozer broke his foot in this game and would miss the next six as Casey Sanders stepped into the starting lineup.

As usual, the regular season closed with the rematch with Carolina. The Tar Heels had stumbled a bit with a mystifying loss at Clemson and a blowout at Virginia, and this game continued that trend. Without Boozer, the Blue Devils ran away with a 95-81 victory.

After closing the regular season with Maryland and Carolina, the Blue Devils had to beat those same two teams to win the ACC Tournament. The Maryland game was another thriller as Duke pulled out an 84-82 win. The final was anticlimactic as the Tar Heels, suddenly falling apart, laid an egg in a 79-53 loss.

Their march through the NCAA Tournament was businesslike. Boozer returned in the Sweet 16 matchup against UCLA. Sanders remained in the starting lineup while Boozer came off the bench. He didn’t do much in the regionals, just getting his feet wet again, but the Blue Devils didn’t really need him.

The Final Four brought the fourth meeting of the season between Duke and Maryland, who had just upset Stanford to win the West. Maryland played a terrific first half and led by eleven. Duke chipped away in the second half. There wasn’t a single decisive moment. The Blue Devils finally took the lead with about five minutes remaining, and Maryland would never get it back. Duke executed better down the stretch.

Arizona awaited in the final. The preseason #1 Wildcats had muddled through a disappointing regular season, but they got it going in mid-February. This was a tremendously talented team with Richard Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas, Loren Woods, and Luke Walton. Duke would stretch the lead out to 8-10 points, then Arizona would make a run and cut it to two or three, but they never could get the lead. They had it down to three as late as 2:30, but ultimately they could not come up with enough stops and the Blue Devils salted it away to secure Coach K’s third national championship.

Looking at the roster, they are one of just a handful of teams in league history with two first team All-Americans. They are the only team in college basketball history with two different players who each won a national player of the year honor. Williams was the NABC Player of the Year while Battier swept the rest. The supporting cast of Boozer, Dunleavy, James, and Duhon was exceptional.

As for numbers… they have the second-highest (after 1999 Duke) kenpom Adjusted Efficiency Margin since he started tracking in 1997. Offensively, they were overwhelming. They are the most prolific three-point shooting team in ACC history – the only team to average 10+ made threes per game. But they were also 7th nationally in two-point percentage. They didn’t turn it over and were excellent on the offensive glass. Defensively, they had the NABC Defensive Player of the Year in Battier. They are one of only two teams in league history (1999 Maryland) with over 400 steals. I suspect, but have not confirmed, that they forced more turnovers than any other team in league history. The defensive fundamentals were solid as well. They held opponents to an Effective FG% of 45.8, good for 29th nationally. There was one weakness in that they were pretty bad on the defensive glass. That kind of cancelled out how good they were on the offensive glass; most of their games that year involved both teams pulling down a ton of offensive rebounds. The difference was, Duke’s offensive boards turned into made threes, while the other team’s turned into misses or turnovers.

This team is a bit high in losses for an all-time great. There are 28 other teams in ACC history with four losses or fewer. But they played an incredibly difficult schedule, going 13-4 against ranked teams. They swept the ACC and NCAA Tournaments. Despite the schedule, they still have the fourth-largest average margin of victory (1999 Duke, 1973 NC State, 1998 Duke) in league history. There’s no question about their position as one of the greatest.

Record: 32-2, 12-2 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: James Worthy (1st), Sam Perkins (1st)
All-Americans: James Worthy (1st), Sam Perkins (2nd)

This team checks all the boxes as one of the greats.

• National champion: check
• ACC Tournament champion: check
• ACC Regular Season first place: check (tied with Virginia)
• #1 ranking: check
• Record: 32-2, check
• Roster: Worthy, Perkins, Jordan. check

Of the teams we’ve reviewed so far, I’d say they are the first that has a credible argument to be at the top of the list.

Let’s recall the setting. The early 1980s Tar Heels were locked in a multi-year death struggle with Ralph Sampson and Virginia. The 1981 team had been ranked behind Virginia all year but had the last laugh, winning the ACC Tournament and beating the Cavaliers in the Final Four behind one of the all-time great performances by Al Wood. A dominant performance by Isiah Thomas in the final kept the Tar Heels from winning it all, but it was a great year.

Going into 1982, there were big shoes to fill with Al Wood graduating, but the young core of Worthy, Perkins, and Matt Doherty were back along with senior point guard Jimmy Black. Add to the mix an under-the-radar freshman named Michael Jordan, and the Tar Heels were preseason #1.

Sampson and Virginia were hot on their heels again. Wake Forest and NC State also had good teams that were ranked much of the season. The Tar Heels and the Cavaliers split their regular season meetings and each team lost only one other game, so that going into the ACC Tournament, each team had two losses. Carolina was ranked #1 and Virginia was #3. Unlike 1981, there were no early round upsets and the much-anticipated rubber match took place for the ACC title on March 7, 1982. The Tar Heels survived a slowdown affair, winning 47-45, and UVa was left to ponder another disappointment. (This game is said to be a contributing factor to the ACC’s decision to adopt a shot clock for 1982-1983.)

The Tar Heels were the top seed in the East. After an opening round scare against James Madison, they advanced steadily through the bracket, not blowing anyone out, but not really being threatened either. In the national semifinal, they topped a precocious Houston team with Drexler and Olajuwon to set up the titanic final with Georgetown.

The Hoyas had struggled through the first half of the season. After a three-game losing streak in mid-January, they found themselves out of the polls entirely. But freshman Patrick Ewing (or Pat, as he was called at the time) was finding his game and starting to dominate, and Georgetown caught fire. Coming into the national championship game, the Hoyas were 16-1 in their previous 17 games and were riding an impressive 9-game winning streak in which no opponent had scored more than 54 points. The Hoyas had dominated the West region.

One of the things this game is remembered for is the way that Ewing started out the game goaltending everything. In fact, the Tar Heels’ first four buckets were all goaltends, and in all Ewing goaltended five shots in the first ten minutes of the game. It seems to me that this fact has not received the attention it should in terms of its impact on the outcome of the game. Going back and watching the game, I found myself asking, what the hell was Georgetown thinking? These were obvious goaltends, not a single one was a difficult call. Essentially they spotted the Tar Heels ten points. Did they think James Worthy and Sam Perkins were going to be intimidated? That’s laughable. In a game that finished with a one-point margin, every point matters. I don’t think it’s an overreach to say that’s why Georgetown lost.

