Every offseason, we run historical ranking series focusing on North Carolina basketball and football.
The purpose each spring isn’t to make declarative statements, but to have fun offering a subjective look at the best teams and players ever at Carolina. This effort is to generate discourse, debate, and take UNC fans down memory lane.
This season, we are doing something a little different, combining football and basketball, as we offer our take on the Top 40 UNC football and basketball players of all time. The criteria is quite simple: The process includes playing careers with the Tar Heels and professionally, other relevant impacts they’ve had on their sports, coaching, and championships. We also gave a lean toward all UNC accomplishments.
So, this isn’t a UNC-only list, a pro-only list, or a straight up purely best ever list. Some Tar Heels on this list didn’t have great pro careers but were so good and historic at UNC, they simply had to make the cut. Some on this list weren’t stars at UNC, but had outstanding and/or highly distinguished pro careers, that it warranted their place among these 40 athletes.
We hope you enjoy the list and feel free to disagree, as we know many will.
We continue our countdown with:
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No. 11: Charlie Scott (1966-70)
Scott was the first African-American scholarship athlete at UNC and is one of the greatest basketball players in Tar Heels history. The manner he dealt with the issues of the time being the first African-American player at UNC is a big part of his story and his lore as a legendary Heel.
He was a two-time All-America, three-time first-team All-ACC in leading the Tar Heels to consecutive Final Fours in 1968 and 1969. He was named East Region MOP in 1969. In 1970, Scott was named the ACC Athlete of the Year even though he didn’t win basketball Player of the Year.
He averaged 22.1 points and 7.1 rebounds for his career at UNC, including a scoring average of 27.1 points as a senior. His jump shot at the buzzer gave the Tar Heels the East Region championship over Davidson in 1968 and he scored 40 points in the ACC title game victory over Duke in 1969. Scott was MVP of the 1969 ACC Tournament and won a gold medal for the United States at the 1968 Olympics
Scott was a three-time NBA All-Star, two-time ABA All-Star, ABA Rookie of the year, ABA All-Time Team, NBA champion in 1976 with the Boston Celtics, averaged 17.9 points per game in the NBA and averaged 31.1 points in two ABA seasons. In his second season in the ABA with the Virginia Squires, Scott set the league’s single-season scoring record averaging 34.6 points per contest. Scott averaged 18.3 points in 45 playoff games.
In both leagues, he combined to score 14,837 points (20.7 average), grab 2,846 rebounds (4.0 average), and hand out 3,515 assists (4.9 average). He averaged 18.3 points in 45 playoff games.
In 2015, Scott was indicted in to the College Basketball Hall of Fame and was voted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2018.
