UNC is clearly a women’s soccer school.
UNC won its 20th NCAA title in women’s soccer and 21st national title overall counting the AIAW Championship in 1981. It was the Heels’ 2nd straight championship. UNC beat Stanford 1-0 on Sunday depriving the Cardinal of a perfect season. UNC is now 20-3 in NCAA title games and has won 20 of the 28 NCAA Tournaments contested.
This was the 2nd national title of the fall for UNC. The women’s field hockey team also won the NCAA Championship in November beating Maryland.
The #5 seeded men’s soccer team will play #1 seeded Akron in the College Cup semifinals on December 11th at 7:30 PM in Cary, NC.
![[Bloglines]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Technorati]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.tarheelfanblog.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
way to go heels!
Congrats to the ‘Heels! Winning just shy of 75% of all the NCs for women’s soccer is phenomenal. And, besting previously undefeated Stanford makes it even more impressive. Of course, the Cardinal will get some measure of revenge when they win the Directors’ Cup…again…for the bezillionth time in a row.
Great job ladies! We are so proud! Can you say dynasty?
“Can you say dynasty?”
Dynasty doesn’t begin to describe their level of dominance. I have a hard time of winning 20 out of 28 championships in video games…
You can see the game on the ESPN family (I think ESPNU for the Friday games and the Duece for the Sunday final).
AEM
John Wooden was the Anson Dorrance of men’s college basketball.
UNC had Stanford so befuddled that Stanford’s best player and All American ended up getting sent off for getting two yellow cards, which pretty much meant a UNC win or at worse overtime, since Stanford had to play a woman short for the last 20 minutes or so.
You get a feeling that all of these other good players at schools like Notre Dame and Stanford are still in awe of UNC and wish they were playing there. It is really similar to the stature of our men’s basketball program, only even more iconic.
Wooden could only dream of being as dominant as Anson Dorrance’s squads have been. I remember a few years ago when the Heels had a slight lull, people were talking about the parity in women’s soccer. There may be parity, at least from 2nd place downward.
watched the game. they were very impressive. the Cardinal put the ball in the net twice, but whew!, were offsides both times.
i think they said UNC is still the only team with an undefeated season. Stanford was the 3rd undefeated team that UNC has beaten in a title game, to preserve that record.
Notre Dame was undefeated until the championship game last year.
Wooden had a better run than Dorrance during his peak years in a sense, since 10-12 is a better percentage than 20-28, but of course that throws out about half or more of Wooden’s career.
Dorrance may have had a stretch where he won 10-12 as well.
It is hard for me to say whether there is more parity now in women’s soccer than there was in men’s basketball back in the 60′s and 70′s. My feeling is that there may actually be more parity in women’s soccer or they are roughly equivalent.
UCLA, NC State and Indiana all went undefeated in the 1970′s in men’s college basketball. Obviously that is close to impossible to do in men’s college basketball anymore.
Indiana and State also went for two years in the 70′s with only one loss for the two year span, with State doing it in 73-74 and Indiana in 75-76. UCLA went undefeated I believe for about 88 games. Now we see that any team with fewer than 3 losses in a season is considered a top tier NCAA champion.
Dorrance won 14 of the first 16 NCAA Tournames and also won nine straight NCAA titles in that span and had three straight undefeated and united seasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Tar_Heels_women%27s_soccer
oh, and i dont know where to post it, but my thoughts to the Dawkins’ family. awful news about his sister and mother today.
William, I’d forgotten State was undefeated in 1973, going 27-0. But they were on NCAA sanctions and couldn’t play in the tournament. The next year they lost to UCLA early by about 20 points then didn’t lose again, turning back the Bruins in the national semis.
Ironically, the ’83 championship team was mediocre throughout the season but got on a roll during the tournament.
Let’s see, that was 26 years ago and not much to brag about since.
not much? try nothing. zip. nada.
thats why beating us in football is everything to them. almost makes you feel sorry for them. almost.
What was ironic about the Wolfpack of ’83 is they lost 10 games during the regular season, one of the reasons was Derek Whittenberg was injured.
They went on a roll once Whittenberg returned, but still had to win the ACC Tournament to get in, which was a daunting task considering both Carolina and Virginia were top 5 teams that season.