The game overall was played at a high level. Both teams shot 53% from the field (although North Carolina was below 50% on non-goaltended shots). Worthy played a magnificent game, going 13-for-17 from the field and scoring almost half the Tar Heels’ points. Black and Doherty clearly had no intention of shooting, so it fell to Jordan to be the third scorer to take some pressure off of Worthy and Perkins, and he was up to the challenge. We all know what happened at the end.

A few other observations about this team. They had no bench, and I mean no bench. Nobody off the bench averaged as much as two points. In their five NCAA Tournament games, they got a total of seven points off the bench. They could not have afforded an injury, nor could they afford foul trouble. Fortunately, they were very good at not fouling. They had only six foul-outs as a team for the whole season.

On a related note, they played a very slow tempo. I think there were several reasons for this. One, it helped them stay out of foul trouble. Fewer possessions = fewer fouls. But it wasn’t just them. That 1982 season still marks the lowest points per game average across the conference ever. Everyone was playing slowly. You might think it was ugly basketball, but it really wasn’t. Field goal percentages were high; six of the eight teams in the ACC shot over 50% from the field. But without a shot clock and without a three-point shot, possessions were long as teams passed it around the perimeter for quite a little while looking for an opportunity to get the ball inside. Watching games from that era, that’s the thing that sticks out to me as most obviously different – the number of wide open perimeter shots that are passed up, and guards and wings who had no intention of taking them.

So don’t be fooled by the seemingly unimpressive stats from 1982. Worthy’s 15.6 points per game would be 20-25 in a different context. He was a stud.

I said at the beginning that this team has a credible argument as the best ever. So why aren’t they? They have the resume, but what they lack from my perspective is dominance. Compared to the other candidates for the top spot, they had a lot of close games. Their average margin of victory was “only” 11.3. There are probably 80-100 ACC teams with a larger average margin than that. That’s not quite a fair comparison; because of the slow tempo, a margin of 11.3 is bigger than it sounds. But again, relative to the other candidates for the top spot, I just feel like this team was the least dominant.

Record: 37-2, 16-0 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in final
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Elton Brand (ACC POY), Trajan Langdon (1st), William Avery (2nd), Chris Carrawell (3rd), Shane Battier (3rd)
All-Americans: Elton Brand (National POY), Trajan Langdon (2nd)

Had they won the final against UConn, they would be number one. This team is arguably the greatest team in the history of college basketball to not win the national championship. There are other candidates; 1974 UCLA, 1992 UNLV, and 2015 Kentucky come to mind. But this team was unreal.

Let’s start with the roster. I was looking at teams that had 3+ players on my list of the Top 100 players in ACC history. Here they are:

• 1973-74 Maryland: Elmore (58), McMillen (39), Lucas (20)
• 1978 Duke: Gminski (19), Spanarkel (50), Banks (65)
• 1981 Carolina: Wood (55), Worthy (41), Perkins (15)
• 1982 Carolina: Worthy (41), Perkins (15), Jordan (5)
• 1984 Carolina: Jordan (5), Perkins (15), Daugherty (60), K. Smith (64)
• 1991-92 Duke: Laettner (3), Hurley (35), Hill (23)
• 1999 Duke: Brand (45), Langdon (70), Battier (14)
• 2010 Duke: Singler (53), Scheyer (93), Smith (66)

That’s pretty good company. But not only did this team have three of the 70 greatest players in ACC history. They had Chris Carrawell, who would win ACC Player of the Year the next season. They had Will Avery, an immensely talented guard who was named second-team All-ACC as a sophomore. Corey Maggette, who went on to be the thirteenth pick in the NBA draft after one season, couldn’t crack the starting lineup. Nate James, another future All-ACC performer, was the third guy off the bench. They had five players make All-ACC, never done before or since.

Then there’s the record. Tied with 1986 Duke for most wins by an ACC team in a season. One of just six ACC teams to finish a season with two losses or fewer. One of just eight ACC teams to go unbeaten in conference play. You like margin of victory? How about an average margin of 24.6 points – way ahead of 1973 NC State (21.8) and 2001 Duke (20.2) for the biggest of any ACC team? How about winning three ACC Tournament games by 37, 15, and 23?

From December 5, 1988 through March 21, 1999, a span of 30 games that included all 19 of their ACC games, they went 30-0 and had exactly two games that were closer than 10 points, a four-point win at St. John’s in late January and an eight-point win at Georgia Tech a couple of weeks later.

You know I like kenpom. His ratings go back to 1997, so a total of 28 seasons now. 1999 Duke is by far the highest-rated team in that span with an adjusted efficiency margin of 43 (second place is 2001 Duke at 37.3). That means that per 100 possessions, this Duke team scored 43 points more than they allowed, adjusting for schedule strength. They have the third-highest offensive efficiency rating ever, after 2015 Wisconsin and 2018 Villanova.

They shot 51.4% from the floor while holding opponents to 39.1%. They were first in Division I in field goals made, second in FG%, second in three-pointers made, seventh in 3FG%, first in free throws made, first in total rebounds, third in total assists, fourth in total steals, second in total blocks, nineteenth in lowest turnover percentage.

They had it all, but they lost. They had to play a great UConn team with a great player in Rip Hamilton and a Hall of Fame coach in Jim Calhoun, and they lost. They were better than UConn; I think they would have beaten them 7-8 times out of 10. But improbable things happen all the time. Duke didn’t play well and UConn did, and that was that.

Teams With Multiple Guys Who Won National POY At Some Point in Their Career on the Roster at the Same Time:

• 1962 Ohio State: Jerry Lucas (won POY in 1961, 1962), Gary Bradds (1964)
• 1969 UCLA: Lew Alcindor (1967, 1968, 1969), Sidney Wicks (1971)
• 1985 St. John’s: Chris Mullin (1985), Walter Berry (1986)
• 1986 Duke: Johnny Dawkins (1986), Danny Ferry (1989)
• 1989 Duke: Danny Ferry (1989), Christian Laettner (1992)
• 1999 Duke: Elton Brand (1999), Shane Battier (2001)
• 2000-2001 Duke: Shane Battier (2001), Jason Williams (2001, 2002)
• 2000-2002 Kansas: Drew Gooden (2002), Nick Collison (2003)

Record: 27-0, 12-0 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Not eligible
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: David Thompson (ACC POY), Tom Burleson (1st)
All-Americans: David Thompson (1st), Tom Burleson (2nd)

Only two ACC teams have played an entire season with nary a loss: 1957 North Carolina and 1973 NC State. Of course, 1973 NC State did not play in the NCAA Tournament, so their accomplishment is not the same as the ’57 Tar Heels. But it’s still special.

