The No. 1 seed Wisconsin men’s basketball team advanced into the Sweet 16 for the second straight season and fourth time in the past five seasons with a 72-65 win over Oregon in the third round Sunday night. Prior to that, the Badgers knocked off the 16-seed Coastal Carolina, 86-72 on Friday.
Now, Wisconsin will head to the Staples Center in Los Angeles with the hope of returning to the Final Four with two more NCAA tournament wins. The first step in that process will be No. 4 North Carolina Thursday in the Sweet 16.
Here’s what you need to know about North Carolina:
North Carolina Tar Heels
Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Enrollment: 29,135
Nickname: Tar Heels
Mascot: Rameses
Conference: Atlantic Coast Conference
Regular season record: 21-10 overall, 11-7 ACC
Head Coach: Roy Williams (331-100 record at North Carolina); has won 750 games as an NCAA head coach which ranks as the 15th-most in NCAA history.
Season Recap
North Carolina began the season at No. 6 in the AP poll and reached as high as No. 5 in the rankings after a 3-0 start to the season. Like the Badgers, the Tar Heels participated in the Battle for Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas in November, losing the first game of the tournament to Butler before knocking off then-No. 22 UCLA and No. 18 Florida.
After two more non-conference losses to Iowa and Kentucky, the Tar Heels won 11 of their next 12 games including wins over then-No. 12 Ohio State and No. 5 Louisville. North Carolina began the ACC season 7-1 before finishing the regular season 4-6. Four of the Tar Heels’ six losses to close out the regular season came against ranked top-10 opponents including two losses to longtime-rival Duke and another to ACC regular season champion, Virginia.
North Carolina has plenty of scoring threats with four players averaging double figures. It also ranks 17th in the nation in scoring at 77.9 points per game and second in the nation in both rebounds (41) and assists (17.7). The Tar Heels’ 13.97 offensive rebounds per game and 26.92 defensive rebounds per game are both the 10th best mark in the nation with an 8.1 rebounding margin that is good for seventh best. According to the Ken Pomeroy offensive efficiency rankings, the Tar Heels have the 13th-best adjusted offensive efficiency in the country.
How they got here
After an 11-7 conference record, the Tar Heels earned the fifth seed in the ACC men’s basketball tournament, defeating Boston College, Louisville and Virginia to reach the championship game. North Carolina then fell to Notre Dame, 82-90 in the ACC title game.
North Carolina was awarded the fourth seed in the West Regional of the NCAA tournament and avoided an upset from 13-seed Harvard in the second round, 67-65. Three players, Justin Jackson (14) — who scored the game-winning basket with 24 seconds left — Marcus Paige (12) and Kennedy Meeks (10) scored in double figures for the Tar Heels who shot 55.1 percent overall and 71.4 percent from three in the win.
In the third round, North Carolina disposed of fifth-seed Arkansas, 87-78, to move on to the Sweet 16 in Los Angeles and a matchup with top-seeded Wisconsin. Paige led the way for the Tar Heels with 22 points, six rebounds and five steals. North Carolina forced Arkansas to commit 21 turnovers and held the Razorbacks to just 36.9 percent shooting as a team and 32 percent from three. The Tar Heels also hauled in 42 rebounds, including 17 on the offensive glass.
Notable Players
Junior guard Marcus Paige
Paige, whose sister Morgan played for the Wisconsin women’s basketball team, was a second-team all-ACC selection this past season and currently leads the Tar Heels in scoring (13.9 points per game), 3-pointers (88), assists (167) and steals (58). The 6-foot-1 guard averaged 17 points in the ACC tournament and was named to the all-ACC tournament first team.
Last season, Paige averaged 17.5 points per game with 4.3 assists and 3.2 rebounds for North Carolina after averaging just 8.2 points per game as a freshman. Paige has started in all but two games in his career as a Tar Heel.
Junior forward Brice Johnson
Johnson leads the Tar Heels in rebounding this season, averaging 7.9 per game and is second behind Paige in points with 12.9 a game. He also leads the team in field goal percentage, making 56.1 percent of his shots on the season. The 6-foot-9 South Carolina native recorded eight double-doubles this season and grabbed more than 10 rebounds in a game 10 times this season, with eight of those 10 games coming against ACC opponents.
Along with Paige, Johnson was named to the all-ACC tournament first team, scoring at least 20 points in two of the Tar Heels’ four conference tournament games including 20 points against Notre Dame in the championship game, going 10-for-12 from the field. He also scored 18 of his 22 points in the second half of North Carolina’s quarterfinal game against Louisville. Johnson was a third-team all-ACC pick by both the coaches and media this season. He has been in the starting lineup for all but one of North Carolina’s games this season, after starting only four games over the course of his first two seasons in Chapel Hill.
Junior forward J.P. Tokoto
Tokoto will play against his home state team Thursday as the junior forward hails from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. He is friends with current Wisconsin players, Sam Dekker and Bronson Koenig who are also from Wisconsin.
Tokoto doesn’t have the gaudiest offensive numbers on the team, averaging 8.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game while shooting 43 percent from the floor. But perhaps Tokoto’s best quality is his talent on the defensive end as one of the Tar Heel’s top defenders. Tokoto averages 1.5 steals a game and 0.4 blocks while consistently guarding the opposing team’s top scorers each game.
