With Only 3% of the U.S. Population, the Tar Heel State Dominates the Sport at Every Level:Read the WSJ article. (Thanks, Rish)... North Carolina's first claim to basketball fame is Michael Jordan, the kid from Wilmington who went on to attend the University of North Carolina, win six NBA titles and become one of the planet's most famous and widely admired athletes. It includes Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has guided U.S. teams to gold medals at the 2008 Olympics and 2010 World Championships. It has spread more recently to John Wall of the Washington Wizards, last year's No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, who hails from Raleigh.
At the college level, North Carolina and Duke have won back-to-back NCAA titles—and together with North Carolina State and UNC Charlotte, have racked up a nonpareil 34 Final Four appearances in 50 years—nearly twice as many as schools from the next-highest state, California.
The future looks just as bright: Three of the state's college programs have incoming recruiting classes considered to be among the nation's 10 best. And while North Carolina ranks No. 10 in the U.S. in population, it has eight high-school players ranked by scouting services among the nation's top 100 for 2011—a number only matched by Illinois...