Did anyone see it coming? Well, it was certainly known that David Thompson was a special player and that NC State’s freshman team had been beating up on everyone. Despite a so-so year in 1972, the Wolfpack was ranked 8th in the preseason poll coming into 1973, thanks to the exploits of their 1972 freshman team. But Thompson turned out to be the rare super-hyped player who turned out to be even better than the hype.

It was kind of a weird schedule. They didn’t play anybody good outside the league. Within the ACC, Maryland and North Carolina were both ranked in the Top 10. NC State beat each three times. Another six games were against Duke, Virginia, and Clemson, all solid Top 40-type teams. The remaining 15 games were against teams who were completely overmatched, and the Pack ran up some embarrassing margins in those games, beating ECU by 35, UNC-Charlotte by 36, South Florida by 37, Georgia Southern by 44, Lehigh by 62, Appalachian State by 67, and Atlantic Christian by a nice round 70.

The ACC Tournament had an unusual dynamic with NC State on probation and ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. As a result, Maryland’s semifinal win over Wake Forest secured the automatic bid for the Terrapins. Lefty Driesell claimed not to care much about winning the final, and he did rest Len Elmore. The rest of the Terps battled NC State to the final buzzer, pulling out a 76-74 win, and holding Thompson to a near career-low 10 points.

Throwing some numbers at you. Their scoring average of 92.9 – without three-pointers – is highest in ACC history. Their average of 39 made field goals per contest – without a shot clock – is highest in ACC history and may be an unbreakable record; no team has reached 35 buckets per game since 1986 UNC. It’s too bad that assists was not an official stat at this time. Somebody was piling up a lot of them on those 39 made baskets per game. They were efficient, too, making 52% of their FG attempts. On defense, they held opponents to 43.7% from the field, had a rebound margin of +7.5, and averaged 9 more FG attempts than their opponents. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to see that when you attempt a lot more shots than your opponent AND you make a much higher percentage, you’re going to win a lot of games.

Were they as good as the 1974 team? No, I don’t think they were. The ’74 team’s stats weren’t quite as gaudy, but they played a tougher schedule, with nonconference games against UCLA, Memphis, Purdue, and of course the NCAA Tournament. Here’s a telling stat: the ’73 team’s average margin of victory against ACC opponents was 9.4; the ’74 team was 12.4, and against a tougher league. Mo Rivers and Phil Spence were a little better than the guys they replaced from the ’73 team. The ’73 team got a little bit lucky to go undefeated. They had more close games than their average margin of victory would indicate. But then, luck tends to find you when you have David Thompson.

Record: 34-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in final
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 4
All-ACC Players: Eric Montross (1st), George Lynch (1st)
All-Americans: Eric Montross (2nd)

If you had to choose one team that best epitomized Dean Smith basketball, what team would you pick? It would be a team that emphasized senior leadership, unselfish play, getting the ball inside, getting to the free throw line more than the opposition, acknowledging the passer, and meticulous preparation. It would be a team that lacked a superstar but came together as a unit and exceeded expectations.

There are several candidates. The 1971 team was a team that Dean mentioned frequently and clearly loved. The 1991 team was a team that made the Final Four without a superstar player. But to me, the team that best embodied the essence of Dean Smith was the 1993 national championship team. The senior leadership of George Lynch; the inside strength of Lynch and Eric Montross; the defensive toughness of Lynch and Derrick Phelps; an unselfish team that finished 12th in Division I in assists per game; a team that had six different players lead the team in scoring over the course of the season; a team that averaged 86 points per game without any individual averaging as much as 16; a team that made 63 more free throws than their opponents attempted; a team where all the bench players dutifully stood and applauded and Bill Guthridge never, ever failed to pat a player on the rear when he came out of the game.

But let’s go back to 1992. It was essentially the same team, but with Hubert Davis at shooting guard instead of Donald Williams. They were having an excellent year, humming along at 18-3, when out of the blue, they became the first North Carolina team since 1965 to lose four games in a row, including an embarrassing home loss to a bad NC State team that had lost nine straight coming into that game.

To their credit, the Tar Heels righted the ship somewhat, reaching the ACC Tournament final and playing respectably in the NCAA, but it still felt like a collapse and left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

With the same team coming back in 1993 except switching out Davis for Williams, Dean Smith could have panicked. A lot of coaches would have made change for the sake of change: personnel changes, transfers, benchings, staff changes, whatever. But you know Dean Smith wasn’t going to do that. He obviously believed in this group in spite of their shaky finish in 1992.

Well, it worked. The ’93 team was better in every way. Individually, everyone took a step forward. Montross was better, Lynch was better, Reese was better, Phelps was better. As a team, the Tar Heels were much better defensively. They rebounded better. They got more steals and forced more turnovers. In retrospect, the 1992 team was just young and ran into a tough spot in their schedule. They needed another year.

The Tar Heels did not play, for them, a particularly challenging non-conference schedule. The only marquee game was a December game against the Fab Five of Michigan in Maui. The Tar Heels lost that one 79-78. They were 10-1 going into ACC play.

The ACC was brutal that year. Six of the nine teams were ranked at some point during the season. All six of those teams made the NCAA Tournament, and four of them made the Sweet 16. You had Florida State with Cassell, Edwards, Sura, and Charlie Ward. Duke still had Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. Wake Forest had Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress. Virginia was a Sweet 16 team with Cory Alexander and Junior Burrough. And Georgia Tech won the ACC Tournament behind James Forrest, Travis Best, and Malcolm Mackey. Going 14-2 against that ACC is a heck of an accomplishment.

The two losses came back-to-back on road trips to Wake and Duke. After that, the Tar Heels won their last nine regular season ACC games, with no game closer than 10 points.

Behind a stellar performance from Everett Case Award winner James Forrest, Georgia Tech upset the Tar Heels 77-75 in the ACC Tournament final. But it did little to dampen the spirits of Tar Heel fans as they were awarded the top seed in the East region.