State beat Carolina in Semis in OT, a game that Carolina definitely SHOULD’VE won. Then they beat UVa in the championship.
The Wolfpack got the West Regional and proceeded to win each game in the last seconds. Truly the Cardiac Pack. They defeated Virginia and Ralph Sampson in the West Regional Final..
Another irony, the only non-last minute win State had during the tournament was against Georgia in the Final Four, Georgia defeated Carolina in the East Regional Final, another game Carolina SHOULD’VE won…
And we all know what happened against Phi Slamma Jamma in the Championship game….
The ’83 run by State was certainly entertaining and exciting (I was too young to really hate State then). That’s the kind of thing that makes the NCAA tourney so fun to watch. Too bad we may never get to see that sort of thing in BCS Football. I think they should rename it to just BS Football.
You guys can all be mad at me but I loved those NC State teams of 1973 and 1974, not as much as I loved UNC, for whom I always had a preternatural sort of love growing up there, in spite of neither of my parents being from the state of North Carolina, but those NC State teams played beautiful basketball and they had it all.
They had arguably the best player in the history of college basketball in David Thompson; they had one of the tallest and most effective college centers of all time in Tommy Burleson and they had maybe the best short guard of all time in Monte Towe, not to mention future Orioles pitcher Tim Stoddard coming off the bench.
They beat UNC nine times in a row, a record that is unlikely to be challenged and won 57 out of 58 games over a two year span. UNC finished second both years during this amazing run but this was sort of fluky as Maryland was actually better than we were both years.
This two year lull was the nadir of Dean Smith’s career, with many columnists wondering if the game had passed him by. This was why bringing in Phil Ford as a top recruit was so important (although strangely enough, Walter Davis, whom people rarely mention anymore, was better as a college player, arguably, and hands down better as a pro).
William,
I will give you the pro part on Davis vs. Ford, but as for college, Phil Ford wins hands down in my opinion.
Walter Davis was a great player in college. But, Phil Ford dominated at his position, and although he didn’t invent the Four Corners offense, he MASTERED it…
Also, Ford won the National Player of the Year Award in 1978, and basically single-handedly beat Dook in his senior game at Carmichael.
I loved both Davis and Ford. But, Ford will always be my All-Time favorite Tar Heel, although now he shares that spot with Tyler Hansbrough.
I think it is also fitting, that the two players who represent most what Carolina Basketball is all about, are Nos. 1 and 2 on the all-time scoring list…
I would like to see the efficiency ratings for both guys while they were at UNC. I think Davis probably was considered the better defensive player. Both were Olympians and Rookie of the Year in the NBA, but my feeling is that Davis was overlooked because he had a way of playing that was very smooth but not spectacular, particularly in an era where the dunk was still illegal.
If Phil Ford was John Coltrane, then Walter Davis was Miles Davis, slightly better perhaps but with fewer peaks and valleys in performance.
I understand that Ford was considered better at the time, but I am wondering whether that was justified. Statistical analysis was not as advanced at the time.
I think you also have to look at what was accomplished in the pro’s, as slightly indicative of ability, particularly with four year starters.
Ford struggled against Butch Lee of Puerto Rico and Marquette, and similar to David Thompson after losing Tommy Burleson, Ford and the Heels struggled after losing Davis.
I know there were other factors, but contemporaries of Phil Ford’s like Brad Davis and John Lucas of Maryland went on to pretty decent pro careers. I think Ford was as good as John Lucas in college, but I am not sure that he was better.
Speaking just on an All-Time record comparison here is what I found… On the scoring list Ford is No. 2 and Davis is No. 10. Phil Ford is No. 5 all-time in free throw attempts and No. 4 in free throws made. Walter Davis is on neither of those lists… Phil Ford is No. 3 on the all-time assists list, Davis is No. 13. Phil Ford is No. 15 on the all-time steals list, Davis is No. 18…
Like I said, I like both Ford and Davis…I just think Ford was a better college player.
As far as the 78 struggling, you have to remember the Heels just didn’t lose Davis, but also lost Tommy LaGarde and John Kuester. And despite losing those three, Carolina won the regular season crown in the ACC…
You also have to remember, that Carolina was ragtag, bandaged up group in the tournament in 77. Walter Davis suffered a broken finger, Ford was playing with a hyper-extended elbow, in fact Ford said his elbow hurt so bad he couldn’t even get his shots to reach the rim. Tommy LaGarde had already been lost for the season back in February.
