Tag: basketball

Record: 30-1, 12-0 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: David Thompson (ACC POY), Monte Towe (1st), Tom Burleson (2nd)
All-Americans: David Thompson (National POY)

An overdue post to close out this series.

I don’t think this is a controversial choice, but it’s not an inarguable one either. Certainly 1957 North Carolina, with its undefeated record, has an argument. 1992 Duke has an argument as well. Perhaps arguments could be made for other teams. But in the final analysis, I think the ’74 Wolfpack has the strongest claim to be the best team in ACC history. Look at all the boxes they check:

• Won the national championship
• Won the ACC Tournament
• Undefeated in the ACC regular season
• One loss overall (1957 UNC and 1973 NC State are the only other teams with less than two)
• Had the national and ACC POY (and greatest player in ACC history)
• Had three of the top six vote-getters for All-ACC, one of only 10 teams in ACC history to do that
• Played the toughest schedule in the nation (according to Simple Rating System on sports-reference.com)
• Went 6-0 against North Carolina and Maryland, both ranked in the Top 5 all year
• Beat UCLA, winners of the previous seven national championships, in the NCAA Tournament

That about covers it, wouldn’t you say? One other point in their favor is that the 1973 team went 27-0. I’m evaluating the 1974 team on its own merits, but the 1973 team’s results at least support the conclusion that there was nothing fluky about the 1974 season.

They played fast. They are one of only seven ACC teams to average 90+ points per game. The fastest-paced teams in league history were probably in the mid-1950s, but after than, Thompson/Towe-era NC State would be at the top of the list.

It was an aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball, playing fast and making shots. Words like grace, artistry, and even majesty were invoked by admirers. Towe and Thompson perfected the alley-oop – not the rim-rattling variety that we are used to, because dunking was against the rules, but a gentler, more artistic alley-oop where Thompson would catch the ball and lay it in in one motion.

They were a great rebounding team. Burleson is one of the all-time great rebounders in the league, Thompson is perhaps the best 6’4″ rebounder ever, and Phil Spence was there to clean up any boards they left behind.

Their complementary players were better than you think. Mo Rivers and Spence were important additions that made the 1974 team better than the 1973 edition. Tim Stoddard was an excellent passer who often initiated the offense as a kind of point-forward.

Thompson, of course, was the straw that stirred the drink. His offensive efficiency was off the charts, shooting 55% from the field on 19 FG attempts per game. He was able to elevate his game at critical moments. As Bobby Jones said, “He just will not let them lose. If State needs something, Thompson will get it for them. He’s just the best I’ve ever been around.”

Their one loss was an 84-66 whipping at the hands of UCLA in the third game of the season. After going 27-0 the previous year but not being able to play in the NCAA Tournament, they needed a test. They got one, and they failed. It was probably the best thing that could have happened to them. After that, the Wolfpack met every challenge. They beat #4 North Carolina 78-77 in the Big Four Tournament; beat #3 Maryland 80-74; beat Carolina again, this time 83-80, at Carmichael; came from behind in the second half to win on the road at Purdue; won at Maryland 86-80; and tacked on a home win over the Tar Heels for good measure, closing the regular season at 22-1.

The five-game run this team went on to close the season is one of the great stretches in the history of college basketball.

1. ACC Tournament Final: A 103-100 overtime win over #4 Maryland in the “greatest game ever played”. Burleson played like a man possessed with 38 points and 13 rebounds.
2. Regional Semifinal: A 92-78 win over #5 Providence, which featured Consensus All-American Marvin Barnes. Thompson dropped 40 on them and Burleson grabbed 24 rebounds.
3. Regional Final: Ran Pitt off the court, 100-72. This was the game where Thompson hit his head on the floor and everybody thought he was dead.
4. National Semifinal: The double-OT 80-77 win over #2 UCLA, breaking the Bruins’ streaks of seven straight national titles and 30 consecutive wins in the NCAA tournament.
5. National Final: A 76-64 win over #3 Marquette to secure the national championship.