After two easy games in Winston-Salem, things got tougher. In the Sweet 16, Carolina faced an Arkansas team with the same core group that would win the national title the next year. It was a tight game all the way. The Tar Heels were nursing a one-point lead with a minute to go when Williams got a back door layup to push it to three. Then Lynch made a tremendous defensive play to force an up-and-down turnover, the Razorbacks had to start fouling, and that was that.

Things didn’t get any easier in the regional final against seventh-ranked Cincinnati, coached by Bob Huggins and led by Nick Van Exel. Cincinnati took a 15-point lead in the first half, only to see it erased by a furious North Carolina run that closed the margin to one at half. The second half was tense and physical with several ties and lead changes. With the score tied at 66, the Tar Heels had two golden opportunities to win it in regulation. George Lynch’s turnaround with a few seconds left wouldn’t stay down. After the ball went out of bounds off Cincinnati with 0.8 seconds left, Dean Smith drew up a perfect play and actually got a wide open dunk for Brian Reese just as time expired – which Reese missed. In overtime, with the score tied at 68, Williams hit consecutive threes and that was all the Tar Heels needed.

In the national semifinal, Roy Williams and Kansas were waiting for the second time in the past three years. The Jayhawks were coming off an upset of #1 Indiana in the regionals – Bob Knight’s last great Indiana team. It was one of those games where Carolina was always ahead, but never comfortably. The Jayhawks cut it to three inside three minutes, but Williams hit yet another huge three to push the lead to six, and that was all the Tar Heels needed.

I can’t tell you anything about the final against Michigan that you don’t already know. It was great game between two evenly matched teams, and you know what happened at the end.

I sometimes wonder how Dean Smith’s legacy would have been different if he had lost that game. As great as he was, with “only” one national championship, would he still be regarded as one of the top five coaches of all time? Wooden, Rupp, Krzyzewski, Knight, Williams, and Calhoun each have at least 3 titles. I think without that second title, Smith would be considered seventh, behind that group. With it, he’s right in there. I’ve never been sure how to compare Wooden to the others. Obviously what he accomplished from 1964 to 1975 is unparalleled and probably unattainable. On the other hand, in the 17 years prior to 1964, he didn’t do that much, and he retired younger than the others. By contrast, Smith, K, and Williams had sustained success over longer periods of time. They were able to adapt to so many changes in the game and still be successful.

Record: 33-4, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: Raymond Felton (1st), Sean May (1st), Jawad Williams (3rd), Rashad McCants (3rd)
All-Americans: Sean May (2nd)

Which team was better, 2005 or 2009 North Carolina? It’s a tough, tough call. Both teams lost four games, both lost in the semis of the ACC Tournament, both went on to win the national championship. Both were inside-oriented teams who didn’t shoot a lot of threes, but were efficient when they did. Both teams played at a lightning-quick tempo led by a blindingly fast point guard. Both teams were experienced, returning pretty much everyone from the year before.

One difference you can point out is that the 2009 team was everybody’s preseason #1, because the 2008 team was so good and everybody was back. The 2005 team wasn’t like that. The 2004 team was very good, but their 19-11 record didn’t show it. They had played the toughest schedule in the country and lost a bunch of close games in a ridiculously good ACC. I don’t want to say the 2005 team flew under the radar – they were preseason #4 – but they weren’t the odds-on favorites to win the national championship.

In particular, the 2004 team did not have a championship-caliber defense. They gave up 75 points per game and were 228th among Division I teams in opponents’ Effective FG%. If they were to take a step forward, Roy was going to have to get them guarding better.

It was tough to get a read on this team early. Their first game was a mystifying 11-point loss to Santa Clara, a game the Heels scheduled on their way out to Maui. They didn’t lose another non-conference game, but the schedule wasn’t that difficult. They got a nice win over Kentucky, but that was the only ranked non-conference team they played. Going into conference play, they were ranked third in the nation.

After opening with home wins over Maryland and Georgia Tech, the Tar Heels traveled to Winston-Salem to take on fourth-ranked Wake Forest. Chris Paul dominated the game, tallying 26 points, 8 assists, and 5 steals against just 1 turnover in leading the Demon Deacons to 95-82 win.

After that setback, the Tar Heels got back to pounding the rest of the ACC, winning their next five games by an average of 22 points. They were 18-2 going into their annual visit to Cameron Indoor to take on 17-2 Duke. Carolina came out on the short end of an ugly, grinding 71-70 game that dropped Roy Williams to 0-3 against his archrivals.

The Tar Heels quickly got back to their winning ways, running their record to 25-3 going into the rematch with the Blue Devils. This one was a Blue Blood classic. With 19 seconds left and Carolina down by two, Felton was fouled. He made the first and missed the second. Somehow Marvin Williams came out of a scramble with the ball and sank the game-winner.

“The put-back that Marvin Williams had at the end of the game at the Smith Center was the loudest moment of any arena I’ve ever seen in my life,” [Roy] Williams recalled. “Whether it was Allen Fieldhouse, Rupp Arena, Stillwater for Oklahoma State, at that moment, it was the loudest I’d ever heard a basketball arena be and what a great win and thrill it was for us that day.” 

In the ACC Tournament, the second-ranked Tar Heels played a terrible semifinal game against Georgia Tech. The Jackets advanced behind a game-high (and, probably safe to say, career high) 35 from Will Bynum.

After two easy games, a talented Villanova team awaited in the Sweet 16. The Tar Heels survived this one 67-66, not without help from a controversial traveling call that negated a potential tying bucket for the Wildcats. The regional final was another battle, this time with Wisconsin. Sean May had 29 to lead the Tar Heels to an 84-78 victory and a berth in the Final Four against Michigan State. After trailing at half, Carolina caught fire in the second half and sprinted to an 87-71 win.

And so the final that everyone wanted was set. Illinois and Carolina had been the two best teams in the country all year. The 37-1 and top-ranked Illini were talented, experienced, big, and tough. Their guard trio of Luther Head, Deron Williams, and Dee Brown was perhaps unlike anything we’ve ever seen in college basketball. Try to find another team with three guards who each averaged over 12 points and 3.5 assists per game.

Carolina dominated the first half, running out to a 13-point lead. Illinois used a 10-0 run midway through the second half to tie the game at 65. The Heels retook the lead on a Felton three, but Illinois battled back again to tie it at 70 on a three by Head with 2:32 remaining. The Illini wouldn’t score again. Marvin Williams tipped in a wild McCants miss, and that’s all the Tar Heels needed. Illinois missed several decent-to-good looks in the last two minutes, Felton added the final margin at the line, and Roy Williams had his first national championship.

