No. 15: 1946
Our series counting down the Top 30 North Carolina basketball teams of all time continues.
Our mission isn't to make any declarative statements, but rather have some fun, give our readers something to discuss, walk down memory lane some and provide a needed escape.
Your thoughts and picks are welcome in our message board thread for this series.
No. 15: 1946
Record: 30-5 (13-1 Southern Conference)
NCAA Tournament: NCAA Runner-up
Ranking: No poll.
Coach: Ben Carnevale
All-Americans: John "Hook" Dillon; Jim Jordan.
Honors: Dillon’s jersey No. 13 and Jordan’s No. 8 jerseys are honored in the Smith Center.
What's To Know: Among the losses suffered by the 1946 Carolina basketball team was a 60-46 setback at Little Creek Air Base. Yep, much like in football, there were a lot of military base teams during World War II and shortly after that fielded basketball teams that played college schedule, and many were pretty good.
But that was the last defeat for the "White Phantoms," as the '46 squad was often referred, until they dropped the national title game 43-40 to Oklahoma A&M, which is now Oklahoma State. The Cowboys became the first team to win consecutive NCAA titles, as they captured it the year before, led by Bob Kurland, the first great 7-footer ever in basketball and was also the first player to regularly dunk in games.
That was the only NCAA Tournament of the first 18 that were staged (began in 1939) in which UNC even won a game.
Historically, this is a very interesting team. Playing before nearly 19,000 at the old Madison Square Garden 15 years before Dean Smith was named the program's head coach, Carolina was a few missed free throws and foul trouble away from winning a national title that, coupled with the one in 1957, would have given the program two before Smith's arrival.
The White Phantoms had two UNC legends whose jerseys are honored in the Smith Center rafters. The coach of that team was Ben Carnevale, who was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 1970 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
By the way, ACC legend Bones McKinney played on that team, too.
This team and its terrific season is such a great example of the depth of UNC basketball, and that the program was crafting an impressive trail long before Smith arrived, and its sustainability has just a few peers.