Record: 34-2, 14-2 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Christian Laettner (ACC POY), Bobby Hurley (2nd), Grant Hill (2nd), Thomas Hill (3rd)
All-Americans: Christian Laettner (National POY)

There are five teams in college basketball history that won a national championship and then returned essentially the same team the next year: 1967-8 UCLA, 1984-5 Georgetown, 1994-5 Arkansas, 2006-7 Florida, and 1991-2 Duke. All five teams reached the national final the next year. UCLA, Florida, and Duke won, while Georgetown and Arkansas lost. These teams are rightly recognized as among the best in the history of college basketball.

While 1992 Duke was essentially the same team as 1991, there was a little bit of roster change. Greg Koubek, a rotation big man who gave the ’91 team about 15 minutes a game, graduated. Billy McCaffrey, the second-leading scorer and an integral part of the 1991 team, decided to transfer. The only newcomer of note was Cherokee Parks, and he didn’t play a lot as a freshman. Mostly Coach K just tightened the rotation. McCaffrey’s playing time went to Thomas Hill, Grant Hill, and Brian Davis, all of whom went from 25 minutes per game to 30. Antonio Lang, who fell out of the rotation late in 1991, was a key player in 1992. The cornerstones, of course, were Hurley and Laettner.

Everybody got better in ’92. Laettner suddenly started raining threes, shooting 56% from the arc – still a conference record (provided we overlook Terry Gannon’s 59% in 1983 from 17’9″, and we should). Hurley’s scoring went up, FG% and FT% went up, assists went up, turnovers went down, fouls went down. Grant Hill took big steps forward in every category. Thomas Hill and Brian Davis contributed more.

This is probably the best offensive team in ACC history. They averaged 88 points per game on 54% shooting as a team. That is far and away the best FG% in league history, a full two percentage points better than 1998 UNC. They weren’t a great rebounding team; I don’t think they were an exceptional defensive team, although they could be very good at times. But they could put the ball in the basket as well as any team who ever played in the ACC.

Because of the inconsistent defense, there were a few regular season games where they couldn’t stop anybody and had to outscore them – which they did. They allowed 91 points to William and Mary. The beat Maryland 91-89 and Clemson 98-97. It seems the defense got better in the late stages of the season. After a 25-2 regular season, they cut through the ACC Tournament like a buzzsaw, dominating North Carolina 94-74 in the final.

The NCAA Tournament is remembered, and rightfully so, for the all-time classic regional final between Duke and Kentucky. What I didn’t remember as well was Duke’s next game, the national semifinal against Indiana. This was a really good Indiana team with Alan Henderson and Calbert Cheaney. Indiana started out on fire and opened up a 12-point lead late in the first half. At that point, the Blue Devils flipped a switch. Over the next 15 minutes or so of game action spanning the first and second halves, they went on a 31-6 run to turn the 12-point deficit into a 13-point lead, and that was effectively the ballgame. Indiana, to their credit, improbably clawed back into it late. A seldom-used player named Todd Leary hit three threes in a span of 25 seconds (!), and the Hoosiers had a possession down three with a chance to tie. But they couldn’t convert, and that was the Hoosiers’ last chance. Indiana committed 33 fouls in the game. The officiating prompted Bob Knight to call Ted Valentine “the greatest travesty I’ve ever seen in basketball in 33 years as a college head coach” after Valentine tagged him with a dubious technical in the second half.

The final was not one of the great ones. After a competitive first half, Duke dominated the second half with their defense, limiting Michigan to 51 points for the game. The Fab Five, as great as they were, were no match for the experience of this Duke group on the biggest stage. Hurley, not Laettner, was the Most Outstanding Player, and he deserved it, playing extremely well in the Final Four.

An oddity about this team is that they went wire-to-wire as the #1 team in the country despite losing two games. It’s unusual for a #1 team to lose and retain the top ranking, but it can happen, and here’s an example. Duke’s first loss was on February 5 at #9 Carolina. But #2 Oklahoma State and #3 Kansas also lost that week. What’s more, before next week’s poll came out, the Blue Devils went down to Baton Rouge and beat Shaq and LSU. So they retained the top spot.