Sean May‘s 2005 tournament performance is arguably the greatest ever by an ACC player. That is a strong statement, but I stand by it. In six games he averaged 22 points and 11 rebounds on 67% shooting. In the final, he scored 26 on 10-for-11. I covered this topic in more depth in my ACC 100 post on Sean May.

Record: 32-4, 15-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Juan Dixon (ACC POY), Lonny Baxter (2nd), Steve Blake (3rd), Chris Wilcox (3rd)
All-Americans: Juan Dixon (1st)

One of the most compelling storylines in sports is the Almost Team. They’re clearly one of the best, they’re right there, they’re oh-so-close, but there’s a final hurdle they just can’t clear. Maybe it’s one team they can’t beat, or a tournament round they can’t get past. Think of the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1940s and 1950s, the Red Sox of the early 2000s, the Jim Kelly-era Bills, or the Pistons of the late 1980s. Will they get over the hump, or won’t they?

Sometimes the momentum towards a breakthrough seems to build steadily over time. Think of Rafa Nadal. He played Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final three straight years from 2006-2008 when Federer was the best player on the planet. In 2006, Federer won in four sets. Considered a clay court player, Nadal was praised for putting up a spirited fight on grass, but Federer was in control. In 2007, Nadal’s improvement was evident. Federer won in five exhilarating sets, but for much of the match Nadal looked like the better player. You came away thinking “how much longer can he hold this guy off?” When they met again in 2008, it seemed like the pressure had built up so much that the dam was going to break – and it did. Nadal outlasted Federer 9-7 in the fifth set in one of the greatest matches ever played.

But these storylines don’t always have happy endings. (Ask Lefty Driesell.) It takes something extraordinary after repeated heartbreaking failures to keep picking yourself up, finding ways to get better, and perhaps the hardest thing of all, truly believing you can win. I have immense respect for those teams who finally get over the hump.

Maryland 2002 is one of those stories. Through the 2000 season, Maryland had had 16 teams over the 47 years of the ACC that finished in the AP Top 20 (only Duke and Carolina had more). Six of those teams finished in the Top 10. They’d had great coaches in Driesell and Williams and great players in Bias, Lucas, Elmore, McMillen, and King.

And what did they have to show for all that excellence? Two ACC Tournament titles, zero Final Fours, and a lot of heartbreak. Fair or not, the storyline of Maryland’s first 47 years in the ACC was one of unfulfilled promise, bad luck, and missed opportunities.

Gary Williams’ first really good team was the 1995 team led by ACC Player of the Year Joe Smith. They were ranked in the Top 10 most of the season. They made it to the Sweet 16 before losing to an outstanding UConn team with Ray Allen. It was a joyful run for Terps fans who were happy to be nationally relevant again and excited for next year. Unfortunately for them, Smith turned pro after the season, and that set them back a bit. They still made the tournament the next few years, but it wasn’t until 1999 that Williams moved the high water mark up. That team (#47 on my list) was one of the best in the nation, and when they lost in the Sweet 16 to St. John’s, it felt like a missed opportunity and a “here we go again” moment for Maryland fans. Then Steve Francis unexpectedly turned pro, and the 2000 team took a small step backward.

At this point, Williams had made the tournament seven straight times, but he hadn’t gotten past the Sweet 16. Fans were feeling that old familiar feeling that their coach and their program couldn’t win the big one. All the more challenging is that they were trying to climb the ladder while Duke was in the midst of one of the great stretches of all time with their juggernaut teams from 1998-2002, and North Carolina under Bill Guthridge had reached the Final Four in both 1998 and 2000. It must’ve felt like an impossible uphill battle.

But there were signs. Maryland had swept the Tar Heels in 1999, split with them in 2000, and finished ahead of them in the ACC standings both years, so that no longer felt like an immovable object. As for Duke, the breakthrough came on February 9, 2000, when the Terrapins walked out of Cameron Indoor with an immensely satisfying 98-87 victory over a Duke team that had been running roughshod over them and everyone else for a few years. A month later, Maryland reached the ACC Tournament final for the first time in Williams’ tenure before losing the rubber match to Duke. But those subtle signs of progress were lost on Maryland fans after the Terps, as a #3 seed, were humiliated 105-70 by an unranked 20-11 UCLA team in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Despite the terrible finish, there were plenty of reasons for optimism going into 2001. Everyone was back from the previous year, and the Terps had added highly touted freshman big man Chris Wilcox. With such a talented roster, Maryland was ranked fifth in the national preseason poll. But a 1-3 start got them behind the eight ball right away. After a February 14 home loss to Florida State, Maryland stood at 15-9, 6-6 in the ACC and was barely clinging to a spot in the Top 20.

At that point, something clicked. A 16-point win at #23 Wake Forest, a blowout win over a not very good NC State team, and a home win over #16 Oklahoma gave the Terps some momentum going into another visit to Cameron to take on second-ranked and eventual national champion Duke – on Shane Battier‘s Senior Night no less. Improbably, for the second straight year, Maryland walked out with a decisive 91-80 win, and Juan Dixon was the best player on the court. They followed with a 35-point blowout of a Top 10 Virginia team. Suddenly Maryland was on fire.

A two-point loss to Duke in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament was disappointing, but did little to dampen the sense that this Maryland team had turned a corner. Sent out West as the #3 seed, they survived a scary opener against George Mason, then mowed down Georgia State (coached by Lefty!) and Georgetown to reach the regional final where they faced second-ranked, 31-2 Stanford. The Cardinal had an impressive resume, having beaten Duke on a neutral court earlier in the season, and they were playing close to home in Anaheim. Maryland was unfazed. Lonny Baxter dominated Stanford’s highly touted frontcourt, Dixon was his usual efficient, ball-hawking self, and the supporting cast was solid as Maryland ran away with with an 87-73 victory to send them to the first Final Four in school history – where a fourth game against Duke awaited. Maryland fell apart in the second half of that game with turnovers and fouls, and Duke streaked to the national championship.

That is a very long preamble, just to get to the season that we’re actually talking about. But I don’t think you can fully appreciate what happened in 2002 unless you understand what led up to it. It wasn’t something that came out of nowhere. Gary Williams’ program had been chipping away at the edifice of the ACC elite, knocking down one barrier after another. Going into 2002, Terence Morris was gone, but everyone else was back, and the Terps had a deep, experienced, complete team led by seniors Dixon, Baxter, and Byron Mouton. They were ranked second to Duke in the preseason poll.