In fact, Dean in his book, says that particular team and season still hurts, because he said, when that team was healthy, he didn’t think they could be beat.
What hurt more than Butch Lee in that game, was Dean not calling time out to put Mike O’Koren back in the game.
I’m too young to remember Ford or Davis, but what’s all this about Miles being better than Trane?
“John Wooden was the Anson Dorrance of men’s college basketball.”
So all of Dorrance’s players are being bought and paid for by a group of shady boosters? That doesn’t sound good…
Just a point of information about the ’83 State team – they had two games in the NCAA that weren’t “last minute” wins – Georgia and Utah in the round of 16. I am too lazy to look up the scores (you’d think most of us State fans would have every minute of that tournament run memorized, but no). And yes, Whittenburg’s injury was a big reason for the double digit losses in the regular season. That was a good team – not a top-5 team in terms of talent, but a top-15 for sure when healthy. I will now stop typing before I wear out my welcome here.
NCSU 75 – Utah 56
NCSU 67 – UGA 60
You have to remember that Phil Ford had the advantage of being “the man” his senior year.
Walter Davis never had the same opportunity. When Davis was a freshman, Bobby Jones was “the man.” When Davis was a sophomore and junior and senior, he had to share laurels with fellow Olympians Lagarde, Mitch Kupchak and Phil Ford. By Ford’s senior year, the cupboard was a bit bare relatively, which presented both an opportunity to score more, but also a situation where he had to, resulting in fewer assists.
I know the conventional wisdom but the numbers don’t seem to bear out the conclusion. You can take a look at them here:
http://www.sportsstats.com/bball/individual.stats/player_stats/player461.txt
http://www.sportsstats.com/bball/individual.stats/player_stats/player613.txt
Some of the data is incomplete or wasn’t kept back then but we can see the following:
Walter Davis had a higher shooting percentage, more steals, more rebounds, a surprisingly high assist total and was roughly as good from the line (81% for Ford to 78% for Davis).
Ford averaged slightly more from the floor, but had a lower shooting percentage.
These all time leader lists are generally not as important as people think. Yes, Ford is ahead of Davis in steals, but they didn’t keep steal records for the first two years of Davis’s career. Davis had significantly more steals than Ford for the years they kept tabs, 149 for Davis and only 109 for Ford.
The idea that Hansbrough and Ford are the two greatest Tar Heels because they are number one and two on the scoring list is, to me, rubbish.
They might be the two greatest, but that is no clincher. Jordan and Rosenbluth only played three years, as did Charlie Scott, Ty Lawson and Antawn Jamison. These are all great players and there is no easy way to say that Hansbrough is/was better than Jamison.
Thus, I don’t see a good case for superiority being made for Ford, strictly on the numbers. You can say he had a unique style and was the playmaker and all that, but if that is the case, then probably Ty Lawson would come out ahead of Tyler Hansbrough, which is another close call, particularly if Lawson had stayed four years.
I also think it is relevant to look at the player’s career and see how he matched up with other guys. Michael Jordan was head and shoulders the best at his position his sophomore and junior years. The same was true for David Thompson. I don’t know whether you can say the same for Ford. He may have been the best guard in the nation over all during his four years, but it wasn’t the same sort of talent differential. Butch Lee, Rickey Green, John Lucas and Quinn Buckner were all comparable talents, with Lucas having some of the same problems in the pro’s that Ford faced.
People talk about Dean Smith holding back Phil Ford, but people were simply shocked by how well Davis did in his first year in the NBA. The Hawks used to play some games in Charlotte back then and I saw Atlanta play Phoenix who had Davis and it was a huge deal.
