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2008–09 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team

2008–09 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball
University of North Carolina Tarheels Interlocking NC logo.svg
ACC Regular Season Champions
Conference Atlantic Coast Conference
Ranking
Coaches No. 1
AP No. 2
2008–09 record 34–4 (13–3 ACC)
Head coach Roy Williams
Assistant coach Joe Holladay
Assistant coach Steve Robinson
Assistant coach Jerod Haase
Home arena Dean Smith Center
Seasons
← 2007–08
2009–10 →
2008–09 ACC men's basketball standings
Conf     Overall
Team W   L   PCT     W   L   PCT
#2 North Carolina 13 3   .813     34 4   .895
#6 Duke 11 5   .688     30 7   .811
#12 Wake Forest 11 5   .688     24 7   .774
#16 Florida State 10 6   .625     25 10   .714
#24 Clemson 9 7   .563     23 9   .719
Boston College 9 7   .563     22 12   .647
Maryland 7 9   .438     21 14   .600
Virginia Tech 7 9   .438     19 15   .559
Miami (FL) 7 9   .438     19 13   .594
North Carolina State 6 10   .375     16 14   .533
Virginia 4 12   .250     10 18   .357
Georgia Tech 2 14   .125     12 19   .387
† ACC Tournament winner
Rankings from AP Poll

The 2008–09 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team represented the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Head Coach was Roy Williams. The team played its home games in the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The team won the 2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, the fifth NCAA national title in school history.

The Tar Heels were a trendy pick to win the National Championship that year, primarily because Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Ty Lawson decided to withdraw from the 2008 NBA Draft, and consensus national Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough never declared for that draft. In addition, the players had been embarrassed in the previous season's Final Four by Kansas, and they were motivated to atone for that poor performance. In the preseason ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll the Tar Heels were ranked #1. They were the first unanimous preseason #1 ranking in the history of the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. UNC also received the first unanimous preseason #1 ranking in the history of the Associated Press Poll.

Sources:

The Tar Heels rolled through the nonconference schedule, along the way winning the Maui Invitational for the third time. They sputtered out of the gate to start ACC play, dropping their first two conference games to Boston College and Wake Forest. However, they recovered to reel off 10 straight conference wins, including a 101–87 thrashing of rival Duke. Their only relatively close games during this stretch came against the ACC's two Florida teams—most notably against Florida State, in which they escaped with a Ty Lawson buzzer-beater.


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