They lost the opener to a young but talented Arizona team. Wins over Temple, Illinois, and UConn got the Terps’ ranking back to #2 before a clunker of a loss at Oklahoma, an eventual Final Four team.

It was a bit of a weird year in the ACC. With North Carolina in the Matt Doherty doldrums, there was a chasm between Duke/Maryland and everyone else. NC State was OK, Wake Forest as OK, Virginia was OK, but it wasn’t that meat grinder of a schedule that you typically associate with the ACC. Duke and Maryland split their regular season games with each team winning handily at home. Maryland coasted through the rest of the ACC schedule and finished atop the standings with a 15-1 conference record. The ACC Tournament figured to come down to a rubber match with Duke, but NC State had other ideas. The Wolfpack played a beautiful semifinal game, crushing Gary Williams’ ACC Tournament hopes yet again.

As much as that loss must have hurt, Maryland was still the top seed in the East region. The Terps cut through their regional opponents like a buzzsaw, culminating with a 90-82 win over a UConn squad that featured Caron Butler, Emeka Okafor, and Ben Gordon. Juan Dixon was balling, scoring 29, 29, 19, and 27 in the four regional games.

The national semifinal against Kansas was one of the most entertaining Final Four games ever. Like Maryland, Roy Williams’ Jayhawks had lost only four games and had dominated the regular season in their conference only to lose in the tournament. Both teams played at a very fast pace and had extremely skilled offensive players. It was a shootout. Baxter got into early foul trouble and ultimately played just 14 minutes. But the Terps had quality depth in Ryan Randle and Tahj Holden, and of course they had Dixon. JD scored 33, Chris Wilcox chipped in 18 points and 9 boards, and Steve Blake dished out 11 assists to lead Maryland to a 97-88 victory.

Instead of Duke waiting in the final, it was Indiana, the team that had upset the Blue Devils in the regionals. The Hoosiers went on to beat Kent State and #3 Oklahoma to reach the national final. After beating #1 and #3 on the way to the final, I’m sure the Hoosiers thought they could do anything. But their magic ran out. They managed but 52 points on 34% shooting in a championship game that wasn’t very pretty.

It’s so hard to win a national championship, and it’s that much harder for a non-blue blood program. Not only do you have to beat all the other great teams, but you have to beat back the ghosts of failures past. What an amazing job by Gary Williams of putting this team together and then executing at the highest level in the NCAA Tournament. They earned everything they got.

Record: 34-4, 13-3 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinal
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 2
All-ACC Players: Ty Lawson (ACC POY), Tyler Hansbrough (1st), Danny Green (3rd)
All-Americans: Tyler Hansbrough (1st), Ty Lawson (2nd)

North Carolina came into the 2009 season as the clear preseason #1. The 2008 team (#28 on my list) had finished 36-3 and reached the Final Four, and the only departures from that team were role players Alex Stepheson and Quentin Thomas. Their six top scorers – Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, Danny Green, Deon Thompson, and Marcus Ginyard – were all back. Add to that three McDonald’s All-Americans – Larry Drew, Tyler Zeller, and Ed Davis – and the Tar Heels had a championship-caliber roster.

Ginyard unfortunately hurt his foot and missed the season. But if it slowed the Tar Heels down, you couldn’t tell. They took down Kentucky, Oregon, Notre Dame, and Michigan State in non-conference play as they raced to a 13-0 start. But their first two ACC games were clunkers – a home loss to Boston College and a road loss at Wake Forest.

After a get well game against a weak Virginia team, the Tar Heels got things rolling. They won 13 out of their last 14, including a sweep of Duke. The only blemish came in an overtime loss at Maryland in which Greivis Vasquez had 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists – one of the greatest triple-doubles in ACC history. Their regular season run culminated with a Senior Day win over Duke.

Going into the ACC Tournament, the main concern was the health of Ty Lawson who had injured his toe running into the basket stanchion. He played through it in the second Duke game, but he was hurting. Roy Williams, prioritizing the NCAA Tournament as he always did, made the decision to sit Lawson for the ACC Tournament in hopes that he would be ready for the NCAAs. Without Lawson, the Tar Heels struggled to beat Virginia Tech in the quarters and fell to Florida State in the semis. But Roy had bigger things in mind than a mere ACC championship.

It paid off. When Lawson returned for the second round game against LSU, he looked like his old self, and the Tar Heels were off and running. I’m trying to find some drama in the NCAA Tournament, but there just wasn’t any. Carolina controlled every single game. They covered the spread in every game. They led at half in every game. Their closest margin of victory was 12 points. The championship game against Michigan State was over at halftime. This team dominated the NCAA Tournament like few teams have.

Hansbrough was more or less his usual self, but Lawson and Ellington were the biggest stars. Ellington averaged 19.2 points on 55% from the field and 53% from three. Lawson averaged 20.8 points and had 34 assists against 7 turnovers in the tournament. In the final against Michigan State, Lawson had eight steals.

This group was just about perfect on offense. Everything you want – high FG%, didn’t turn it over, got to the line a lot, made free throws, great offensive rebounding team. They didn’t shoot a lot of threes, but when they did, they made them. On defense, their one vulnerability was defending the three-point line. They allowed ACC opponents to shoot 37.1% from three. One of the keys to their NCAA Tournament run was tightening that up. In their six tournament games, opponents shot 35-131 from three – a 26.7% clip.

It was one of those teams that if you wanted to have any chance to beat them, you had better score, because you knew they were gonna score. You weren’t going to beat this team 56-55. Once they shored up their perimeter defense, there were no weaknesses left. There was nothing to attack. They were a team on a mission to finish the job they left unfinished in 2008, and they did exactly that.

Record: 35-5, 13-3 (1st place tie)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Kyle Singler (1st), Jon Scheyer (1st), Nolan Smith (2nd)
All-Americans: Jon Scheyer (2nd)

I love the composition of this team. In Singler, Scheyer, and Smith, you had one of the great trios in ACC history holding down the two guard spots and the wing. Those three guys basically never came out of the game.

Then, in the frontcourt, you had tremendous size in Brian Zoubek, Lance Thomas, and the Plumlee brothers. Their jobs were to play defense, get rebounds, set screens, and occasionally get a garbage basket off an offensive rebound or a dish from one of the big three.