With respect to Miles and Coltrane, I think that Coltrane had bigger highs where he would basically melt the record (Live at the Village Vanguard, A Love Supreme) but he also had a couple that were pretty much unlistenable. Put on Ascension and see how long you can listen. It is simply a bizarre record. Miles had album after album of great stuff but nothing that really, really blew people away until the record called “Bitches’ Brew”
Okay, I just went and listened to Ascension all the way through (both takes) and, while it might not be Coltrane’s best, I quite liked it. But I’ve never been that into Miles Davis, for no particular reason. Maybe I always like density, though…
William,
My praise for Phil Ford and Tyler Hansbrough was not meant as a slight to any of the players you mentioned, I loved and rooted for them all…
Plus, I never said that Ford and Hansbrough were the two greatest based on being the two scoring leaders. I simply said that I thought it was fitting that the two players that best represented what Carolina Basketball is all about are Nos. 1 and 2 on the all-time scoring list.
Also, and again I’ll repeat, Walter Davis was a great player, no question and his pro career blew away Phil Ford’s…
But at Carolina, Ford led Carolina in scoring each of the 4 years he played. He averaged over 18 pts. a game his freshmen through junior seasons and averaged over 20 his senior season, the year he won National Player of the Year. He did this while also leading the team in free throws attempted, free throws made and free throw percentage and leading the team in steals and leading the team in assists…
Plus, Ford ran a late-game offense that was virtually unstoppable and was in all tense and purposes Dean Smith’s version of Red Auerbach’s victory cigar, the Four Corners…
Hansbrough as well led his team in scoring each of his four seasons, is the all-time scoring leader in ACC history and is No. 1 all-time in NCAA History for free-throw attempts and free throws made.
I know all that, and Phil Ford was definitely my favorite as a kid over Walter Davis, even though Davis was from my hometown. I just don’t see much in the numbers that distinguishes the two. I think Ford might have had an equal pro career if things had turned out differently for him. I think they were basically equal players and if I were Davis, I might feel slighted.
I will say that I believe some of the press about the Ford Corners is overblown. Go look at the 1975 ACC championship on youtube and you will see that Ford actually ran it very poorly that night. He did run it great against UNLV, and then not so great against Marquette, although they only had a few minutes in that game and were without O’Koren. That game went almost to the wire but the score disguises how close UNC came.
I don’t think Roy Williams agreed with Dean Smith about the Four Corners, although I do think part of Smith’s using it was to force a rule change, which it did.
I know it is a different time, with different rules, but I also doubt that Ford’s junior or senior seasons were as good as Ty Lawson’s junior season, although Ford may have been better his first two years. It would be helpful if we had the efficiency break-outs for back then, but I have never seen any.
Lawson was number one in the country in offensive efficiency, blowing away Hansbrough, Ellington and Green, who were all merely great on offense. Ray Felton never came close to posting the kind of efficiency numbers that Lawson did. Lawson was another sort of Walter Davis type for UNC, slightly under-appreciated while there and then quickly showing his meddle in the NBA.
William,
Going back to the 1977 Championship Game for a minute. The argument in that game has always been Dean went to the Four Corners too early and with to short a lead. Carolina had just made up a big deficit and was leading by a point with just under 10 minutes left in the game when Dean decided to go Four Corners. One problem, Mike O’Koren, who was a huge part of the comeback was waiting at the scoretable to come back into the game.
In fact, Eddie Fogler asked Dean if he wanted to take a time-out, so he could get O’Koren back in the game. Dean said he didn’t want to take a time out at the time because he didn’t want Al McGuire to have time set a strategy for his players against the Four Corners.
Well, Ford works the Four Corners like a dream, and hits Bruce Buckley for an apparent wide-open backdoor layup. But, Buckley gets his layup blocked by Bo Ellis and the rest is history. A clock stoppage doesn’t happen for another few minutes and by that time Marquette had built an insurmountable lead.
Charles, you are a better man than I am. My wife says Ascension sounds like an orchestra tuning their instruments.
I love John Coltrane. Perhaps my favorite jazz song of all time is India which he made with Eric Dolphy and the group at the Village Vanguard. Ole Coltrane is amazing, as is My Favorite Things. His Atlantic years are often overlooked but are as good as anything he did later. I do think that after Impressions, his music became difficult to listen to. I think he was trying for something that Ornette Coleman achieved more successfully on Free Jazz, which is similar to Ascension but much more accessible to casual listeners.
Miles Davis probably gets the slight nod because of his amazing discograpy, with what is often called the greatest or most influential jazz record of all time, Kind of Blue, perhaps followed by Bitches’ Brew which started the fusion movement,and honestly Miles’ fusion stuff is pretty much the only good fusion stuff ever done.
