Carolina basketball has been called a lot of things over the last 100 years: blue blood, historic, legendary, and elite are just some of those examples. Sure, it sounds like just another Tar Heel fan talking about how their program is better than anybody else’s, but it can’t be ignored that the Heels have the third-most NCAA titles in history, and the most Final Four trips ever. Because of all of their incredible success over the years, there’s one term that most of us have never seen associated with the program: Cinderella team.
Here’s how spoiled we’ve been as UNC fans: I had to look up what the strict definition of a “Cinderella team” was, and while it’s possible that someone else has a different definition, here is what sports writer Sanjesh Singh with NBC Sports Chicago had to say:
A Cinderella team in NCAA basketball is usually a No.