It worked beautifully. The three S-boys each averaged over 17 points and two assists. They took about equal numbers of shots. Each was an excellent three-point shooter, each one could drive, each one could pass. It was impossible to defend. When they missed, one of the giants usually grabbed the rebound as the Blue Devils were one of the nation’s best offensive rebounding teams.

And on defense, the size inside allowed them to take away the three, even if that meant giving up a few drives. Duke ranked second nationally in three-point FG% defense at 28.3%, and only ten teams in Division I allowed fewer three-point attempts as a percentage of total shot attempts. As a result, the Blue Devils averaged less than four made threes allowed per game for the season, which must be close to some kind of record in the modern era.

It was a masterfully constructed team. Pretty much any way you tried to attack them, they had you.

They did lose five games, all on the road: Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, NC State, Georgetown, and Maryland. In a couple of those games, Singler, Scheyer, and Smith all had poor shooting games. Rare but not impossible. In a couple of the others, teams were able to find soft spots on the interior. Duke’s guys were big, but none individually was an exceptional defender or great shot-blocker. A few skilled big men such as NC State’s Tracy Smith, Georgia Tech’s Gani Lawal, and Georgetown’s Greg Monroe were able to have their way inside.

But they finished the regular season at 26-5 and ranked fourth in the country. The ACC Tournament started slowly as Duke faced Virginia in Tony Bennett’s first season. The Cavaliers weren’t very good, but they showed that signature defense in holding Duke to 57 points, its lowest total of the season. Unfortunately for them, they only managed to score 46. The semifinals and finals were not as close as the scores indicated. Duke led both games wire to wire and neither had any real drama.

Duke was the top seed in the South region. In the regionals, the Blue Devils showed their versatility. They won their Sweet 16 game against Purdue with defense, holding the Boilermakers to 37% shooting and owning the glass to overcome a subpar offensive performance. In the regional final, Duke had to survive an 0-for-10 performance from Singler. They did, thanks to nine threes from Smith and Scheyer and 22 offensive rebounds. Baylor led 61-60 at the under 4:00 timeout, but a four-point play by Smith (made free throw, missed free throw, offensive rebound, three) ignited a 12-1 run that sealed the game.

The national semifinal against #6 West Virginia was a tour de force performance. The Mountaineers were one of the few teams in the nation who could match Duke in size and rebounding. But they couldn’t match them on the perimeter. Singler, Smith, and Scheyer combined for 63 points, 17 assists (mostly to each other), and 3 turnovers. Each player individually had at least 19 points and 5 assists. Duke’s big guys just tried to play defense and stay out of the way as the Blue Devils cruised to a 78-57 win.

The national championship pitted Duke against upstart Butler. The Bulldogs had made a memorable Cinderella run through the West region, beating top seed Syracuse and second seed Kansas State in the regionals and Michigan State in the semis. Butler hung their hat on an outstanding defense that hadn’t allowed any opponent in the tournament to score 60 points. As it turned out, that was the magic number in the final, too.

It was one of those tense games where nobody could get a comfortable lead. The first half was back and forth. Duke took a narrow lead early in the second half, and the rest of the game was Butler getting it to a one-possession game, and Duke pushing it back to two. With about a minute left, Butler closed it to 60-59 with the ball, and the game really came down to that possession. Gordon Hayward took a high-arcing, fall-away baseline jumper with Zoubek’s hand in his face, a difficult shot but one that Hayward looked comfortable taking. It was on line but hit the back of the rim. After Duke made one free throw to stretch the lead to two, Hayward had a great look at an open, on balance 40-footer that nearly banked in.

I have a theory around how this team was put together. I have no evidence, mind you, it just makes sense to me. Think about the 2005-2009 Duke teams. Every year they were highly ranked but couldn’t get out of the Sweet 16. These teams were guard-oriented teams that were a bit soft in the middle. The 2006 team in particular was a terrible inside team, which sounds strange for a team with Shelden Williams, but look at the stats.

Meanwhile down the road, Carolina won the 2005 national championship by absolutely dominating the paint. The dominated the paint in 2007 when they swept Duke and in 2009 when they swept Duke again and won another national championship.

Watching all this, Coach K realized that something had to change. He was tired of watching his teams get bullied by their archrivals and come up short in the NCAA Tournament. He decided to go out and get as many big, tough guys as he could find, so that for once his team would be the bully. But he did it in a really smart way that didn’t bog down their guard-oriented offense.

This is an important aspect of the genius of Coach K. He reinvented his approach and his team several times during his career. Most coaches would have looked at Duke’s records from 2005-2009 and told themselves, we were really good but things just didn’t bounce our way. Coach K was honest enough with himself to say, even though we are in the Top 10 every year, this isn’t good enough and we have to change. It takes vision and courage to change things that are really good to get them to great. He was never afraid to do that.

Record: 26-5, 13-1 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Lost in national final
Final AP Ranking: 3
All-ACC Players: Jeff Mullins (ACC POY), Buzz Harrison (2nd), Hack Tison (2nd), Jay Buckley (2nd)
All-Americans: Jeff Mullins (2nd)

OK, I just got done writing about 1963 Duke. What am I going to say different about 1964 Duke? Well, it was a different team. National Player of the Year Art Heyman was gone. Jeff Mullins was now the leader. Veterans Jay Buckley, Hack Tison, and Buzz Harrison were back. But what really put this team over the top were the additions of Jack Marin and Steve Vacendak from the freshman team.

The ACC in 1964 was pretty terrible. The distance between the first and second-place teams was never so great. Wake Forest, who finished second, probably wasn’t one of the 40 best teams in the country. The rest of the league was just plain bad. Duke had one close game in the ACC all year. They won their ACC Tournament games by 31, 16, and 21.

But Vic Bubas was smart. He knew his team needed to be tested against good competition, and he knew he wasn’t going to get it in the ACC. So he scheduled a really challenging non-conference slate:

• Beat #7 Ohio State 76-75 on a neutral court
• Beat West Virginia 86-81 on the road
• Lost to Vanderbilt 97-92 in overtime, on the road
• Lost to #3 Michigan, 83-67, on the road
• Lost to #1 Kentucky, 81-79, on a neutral court
• Beat Tennessee 67-65 in double OT, in Greensboro
• Beat #4 Davidson 82-75 at home

Every one of those opponents was probably better than the second-best team in the ACC. Notice that only one of the games was at Cameron. If you like analogies, Duke in 1964 was like a modern-day Gonzaga. They dominated a relatively weak league and played a brutal non-conference schedule to test themselves against the best. So when the NCAA Tournament came, they were ready.