Duke’s second loss was on February 23 at Wake Forest. But wouldn’t you know it, #2 UCLA, #3 Kansas, #4 Carolina, #5 Arizona, and #6 Ohio State all lost that same week. So Duke remained #1. They didn’t lose again.

This team has a very strong case to be #1. Their top 3 players (Laettner, Hurley, Hill) match up against anybody. It was almost a coin flip for me. I’ll explain my rationale in my final post in this series.

Record: 32-0, 14-0 (1st place)
ACC Tournament: Won
NCAA Tournament: Won
Final AP Ranking: 1
All-ACC Players: Lennie Rosenbluth (ACC POY), Tommy Kearns (1st), Pete Brennan (2nd)
All-Americans: Lennie Rosenbluth (National POY)

Now we come to the three teams with the strongest claims on being the greatest ACC basketball team ever: 1957 North Carolina, 1974 NC State, and 1992 Duke.

Coming into the 1957 season, things were looking up for Frank McGuire. He had been steadily building the program, funneling player after player from New York down south to build his roster. The 1956 team had been ranked as high as fourth nationally. The core of that team – Lennie Rosenbluth, Pete Brennan, Joe Quigg, and Tommy Kearns – was back in 1957. The Tar Heels were ranked sixth in the preseason poll.

Coach McGuire knew he had a good team and created a challenging non-conference schedule. Just before Christmas, they traveled north to play NYU, Dartmouth, and Holy Cross on back-to-back-to-back nights. Then, just after Christmas, they swept through the Dixie Classic, beating a very good Utah team, ninth-ranked Duke, and a tough Wake Forest team. A January 15 win over NC State brought the Tar Heels to 15-0 and a #1 ranking in the polls.

It was the next two games that took things from “they’re having a great season” to “maybe this is a team of destiny”. At Maryland, the Tar Heels trailed late but took advantage of a free throw miss to force overtime, eventually winning 65-61 in double OT. In the next game, Duke clawed back from an eight-point deficit to tie the game with 21 seconds left. Unfortunately for them, the Woollen Gym scoreboard was a little slow to update, and Duke’s Bobby Joe Harris thought the Blue Devils were still down two. He intentionally fouled Kearns, who sank two free throws to give the Tar Heels the winning margin.

From there, the biggest tests were three more tough games with Wake Forest, with the Tar Heels winning by three and five in the regular season and two in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament. With an easy win over South Carolina in the final, the they entered the NCAA Tournament at 26-0.

One gets the impression that McGuire hated the pressure that came with being undefeated and would have been perfectly happy with a loss somewhere along the way. According to ACC Basketball: An Illustrated History, McGuire said, “I don’t know how we keep winning… our kids are feeling the pressure building up from our winning streak. I think we’d be a better ballclub if we got knocked off in a couple of games. There’s no such thing as an undefeated season in basketball.”

Turns out, there is. It just takes back-to-back triple overtime wins in the Final Four.

The obvious question to ask is, as the only undefeated national championship team in league history, why isn’t 1957 Carolina #1? After all, they didn’t lose a game. What else could they have done? There is a certain unanswerable logic to that argument.

But the margin between a team that lost zero games and a team that lost one or two is razor-thin. If the Woollen Gym scoreboard operator had been a little quicker, this team might have been 30-1.

It seems that everyone who watched this team felt they had been lucky. NC State coach Everett Case said, “They’ve got a fine ballclub, but I think somebody’ll knock ’em off before the end of the season.” Duke coach Hal Bradley: “Carolina has a fine team… but I don’t think they have a great team. They are experiencing too many scares.” Call that sour grapes if you want, but even McGuire said “It’s uncanny how we could’ve kept our undefeated season going. We were lucky, awfully lucky, all season long in close games.”

In the final analysis, I give a slight edge to 1974 NC State and 1992 Duke. They had an element of dominance that seems lacking from the ’57 Tar Heels, and the ACC they faced was better from top to bottom.

But with each passing year, it seems less likely that another team from the ACC, or perhaps from any conference, will go undefeated again. The 1957 Tar Heels stand alone in the long and illustrious history of ACC basketball.

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.