Tuesday Talking Points

March 31, 2009

2009 marks just the third time a top-seeded Tar Heel team has defeated all the highest possible seeds on the way to the Final Four. The other occasions were 1998 and 1993.

This year marks the first time since the field was expanded to 64 teams that a Final Four-bound UNC team has defeated all regional opponents by more than 10 points.

Just as the Tar Heels had never played an NCAA tournament game in the state of Tennessee, they also have never played an NCAA tournament game in the state of Michigan.

Prior to this year, only once in UNC's history had the Tar Heels played a regular-season game at the future site of the Final Four and then returned to that venue for the Final Four--the program's first appearance in 1946, when they played a December game at Madison Square Garden and then returned for a national championship game loss to Oklahoma A&M. Carolina played at Ford Field in December, a 98-63 win over Michigan State.

The last time an ACC team other than Carolina advanced to at least the Elite Eight was 2004, Roy Williams's first season. This year marks the fourth time in the six-year Williams era that Carolina is the last remaining entry from the ACC in the NCAA tournament. In that span, league teams have made six appearances in the Elite Eight; Carolina owns four of those six appearances.

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