Duke received a bye to the regionals, which were conveniently held at Reynolds Coliseum. They dominated #7 Villanova behind 43 points and 12 boards from Mullins. In the regional final, they annihilated UConn 101-54 in a game the Blue Devils led by 35 at halftime.

The Final Four brought a rematch with #2 Michigan, who had beaten Duke handily earlier in the season on their homecourt. The Wolverines featured two All-Americans in Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin. This time, behind a balanced scoring effort led by Buckley’s 25, the Blue Devils triumphed to advance to the national championship game. Where they had the misfortune to meet undefeated UCLA. Starting this very year, the Bruins put a stranglehold on the national championship which they would not relinquish until John Wooden’s retirement after the 1975 season.

Teams to Place Four Players on First or Second Team All-ACC:

• 1964 Duke: Mullins (1), Harrison (2), Tison (2), Buckley (2)
• 1972 UNC: McAdoo (1), Wuycik (1), Chamberlain (2), Karl (2)
• 1975 Maryland: Lucas (1), Davis (2), Howard (2), Brown (2)
• 2012 UNC: Zeller (1), Henson (1), Barnes (1), Marshall (2)

A Rabbit Trail on Style of Play

I commented in an earlier post on late 1960s North Carolina about what we can infer about style of play for long-ago teams from the scant statistical record. This team is interesting in that regard as well.

We have field goal percentages both offensively and defensively, so we know that part. We can see from FG/FT attempts and opponents’ FG/FT attempts which teams took more shots than their opponents. What we lack is the detail behind why that is that case. If a team takes more shots than their opponents, either they are winning on the glass or they are winning on turnover margin. But for teams from the 1960s, we have no data at all on turnovers. We have total rebounds, but we don’t have offensive vs. defensive rebound breakdown. So how do we know what they were good at, exactly?

Raw rebound margin is not as useful as you might think as to whether a team is truly good at rebounding. To understand why, imagine a game between a very good shooting team (Team A) and a very poor shooting team (Team B). Team A goes 40-for-60, missing 20 shots. Team B goes 20-for-60, missing 40 shots. Team A gets 40 rebounds to Team B’s 20. Team A is the better rebounding team, right?

Not necessarily. Remember that the defense has an inherent advantage over the offense in getting rebounds. So when Team B misses, Team A should get the rebound, and vice versa. In this case, Team B missed many more shots, so Team A had many more defensive rebound opportunities. In actuality, Team A’s 40-20 advantage on the boards is exactly what we would expect if Team A and Team B are equally good at rebounding. Team A’s apparent advantage is only because Team B missed so many more shots.

I came up with the concept of Expected Rebounds to account for this. It’s based on the fact that the defense gets the rebound on a missed field goal about 2/3 of the time on average. Free throws are a different story; offensive rebounds on free throw attempts are very rare.

So a crude, quick-and-dirty formula for calculating Expected Rebounds is:

(2/3 * opponents’ field goal misses) + (1/3 * own field goal misses) + opponents’ free throw misses

This isn’t perfect, of course; offensive rebounds on free throws are rare but not zero, and not every missed free throw even results in a rebound, unless you’re counting deadball rebounds, etc. But as a rough indicative measure, it will do. The idea is that if a team has more rebounds than its expected rebounds, it must be a good rebounding team.

Let’s look at an example. 1963 Duke had the following stat lines:

Team	FG	FGA	FT	FTA	Reb
Duke	984	1926	528	784	1468
Opponents	819	2037	431	611	1127

Using my formula from above, Duke’s Expected Rebounds would be:

2/3 * (2037 – 819) + 1/3 * (1926 – 984) + (611 – 431) = 1,306

Doing the same calculation for Duke’s opponents:

2/3 * (1926 – 984) + 1/3 * (2037 – 819) + (784-528) = 1,290

Since Duke got 1,468 rebounds, well above their expected 1,306 rebounds, this supports that they were, in fact, an outstanding rebounding team. We’ll call the difference between actual rebounds and expected rebounds (1,468 – 1,306 = +162) the True Rebounding Margin.

When you compare the 1964 team to the 1963 team, something interesting jumps out at you. The 1963 team shot 51.1% from the field compared to 40.2% for its opponents – a huge 10.9% advantage in FG%. The 1964 team, however, had only a 4.1% advantage in FG%, and yet their average scoring margin was actually greater than the 1963 team (+15.0 vs. +14.2). What does that tell you? It tells you that the ’64 team made up for the relative decline in FG% margin by getting more shots than their opponents, which means they were either a great rebounding team or great at turnover margin or both.

What does Expected Rebounds tell us for 1964?

Team	FG	FGA	FT	FGA	Reb
Duke	1028	2163	551	771	1426
Opponents	872	2009	399	612	1279

Duke Expected Rebounds: 2/3 * (2009 – 872) + 1/3 * (2163 – 1028) + (612 – 399) = 1,349

Opponents’ Expected Rebounds: 2/3 * (2163 – 1028) + 1/3 * (2009 – 872) + (771 – 551) = 1,356

Duke’s True Rebounding Margin = Actual Rebounds – Expected Rebounds = 1,426 – 1,349 = +77. Good, but not nearly as good as 1963 Duke’s +162.

Let’s summarize what we’ve learned. 1964 Duke had a slightly larger scoring margin than 1963 Duke. And yet 1963 Duke had a higher FG%, a lower FG% allowed, and was a better rebounding team. How is this possible? There is only one way: 1964 Duke must have had an exceptional turnover margin, much better than 1963 Duke. That is literally the only way that all those things can be true. (I’m fudging a little bit by ignoring the impact of free throws, which is the other factor we haven’t considered. 1964 Duke was a little better than 1963 Duke in that regard, but not nearly enough to explain the scoring margin.)

It still doesn’t tell us everything we’d like to know. There are two sides to turnover margin: forcing turnovers, and avoiding turnovers of your own. Was 1964 Duke exceptional at forcing turnovers, or exceptional at taking care of the ball, or both? There is no data to tell us that. We could perhaps conjecture that the addition of Vacendak, an outstanding point guard, helped the turnover margin, and that perhaps the subtraction of Heyman may have hurt their rebounding, but helped their turnover margin. But we’re just guessing.