University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels Named Unanimous ACC Favorite
October 26, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Oct. 26, 2008
Atlanta, Ga. - For the second season in a row, the University of North Carolina men's basketball team was the unanimous choice of the assembled Atlantic Coast Conference media to win the 2008-09 conference championship at the annual ACC Operation Basketball in downtown Atlanta on Sunday.
The Tar Heels received all 40 votes first-place votes and 480 points overall. Duke (436 points) was picked to finish second, followed by Wake Forest (354), Miami (344), Clemson (306), Virginia Tech (298), Maryland (192), Georgia Tech (186), NC State (179), Florida State (145), Boston College (123) and Virginia (79).
UNC, which has won the conference regular season and tournament titles for two years running, has been the media's choice as preseason ACC champ in each of the last three seasons. The Tar Heels have been the media's top pick in the preseason an ACC-high 18 times in the 40-year history of the league's annual media gathering.
Carolina senior Tyler Hansbrough, who was the unanimous preseason and postseason pick for ACC Player of the Year in 2007-08, was again the unanimous pick for the conference's top player at Operation Basketball. Hansbrough and Boston College's Tyrese Rice were unanimous choices for the preseason All-ACC team and were joined on the squad by Carolina's Ty Lawson, Miami's Jack McClinton and Duke's Gerald Henderson.
Wake Forest's Al-Farouq Aminu was named the preseason ACC Rookie of the Year, receiving 18 votes. Other freshmen receiving multiple votes for rookie-of-the-year honors included Virginia's Sylven Landesberg (four), Miami's DeQuan Jones (two), Wake Forest's Tony Woods (two and Georgia Tech's Iman Shumpert (two).
Carolina will play its only exhibition game of the 2008-09 preseason on Nov. 8 against UNC Pembroke in the Smith Center in Chapel Hill.
