The North Carolina Tar Heels men’s basketball team plays at the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The Tar Heels originally did not play within any athletic conference, but joined the Southern Conference in 1921 when it was first established.[1] After playing in the Southern Conference for 22 years, North Carolina left in 1953 to join the newly created ACC.[2] The Tar Heels play their home games in the Dean E. Smith Center, named after the 15th head coach Dean Smith. They previously played in Carmichael Auditorium, Woollen Gymnasium, The Tin Can, and began their existence playing in Bynum Gymnasium, which is now home to the admissions office for the university’s graduate school programs.
There have been 19 head coaches in the history of Carolina basketball and the team has played two seasons without one.[3] The program has played 3,151 games across 112 seasons from the program’s inaugural 1910–11 season to the current year, 2021–22. Three Tar Heel coaches have led the team to an NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship: Frank McGuire in 1957; Smith in 1982 and 1993; and Roy Williams in 2005, 2009, and 2017. Smith, in 1971, led North Carolina to its only National Invitation Tournament (NIT) championship. North Carolina also received a retroactive national championship for the 1923–24 team coached by Norman Shepard, which was given by the Helms Athletic Foundation.[4] Eleven coaches have won the conference regular season by having the best overall regular season record with the Tar Heels: Norman Shepard, Monk McDonald, Harlan Sanborn, Bo Shepard, Bill Lange, Walter Skidmore, Ben Carnevale, McGuire, Smith, Matt Doherty, and Williams. Eleven coaches have won the conference tournament with the Tar Heels: Norman Shepard, McDonald, Sanborn, Bo Shepard, Lange, Skidmore, Carnevale, McGuire, Smith, Bill Guthridge, and Williams.
