Tar Heel Firsts: UNC’s first basketball title

Photo by Lance King/Replay Photos via Getty ImagesNorth Carolina men’s basketball’s first NCAA Tournament championship was in 1957. The Lennie Rosenbluth-led team went a perfect 32-0. They won consecutive triple overtimes games to win the championship, including knocking off Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in the final.

However, it is not the first national championship the school claims. For that one, you have to go back to the early days of the basketball team, before the NCAA Tournament even existed.

Ahead of the 1923-24 season, Norman Shepard was named the new basketball coach at UNC. A former minor league baseball player, Shepard took the job as something to do on the side while finishing…