Greatest UNC Basketball Team
I sometimes read the Mailbag feature at Tarheelblue.com, and in this week's edition, the question came up over which is the best Carolina team to NOT win a championship. Usually in discussions like this, the 1984, 1994, and 1998 teams always come up. This time, the 1987 and 1977 teams also got a mention.
What I want to know is what happened to the 1997 team?
Why don't they get any credit? Am I the only one who loved that team?
Well, the folks over at the mailbag asked for opinions, so I wrote a quick reply arguing the 1997 case. I'm posting my email here for everyone's edification. Read my letter, decide what you think, and then let me know if I'm the only one who thinks the 1997 squad is worth consideration.
Hey,
Regarding the question this week about the best Carolina teams to never win a championship--why doesn't anyone ever include the 1997 team? I guess it depends on your definition of what makes a team "greatest," but I've always thought that at the end of the season, the 1997 team would have handed the 1998 team a real beat down.
The 1997 team's record doesn't do it justice because, early in the season, they were searching for the right solution at point guard. That hole in the rotation led to a terrible January that included 5 losses while Ed Cota (a freshman) adjusted to playing the college game. But once he got up to speed and started earning more minutes, UNC ripped off a perfect February, beat Wake Forest and Tim Duncan twice, Dook once, won the ACC tournament, and got a number-one seed in the NCAA tournament. Everyone also seems to forget the vastly under-appreciated Serge Zwikker, who chipped in many, many fine defensive games in addtion to his midrange baseline jumper that opened the lane, his regular 10-15 points, and 8 or 9 rebounds (didn't he work his way up to being a first-round NBA draft pick?).
As for the 1998 team--the "six starters" rotation never seemed to work very well to me, they needed overtime for 4 of their wins, they suffered a bad loss to State late in the season (and at home!), and they played against a league schedule that I would argue was less competitive than the previous year.
To me, losing to Arizona and Miles Simon in 1997 was way more disappointing and frustrating than losing to Utah in 1998. Maybe I'm the only one.
Miles Travis
Durham, NC
Class of 2000
What do you think? Am I crazy? I want to hear about it.
Read more about:
Sports4 Comments
Leave a comment
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Greatest UNC Basketball Team.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.milestravis.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/81
I AGREE WITH MILES. I particularly agree that the Arizona final four loss was WAY worse than the Utah loss. Miles, I think this rant was well-supported and I hope that Lauren Brownlow or Adam Lucas give you some love.
Woohoo Miles! Love it!! I hope Adam gives you a shout out!!
As one who was at both the Arizona game and the Utah game, I am not sure which was more maddening. The Utah game drove me nuts because we had such talent that was being wasted. But yes, I think that the 1997 team was pretty amazing and got beaten simply because a guy that was never heard from again got hot at the right time (of course, we have our own version of that story in Donald Williams, so I don't begrudge them that). I remember selling my ticket at the ARizona game before I had even made it to the concourse, I was so angry and upset. Which UNC shooting guard couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door that game - Shammond or Daunte?
I hate to say it but it was Shammond.