Fifty years ago, the L&M Boys lit up Carolina Basketball.
The 1967, ’68 and ’69 Tar Heel teams of Dean Smith are coming to town this weekend to have a 50-year anniversary celebration of the start of something very special in Chapel Hill. They remain the only teams ever to win three straight ACC regular seasons outright, take home three conference tournament championships and reach three consecutive Final Fours.
The regular season meant nothing unless you also won the ACC tourney – since that was the only way to an NCAA bid – and the linchpin of the Tar Heels’ incredible three-peat was a duo nicknamed the L&M Boys, “L” for Bob Lewis and “M” referring to Larry Miller.
The 6’3” Lewis still holds the Carolina single-game record of 47 points against Florida State in 1966, the year Carmichael Auditorium opened, and led the ACC in scoring that season. As a senior he teamed with Miller and a dream team sophomore class that went on to anchor the three-peat that would dethrone Duke from the regular season and ACC tournament championships.
Bobby-Lew played the game in the most selfless way, passing the ball to the new big guys inside and scoring almost 10 points fewer per game. His talent for assists is the stuff of Carolina legend, and helped the Tar Heels win big for the first time in Smith’s tenure. Lewis turned in a marquee performance as MVP of the Eastern Regional in College Park, near his home in Maryland, and led Carolina past Princeton and Bob Cousy-coached Boston College to reach the Final Four in Louisville.
On the freshman team, he played center, as a sophomore he played power forward next to 6’5” Billy Cunningham and as a junior played everywhere and averaged 27.4 points a game, best in the ACC and six-tenths of a point off the UNC season record set by the great Lennie Rosenbluth in 1957.
As a senior, Lewis settled in at shooting guard. He scored less, got more assists and played the best defense of his career – making first-team All-ACC for the Top 10 Tar Heels.
Bobby Lewis was a dream-maker, and part of the famous L&M Boys who together with the three-peat class of 1969 helped save Smith’s job and catapult him to a Hall of Fame coaching career. Tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the wondrous Larry Miller, who just might be the most exciting player to ever wear light blue.
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