UNC Showing No Letdown from Last Year's Near-Title Miss After Routing Wisconsin

Repeating as champion has proved to be incredibly hard in college basketball, but it's just as difficult to have success the year after for the runner-up. 

Butler made consecutive NCAA tournament finals in 2010 and 2011, but since then, the national championship runner-up has fallen at least one round short of getting back to the title game the following season. Yet it seems that trend may be coming to an end for the 2016-17 campaign.

The No. 4 North Carolina Tar Heels are fresh off a dominant run through the Maui Invitational after capping things off Wednesday with a 71-56 win over the No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers, and they're looking as good as the team that fell to Villanova by three points in April. Actually, there's a chance UNC is better than that squad.

It starts with the vast amount of experience the Tar Heels (7-0) have at their disposal, which is saying something because they lost a pair of valued senior starters from 2015-16 in guard Marcus Paige and power forward Brice Johnson.

Paige and Johnson would have trouble standing out among the current UNC lineup, which on Wednesday saw four players score at least 12 points. This season, the team's averaged 92.9 points per game and won by an average of 27.3 points. That includes a 107-75 dismantling of Oklahoma State, which is looking much-improved under first-year coach Brad Underwood.

Joel Berry II, who spent his freshman year in 2014-15 as Paige's understudy and was arguably UNC's second-best player last season, is playing like the preseason All-American he probably should have been named earlier this month. The 6'0" junior had 22 points against the Badgers on 9-of-12 shooting, upping his season average to 17.1 points on 55.9 percent shooting overall and 47.1 percent from three-point range. He had 54 points in the tourney and earned MVP honors.

Johnson's void up front has been filled by the senior duo of 6'9" Isaiah Hicks and 6'10" Kennedy Meeks. The pair basically shared the 5 spot last season but now gives UNC one of the most imposing post tandems in the country. Meeks had 15 points and a career-high 16 rebounds, and Hicks added 14 points with five boards.

Those three are enough to warrant UNC's No. 4 national ranking and the expectations it can make consecutive Final Fours for the first time since 2008-09. But what puts the Tar Heels over the top is that Berry, Hicks and Meeks aren't carrying the team. Head coach Roy Williams' rotation goes nine deep, and all nine, both returners and newcomers, are finding ways to leave their mark.

Junior forward Justin Jackson is averaging 15.4 points per game, and though he was just 1-of-6 from three against Wisconsin, his outside stroke is looking better than in his first two seasons. Junior Nate Britt and sophomore Kenny Williams are taking turns battling for the fifth starting spot as the 2-guard next to Berry, while three freshmen—guards Brandon Robinson and Seventh Woods and 6'10" forward Tony Bradley, none of whom have been pegged as one-and-done types—are all contributing.

Yep, that's right. Unlike most of the country's top contenders, UNC isn't overly reliant on young players who are using college basketball as a pit stop on the way to the NBA draft. The still-pending NCAA investigation into academic fraud at Carolina has lingered for so long it's possibly made the school taboo to big-name recruits but hasn't prevented the Tar Heels from acquiring guys willing to develop over time.

UNC's last one-and-done guy: Brandan Wright in 2007. Every player Williams has signed since the 2013 class is still on the roster. You don't find that level of experience many places in today's college hoops landscape.

Year	Maui Finish	NCAA Tournament Result
1989	2nd	Sweet 16
1995	2nd	Second Round
1999	1st	Final Four
2004	1st	National Champion
2008	1st	National Champion
2012	3rd	Third Round
2016	1st	????

This hot start has happened without an important glue guy being available. Junior wing Theo Pinson had foot surgery in late October, and there's no timetable for his return, but his absence has allowed Britt, Robinson, Williams and Woods to all get meaningful minutes that will prepare them for later in the season when the scoring margins won't be as high.

UNC had a similar situation early last season when Paige broke his hand in the preseason, forcing Berry to step into his point guard role. He handled the added responsibility well, and by the time Paige returned, the Heels became even deeper.

You never know what you're going to get from college athletes, especially those who came so close to winning a national title a year ago. It would have been easy for the Tar Heels to go through a post-title- game letdown, but instead they're looking like a team on a mission to right some past wrongs.

And they're also hoping to continue UNC's success in years when it goes to Hawaii and comes home with a trophy. This is the program's fourth Maui Invitational title. In the previous three instances, the Heels have made it to the Final Four with national championships coming a few months after those 2004 and 2008 wins.

All statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted. All recruiting information courtesy of Scout.com, unless otherwise noted.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.