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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 are 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:
No. 30: Rasheed Wallace (1993-95)
A passionate player whose emotions sometimes got the best of him, Wallace was a tremendous competitor and cared deeply about winning. Probably the best dunking big man in UNC history, Wallace was outstanding running the floor and had an excellent jump shot inside of 15 feet while in college.
Wallace played just two seasons at UNC, earing second-team All-America as a sophomore after averaging 16.6 points and 8.2 rebounds per contest while also shooting 65.4 percent from the field. He was also named first-team All-ACC that season.
He was a key component in the Tar Heels reaching the Final Four in 1995, though they lost to defending national champion Arkansas in the national semifinals.
The fourth overall pick in the 1995 NBA Draft, he won an NBA championship with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, was a four-time NBA All-Star, and made the NBA All-Rookie team in 1996. Wallace averaged 15 or more points per game in eight seasons, including a three-year span when he was with Portland when the athletic 6-foot-10 forward posted 19.2, 19.3, and 18.1, respectfully ending in the 2002-03 campaign.
Wallace scored 16,006 points (14.4 average) in the NBA, grabbed 7,404 rebounds (6.7 average), and blocked 1,460 shots (1.3 average).
He was the USA Today National Player of the Year in 1993. Wallace was known for collecting technical fouls, but he also played on winners. He played for six teams and they usually were very competitive.
