Years ending with 7 have been very good for Carolina hoops.
Dating back 60 years, Tar Heel basketball has been right there at the conclusion of every season ending with the numeral seven. In 1957, of course, came the penultimate championship, the unbeaten 32-0 national and statewide heroes of Coach Frank McGuire and All-American LennieRosenbluth who slew Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain in Kansas City to win UNC’s first NCAA championship.
Ten years later, in 1967, Dean Smith celebrated his first of 13ACC titles and 11 trips to the Final Four, ending with a disappointing loss to Dayton in Louisville. Senior Bob Lewis was the scoring star of that team that finally knocked Duke off the ACC mountain top.
Forty years ago, in 1977, Phil Ford led what still may be the most popular Tar Heel team ever. Carolina won the regular season and ACC Tournament through a rash of injuries that began with Tom LaGarde and went through Walter Davis and Ford before they lost to Marquette in the heart-breaking NCAA title game in Atlanta.
In 1987, Carolina went undefeated in the ACC regular season, but suffered last-minute losses to N.C. State in the tournament final and the Elite Eight to Syracuse with JeffLebo sick as a dog. That team with starters Lebo, Joe Wolf, Dave Popson, J.R. Reid and Kenny Smith went 34-4 and 14-0 in the ACC.
Smith’s last season on the bench came in 1997, when the Tar Heels began the ACC schedule 0-3 and 3-5, before reeling off 16 straight victories through the ACC Tournament and all the way to the Final Four. It has long been considered Smith’s best turn-around coaching job with Ed Cota, ShammondWilliams, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison and Serge Zwikkerhelping Smith break Adolph Rupp’s record for career coaching victories.
In 2007, the Tar Heels won the ACC and tournament and came within seconds of going back to the Final Four for the second time in three years when they lost to Georgetown in overtime in the regional final. But shortly after the season, Roy Williams was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, inducted in the fall.
And here we are, 2017, an eighth ACC first-place finish in 14 seasons for ol’ Roy and his fifth Final Four team at UNC. Maybe he can cut down the nets a third time 60 years after McGuire’s Miracle started this basketball dynasty in Chapel Hill.
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