WRAL Sports Fan

ACC Tournament

UNC fields only JV team in the ACC

By Jason Jennings

Mar 11, 2010

Chapel Hill, N.C. — When freshmen became eligible to play on their college varsity basketball teams in 1972, most schools decided to drop their freshmen-only teams.

Not North Carolina. Dean Smith decided to keep the squad and turn it into a junior varsity.

A generation later, the Tar Heels field the only JV team remaining in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The squad plays in front of smaller crowds and is little-known, even on campus.

"People would always ask me, 'Oh, there's a JV team? When do you play? Who do you play,'" James Gallagher, a former JV player, recalled.

The squad often faces prep schools and teams from Division II and III programs. Junior varsity players are not on scholarship and are only allowed two years of eligibility.

"It's definitely different running out on a JV court than running out in front of 20,000 people," said former Tar Heel junior varsity player Thomas Thornton.

Still, JV has its perks.

"Just making JV, you get to go out there wearing 'North Carolina' and play for a Carolina coach," Gallagher said.

Roy Williams is the most famous former junior varsity coach. Before taking the head coaching job at Kansas, Williams led the UNC JV for eight seasons while serving as an assistant to Smith in the 1980s.

"The challenges that we had helped me as a coach," Williams said. "I could try things and not read about how poor of a job I was doing because nobody cared."

Jerod Haase coached the UNC junior varsity to a 14-2 record in 2009-10.

"I don't know if I'll ever be able to get a (college head coaching) job," Haase said.

"If I do, I don't think it will be because of the JV team (on the resume). But if I experience any success, it will be in part because of the experience of coaching the JV team."

When a player's JV eligibility expires, he has the chance to jump to the varsity team. "You always dream that you're going to move up," Thornton said. He and Gallagher did.

Of all the men to move from JV to varsity at UNC, Pearce Landry earned the most individual success. He started two games during his senior campaign in 1994-95 while averaging 3.9 points per game and 15.2 minutes a contest.

More recently, former JV member Dewey Burke became a folk hero on the varsity for his last-minute three-pointers.

Whether they make the jump or not, players savor the moment they donned the famous light blue.

"It's everything for kids growing up in North Carolina to say that they wear 'North Carolina' on their chest and to say that they play in the Dean Dome," Thornton said.