North Carolina Tar Heels: Top 10 UNC basketball coaches of all-time

2. Dean Smith

Yes, you read that right, and yes, this is the truth.

Dean Smith, quite possibly the best basketball coach of all-time, is the second best coach in UNC history.

You cannot put a number on the off-court contributions Coach Smith made. He pioneered an offense, paved the way for African-Americans to play college ball at Carolina, and he always put his players ahead of himself.

Yet somehow, his on-court performance might have been even better.

Smith won 879 games as a head coach, and was the winningest coach in college hoops for many years. He won two national titles, made it to eleven Final Fours, and won thirteen ACC Tournament championships.

For most of his career, Smith coached when there was not 40+ games in a season. He easily could have surpassed the 1,000-win mark had he coached in the current college basketball format.

Coach Smith will always be remembered for his incredible sense of humility, but he was a pretty good basketball coach, too.

He never took too much credit for his successes, choosing to deflect that attention to his players. When the team stumbled, he always took the blame, though, which is the mark of a good coach.

Though he has passed on, it is hard to forget how Dean Smith made all North Carolina fans feel special, and that is something that few other coaches can do.