Over the rich history of the NCAA Tournament, there have been plenty of outstanding teams that eventually went on to hang banners.
For North Carolina, we can all easily rattle off the numbers: 1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009, and 2017.
On Tuesday night, the 2024-2025 Tar Heels accomplished something that none of those teams, heck no team EVER in tournament history, was able to achieve.
Tonight @UNC_Basketball became the first team in NCAA Tournament history to:
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) March 19, 2025
score 95 or more points
shoot 50% or better from the field
shoot 50% or better from three (min. 20 3PA)
shoot 85% or better from the line (min. 20 FTA)
...all in the same game. pic.twitter.com/5ymme3KfGu
Going up against one of the best defensive teams in the country, North Carolina became the first team in tournament history to acheive all the following stats in the same game:
Score 95 or more points
Shoot 50% or better from the field
Shoot 50% or better from three (minimum 20 three-point field goal attempts)
Shoot 85% or better from the line (minimum 20 free-throw attempts)
Not going to lie, all that in one game is daggum impressive!
It was clear that this group had something to prove heading into their First Four matchup with the Aztecs. While they say the noise doesn't bother them, it's impossible to drown it out, as the Tar Heels were essentially a national storyline that thousands of people continued to carry on about leading up to Tuesday's matchup.
Well, if Tuesday night was any indicator, this group proved they belong among the field of teams, as this historic performance is one that will be remembered by Tar Heel faithful for quite some time.
Now, the Tar Heels shift their focus to No. 6-seeded Ole Miss. While history says that this type of performance is once in a lifetime (literally), we'll have to wait and see what this team has in store in their second game of the 2025 NCAA Tournament, aka the North Carolina Tar Heels Redemption Tour.