The Power Five: North Carolina’s 5 Greatest Basketball Teams

Mar 21, 2014; San Antonio, TX, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams reacts in the first half of a men

Ahh, sweet November.

A month where our eyes are glossed over from a pigskin malaise. We’ve stuffed ourselves on a gridiron gorge and now seek a new flavor for the palate.

Fortunately, the calendar’s next to the last month serves us the tasty offering of the tip-off to yet another college basketball season. Smells delightful doesn’t it? And much like the golden gobbler pulled out of the oven in a couple of weeks, North Carolina fans will want to pick over what the season will bring for a team that again will take the hardwood with� a hopeful Final Four visit lurking over the horizon.

Between bites of turkey and before the pumpkin pie is served, discussions about the Tar Heels’ prospects for a national title run will be passed around with the mashed potatoes and stuffing. And while the debates can certainly turn lively, so too can those that peer back at a program that annually seems on the cusp of a conference crown and national championship.

The ones that can really get the chatter stirring quicker than a Pete Rose/Hall-of-Fame debate? Those that bandy about the teams that were the greatest.

Sure, there are plenty of favorites, but which tops the list and how do we measure greatness? Conference champs are always a nice place to start, and deep postseason runs make for a better case.

But if you want to sway the jury with the mesmerizing closing argument, national titles are the real attention grabber. Still, could there be more?

Could a team that maybe fell short of national championship aspirations leap ahead of one that found the pot of gold? Maybe, but at the end of the day you have to talk about the elite of the elite.

Four Tar Heel teams (1946, ’68, ’77 and ’81) featuring names like Ford, Davis, Kupchak and Wood came close with runner-up finishes. The 1923-24 team finished the season unblemished and did wear the crown of a national champion. But that was when there was no national tourney, and it was named the titlist.

The ’83-’84 team was top-ranked in the Associated Press poll every week except the second week of the season, featured Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, talented freshmen in Kenny Smith and Joe Wolf, and the national player of the year and a player many consider among greatest to suit up on the hardwood in Michael Jordan. But they were bounced in the round of 16.

And names such as Stackhouse, Wallace, Carter, Jamison and Cota were part of teams making Final Four visits in the ’90s but failed to cut down the nets in the end.

All knock on the door, but to gain entry and join the fraternity of five you better bring your best — make that, have been the best. North Carolina has been five times, so the curtain is now pulled back for the big reveal.

Here are the power five from a program that has flexed its muscles in the college basketball world for over 10 decades. Where exactly they line up, well, grab your turkey leg in a couple of weeks and start chewing.