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.

Record: 33-7 (14-4)

NCAA Tournament: NCAA champions

ACC Tournament: Lost in semifinals

Ranking: No. 5

Coach: Roy Williams

All-Americans: Justin Jackson.

All-ACC: Justin Jackson (1st); Joel Berry (2nd).

Honors: Justin Jackson, ACC Player of the Year; Luke Maye, NCAA South Region MOP; Joel Berry, Final Four MOP

What's To Know: The players embarked on their redemption tour just days after losing at the buzzer in the national title game a year earlier, so completing their mission of winning the national championship made their journey and story one of the most compelling in the program’s fabled history.

The Tar Heels suffered two strangle losses that season, at Georgia Tech by 12 points on New Year’s Eve day and at Miami nearly a month later when they missed 18 of 19 shots in one stretch of the first half. But otherwise, this was a really solid team on its bad days and excellent on the others.

It was mature, poised, explosive, gritty when necessary, defended when necessary, and rebounded the you-know-what out of the ball. It carried the look of a champion from day one and built on that as the season went on.

Carolina was by far the best rebounding team in the nation, owning a rebound margin advantage of 3.3 per game more than any other team in the nation. The Heels scored 100 or more points six times and 90 or more 17 times, and they spent the entire season ranked in the top 10.

Carolina’s magical run included a come-from-behind win late to beat Arkansas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a huge 25-point, 14-rebound performance in a one-point win over Oregon in the Final Four and a 22-point effort by Joel Berry in the national title game victory over Gonzaga earning him the MOP. Berry scored 20 points in the national title game loss to Villanova the year before, making him the first player to score 20-plus points in consecutive national championship games since Bill Walton did it more than 40 years earlier.

They weren’t loaded with the star power some of UNC’s other great teams possessed, though Justin Jackson (ACC POY) had one of the more efficient seasons of any Tar Heel in recent history. But this was an outstanding team, similar to the 1993 national title club of Dean Smith’s, and they had an edge to them that carried them through two rugged games in the Final Four.

2017 Schedule & Results

Justin Jackson, 1st Round, No. 15 overall selection

Tony Bradley, 1st Round, No. 25 overall selection