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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill men's basketball program honors fifty-one former players by hanging their jerseys in the rafters of the Dean E. Smith Center, the home to the men's basketball team on the university's campus. Of these, eight are both honored and retired. However, only seven jersey numbers are retired, as honoree Jack Cobb played before jersey numbers were the norm, meaning he had no number to retire. Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige are the most recent players to be honored, following the 2015-16 season. Johnson qualified that season when the United States Basketball Writers Association named him a first-team All-American. Paige qualified in the 2013-2014 season when he was named second-team All-American by Sporting News.
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Criteria
North Carolina requires that players must be recognized for excellence for their performance during the regular season, in post-season play, or in the Olympics. Specifically, a player's jersey qualifies for honoring if he receives one or more of the following five awards: first- or second-team All-America on one of the major All-American teams that qualify a player for a consensus All-American designation, an ACC Player of the Year, the Most Valuable Player of a National Championship-winning team (as voted by coaches and teammates), the NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player of a Final Four team, or a gold medal in basketball at the Olympics.
To qualify for the additional honor of having his jersey retired, a player must win one or more of the following seven national player of the year awards: Associated Press, National Association of Basketball Coaches, Sporting News, John R. Wooden Award, Oscar Robertson Trophy, Naismith College Player of the Year, or the (now defunct) Helms Foundation College Basketball Player of the Year. The most recent player to receive one of these awards is Tyler Hansbrough, who qualified by winning all six of the required national player of the year awards in the 2007–08 season.
Honored players
Players whose numbers are retired are shown with a blue background