No. 18: 1924
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. 18: 1924
Record: 26-0 (7-0 Southern Conference)
Postseason: SoCon champions, No other
Ranking: Helms Foundation National Champions
Coach: Monk McDonald
All-Americans: Jack Cobb; Cart Carmichael.
Honors: None.
What's To Know: Fourteen years before the first NIT and 15 years before the first NCAA Tournaments were held, the 1924 Carolina basketball team was making its own mark.
Without a national postseason tournament at the time, Carolina was eventually voted the Helms Athletic Foundation national champion, even though the foundation wasn’t even formed until 1936, which was two years before the NIT and three years before the NCAA Tournaments launched.
The Helms Foundation, located in Los Angeles, retroactively named national champions in college basketball going back to the 1900-01 season. They used a variety of information for their declarations, and aiding UNC’s cause was an unbeaten season with four impressive victories over Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and Alabama in capturing the Southern Conference tournament in Atlanta.
Carolina won those four SoCon tourney games by an average score of 32-20, and its average score per game for the entire 26-game season was 37-20. Its highest scoring game was in a 60-13 rout of Elon, and nine times the Heels held opponents to fewer than 20 points and in seven times right at 20 points.
Stars? Yeah, UNC had some stars on that club.
Cart Carmichael’s jersey is in the rafters at the Dean Dome, and future head coach Monk McDonald was also on that club. Jack Cobb, however, was the team’s biggest star and one of the most decorated players in Tar Heels’ history. He was a three-time All-American, the 1926 National Player of the Year and his jersey is retired at UNC.
No video, barely any stats and few accounts of this team exist, but from what we do know, it's pretty clearly one of the top 30 teams in the program's history, as it was one of the most dominant ever at UNC.