He also mentored an amazing amount of jazz greats, including Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett and John McLaughlin.
I probably listen to Coltrane more because his music is more involving, but Miles is often, along with Louis Armstrong and Bird, considered one of the three seminal jazz greats.
I have seen the game fairly recently on ESPN Classic and what people forget is that UNC had a chance to tie the game in the last two minutes. People always act as though everything unraveled right after Buckley’s miss but that just enabled Marquette to avoid the Four Corners again. I think Fogler has said that they would have called a time out if they had it to do over.
The other myth about 1977 is that UNC would have easily won with Tommy Lagarde. In actually, all of UNC’s losses until the Marquette game, were with Lagarde. I am not saying Lagarde was not an excellent player, but the three-headed center that Smith concocted after the injury seemed to work, although none of those three guys ever did much after that. Krafcisin was one of the few UNC guys to transfer out.
I actually think that the 1976 team was better than the 1977 team, as was the 1976 Marquette team, but Indiana was going to win in 1976 no matter what. Things were much more wide open in 1977 and would remain so after that, pretty much.
William,
And not to argue with you over Ty Lawson and Phil Ford, who I think are the two best point guards in UNC History by the way. But Phil Ford’s senior season was AWESOME… He averaged over 20 points a game in the pre-shot clock, pre-3 point shot era, was National Player of the Year and Wooden and Naismith Award winner.
Lawson had a great junior season and a great run through the NCAA Tournament, and in my opinion, should have been named Final Four MOP over Wayne Ellington. Lawson completely dominated from his position in the Final Four and set a championship game record for steals… It was kind of like Donald Williams winning MOP in 1993 when I thought and Dean Smith thought George Lynch deserved it…
Maybe I’m biased, (which I am, Ha Ha Ha) but I think the greatest hustlers in Carolina History were Ford and Hansbrough. If Coach Smith or Roy had told either of them in order to win they had to run through a brick wall, I think both of them would do it. I always love Dean’s story of the mile-run Ford’s freshman year. The team is running on a concrete track and Phil Ford dove across the finish line so he could have the winning time. Dean said Ford got up all bruised and bloody, and Dean said he thought to himself, here is a young man that wants to win…
I think, at least in my mind, that I tend not to think about the 1978 season because it was the beginning of a run of three mediocre seasons (by Dean’s standards)that UNC went through before reaching the Finals in 1981. This was after the 1975-77 seasons which each were much more noteworthy, particularly given State and Maryland’s recent dominance in the conference and South Carolina’s before that.
Although there were some highlights to all three years from 1978-1980, many involving Dudley Bradley, and Carolina finished first or second all three years and won one tourney, I believe, the play in the NCAA all three years was really bad and we went out meekly against San Francisco, Penn and Texas A&M.
In 1975, 1976, and 1977, Dean reasserted himself over Lefty and Norm Sloan and would never again have a true rival in the conference as top coach until the early 1990′s.
Maybe one last thing about statistics. People have generally believed that Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player of all time. People saw him and said he was great. But when you actually look at the statistics, guess what?
Babe Ruth was the best baseball player of all time, even if you never saw him play.
Basketball statistics are just beginning to catch up with baseball. I saw Phil Ford and I thought he was the best guard in America. I just wish we had a bit more to back it up on paper. His stats were essentially equal to John Lucas’s, with very little to choose between them, particularly when Lucas played point guard his first two years, before moving to shooting guard when Brad Davis arrived. Ford and Lucas played on equally successful teams.
Yet, you never hear anybody from Maryland trying to claim that John Lucas was the greatest guard in the history of the ACC, strangely enough. John Roche scored more than Ford and also had a good pro career.
Once again, my point is not that Ford was not great; it is simply that I don’t think he was close to being great in the way that Lew Alcindor or David Thompson were. Ford had a verve on the court similar to Ozzie Smith in baseball, which made him seem even better than he was, perhaps. Jordan had this as well and I have to admit that Jordan seemed much better to me live than the actual numbers he put up in his career, that don’t differ that much from Walter Davis’s either.
http://www.sportsstats.com/bball/individual.stats/player_stats/player1636.txt
http://www.sportsstats.com/bball/individual.stats/player_stats/player1174.txt