Not to beat a dead horse into the ground, part of wrapping up North Carolina’s basketball season means examining the negatives as well as the positives. And one item from the season that ended up standing out is that the Tar Heels’ 23-14 record means only six other UNC teams have lost more games in a season.
So, let’s take a look at those six Carolina basketball teams:
1950-51: 12-15
The 1950-51 athletics year saw a dropoff at UNC in both major sports. Football was out of the Choo Choo Justice era and basketball was embarking on a swoon that would last a while.
The 1945-46 Carolina club went 30-5 and lost to Oklahoma A&M (Now Oklahoma State) and giant All-American Bob Kurland in the national championship game by three points. Records of 19-8, 20-7, and 20-8 followed before a 17-12 mark in the 1949-50 campaign.
Then came 12-15 the following season. The Tar Heels were 9-8 in the Southern Conference finishing in 9th place. They were also the losingest UNC team of all time.
1951-52: 12-15
With high-scoring guard Al Lifson on the roster, UNC continued its struggles. He averaged a career-best 15.7 points that season in a four-year career in which he never averaged fewer than 13.4 points per contest.
But the Tar Heels just weren’t a good team. They were 8-11 in the Southern Conference finishing in 11th place. They were 0-3 against Duke losing by a combined 55 points and 0-3 against NC State. Carolina’s first six games were true road contests and its first nine games were away from Chapel Hill.
Tom Scott was fired after the season and replace by Frank McGuire, who led UNC to a 32-0 record and national championship five years later.
2001-02: 8-20
It seems like just a few years ago when the Tar Heels were one of the worst teams in major college basketball. They dropped their first two games at home to Hampton and Davidson before falling to Indiana, also in the Smith Center.
They beat Binghamton by one points, lost to College of Charleston, and dropped non-ACC games at Kentucky by 20 points and at UConn by 32 points.
Inside ACC play, Matt Doherty’s second UNC team was 4-12 with two of the wins over Clemson. The Heels finished tied for 7th in the nine-team ACC at the time.
2002-03: 19-16
Doherty’s third and final Carolina club was loaded with a freshman class of Sean May, Raymond Felton, and Rashad McCants. It also had David Noel as a walk-on, and he was on scholarship the following season and even spent a year in the NBA.
Jawad Williams, who played in the NBA, was also on that team. It didn’t lack talent.
The Heels won their first five games, including beating Roy Williams and Kansas in the preseason NIT as well as Stanford in the title game. The Cardinal had a really good program at the time.
And UNC was 7-2 when May broke the fifth metatarsal in a loss to Iona in the Holiday Invitational at Madison Square Garden. May missed most of the rest of the season.
UNC finished 6-10 in ACC play and won two games in the NIT before falling ending the season and Doherty’s time in Chapel Hill, as he was fired. Two years later, Williams led UNC to the national championship.
2009-10: 20-17
Carolina lost a ton of production and talent from the 2009 club that ran away with the national championship, so a dip was expected. But not to where the Heels were just 5-11 in the ACC and ended up playing in the NIT, with their second and third games on the road.
UNC lost to Dayton in the NIT championship game and also earned the distinction at that time as UNC’s second losingest team of all time.
Roy Williams led them to a 1 seed two years later and consecutive appearances in the national championship game six and seven years later. UNC won it all in 2017.
2019-20: 14-19
COVID was why there was no NCAA Tournament in 2020, and yet the Heels wouldn’t have made it anyway. This team was poorly constructed and just didn’t have what it took up front or on the wing.
It was guard Cole Anthony’s only season as a Tar Heel and Carolina also relied heavily on Garrison Brooks and Brandon Robinson for scoring. It had misses in its two grad transfers, and this was the worst season ever turned in by a Williams-coached team.
