Top Stories Of 2018

With 2018 now behind us, looking back on its top moments for North Carolina football and basketball was easy in some respects and a tad more difficult for a few others.

It didn’t include championship and all of its trimmings like in 2017, but it still had some big moments, though some weren’t positive. So, with that said, here are our Top 10 Moments of the 2018 calendar year:

With the football program struggling to another poor season going 2-9 (5-18 over the last two years) and losing ground on the recruiting trail, UNC fired Larry Fedora changing the program’s direction. But instead of hiring an up-and-coming coach, Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham took a chance on former UNC coach Mack Brown, which was extremely well received among the Carolina fan base. It also generated a great deal of national attention.

Brown, who was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame just a week after being hired, won a national title at Texas and before that led the Heels to consecutive top-10 finishes before leaving for Texas in 1997.

The hiring of Brown has pumped a great deal of life back into the fledgling football program making it the biggest story of the year.

Perhaps the beginning of the end for Larry Fedora as UNC’s head coach came in July when his controversial comments about CTE made national news with plenty of negative backlash. Some notable national writers even called for his firing. Fedora had a chance to amend his original comments later that day at the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte, but curiously doubled down again. It’s hard to quantify how much this hurt on the recruiting trail, but it was a really bad look for a coach who couldn’t afford any negatives.

Negative news is often the biggest news, and for UNC football, the year was filled with plenty of unfortunate stories. What became known as “Shoe Gate” wasn’t the most embarrassing, but it’s timing – breaking right after Larry Fedora’s CTE comments made national news – served as kerosene pouring onto the fire. Thirteen Tar Heels were suspended for their involvement selling team-issued shoes, which helped get the season off to a rocky start in which it never recovered.

Joel Berry scored 21 points, Kenny Williams added 20 (on six 3-pointers) and Cam Johnson scored 18 points and grabbed 13 rebounds as the Tar Heels overcame a 12-point deficit to defeat the Blue Devils at the Smith Center in early February. The win was UNC’s second straight after a three-game losing streak dropped it to 5-5 in the ACC. This game signaled the team had shifted course to where it eventually earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The Tar Heels got excellent play from freshmen bigs Garrison Brooks and Sterling Manley (combined 16 points, 6 rebounds) off the bench plus another double-double (17 points, 10 rebounds) from Luke Maye to knock off Duke in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament in Brooklyn. It was also the first time since 2009 in which UNC defeated Duke twice in the same season and turned out to be the biggest accomplishment of the campaign for the Tar Heels. It also cemented the Heels earning a spot in Charlotte for the NCAA Tournament as a No. 2 seed and Duke a spot in Pittsburgh.

Even though they lost at home to Wofford, started out 5-5 in the ACC and had 10 losses after falling in the ACC Tournament championship game, the Tar Heels earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament on the strength of their full body of work against the toughest schedule in the nation. The Heels lost in the second round but beating Duke twice and winning at places like Tennessee, Louisville, blowing out Michigan and racking up many other quality wins were enough to garner so much respect from the NCAA selection committee.

The arena the Tar Heels play in is named after Roy Williams’ mentor at UNC, legendary Carolina icon Dean Smith, and now the court bears Williams’ name. It was time for North Carolina to put Williams’ name on the Smith Center floor where it will remain forever. Smith is regarded as the greatest coach in college basketball history by some and one of the greatest by anyone who has followed the sport. But Williams’ success warrants his inclusion in those conversations, so decorating his accomplishments as UNC did with this honor is as deserving as it gets.

Luke Maye turned in one of the great performances in recent UNC history by scoring 33 points and grabbing 17 rebounds in a 96-89 win at N.C. State, helping the Heels avenge an earlier loss to the Wolfpack. He also handed out 3 assists, blocked 2 shots and registered a steal. Maye was 15-22 from the floor, with the 15 made buckets a record for a UNC player under Williams, including him shooting 2-3 from 3-point range. Amazingly, he only attempted one free throw, and made it.

Sam Howell hasn’t even arrived in Chapel Hill yet and there’s no guarantee he’ll ever throw a touchdown pass for the Tar Heels, but the 4-star quarterback has already had an impact on the football program. That he flipped from Florida State to UNC three weeks after Mack Brown was hired was a huge vote of confidence for the new coaching staff and Brown expects it will have a residual effect in recruiting.

And, that he’s an instate prospect, his signing along with fellow instate prospects Emery Simmons and Khafre Brown inking with UNC sends a message to everyone else that this program is going to be a player for the best prospects in the state moving forward.

Mack Brown is best known nationally for the 17 years he coached at Texas, which included him winning a national championship, playing for another and coaching a Heisman Trophy winner. But before that, he also spent 10 years at UNC and his last two Carolina teams finished those seasons ranked in the top 10. Brown won 10 or more games three times at UNC and had the program positioned to compete for a national title when he left. So, clearly the UNC football culture claims Brown and took a great deal of pride in his recent induction into the College Football Hall of Fame, especially now that he’s the program’s coach again.