Family Portraits

First Team - 1910-11

North Carolina played its first basketball game against Virginia Christian, on January 27, 1911, a 42–21 win for North Carolina. In 1921, North Carolina joined the Southern Conference. The 1924 Tar Heels squad went 26–0 and was retroactively awarded the national championship by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1936. Overall, the Tar Heels played 32 seasons in the Southern Conference from 1921 to 1953. During that period they won 304 games and lost 111 for a winning percentage of 73.3%. The Tar Heels were winners of the regular season for nine times and won the Southern Conference Championships eight times.

"MJ"

During the summer before Michael Jordan’s senior year in high school in Wilmington, NC, he attended the nationally renowned Five-Star Basketball Camp, where he met UNC’s head basketball coach Dean Smith. Smith began recruiting Michael to play for the Tar Heels, and in November of 1980 MJ signed a letter of intent to attend UNC. In 1981 Michael Jordan accepted a full basketball scholarship from the University of North Carolina, in the state where he was raised. Michael was only the fourth freshman to earn a starting spot under Coach Smith.

Streaks

In the history of college basketball, the Tar Heels have appeared in either the NCAA Tournament or National Invitation Tournament (NIT) every year from 1967 to 2001. This includes 27 straight appearances in the NCAA tourney from 1975 to 2001—the longest such streak in tournament history.

The Tar Heels also notched 37 straight winning seasons from 1964 to 2001, the third-longest such streak in NCAA history, behind UCLA's streak of 54 consecutive winning seasons from 1948 to 2001, and Syracuse's currently active streak of 39 seasons from 1971 to date.

The Tar Heels also finished .500 or better for 39 years in a row from 1962 (Dean Smith's second year) to 2001, the third-longest such streak in NCAA history.

Hard Work!

Coach Williams says, "We put our hands in and chant something my teams have been saying since I was North Carolina's junior varsity coach: Hard work! It's something I've believed in since I was a kid shoveling snow off the basketball court so I could practice or selling calendars or going right back out on the recruiting trail after winning a national title. The phrase is a reminder that nobody is going to outwork us. I think it pulls our guys together and gives them strength. It is what the players chant when they huddle for any timeout or any deadball. It's a constant reminder: Hard work!"