College Basketball
UNC Basketball Legend Larry Miller Dies At Age 79
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All posts by James FoglioUpdated31 mins ago on May 22, 2025
Former UNC basketball star Larry Miller died on May 11, the university announced. Miller passed away in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at the age of 79.
No cause of death was given. An athletic department spokesman said Miller was in hospice care and had been dealing with medical issues.
Miller, a native of Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, was a star forward on coach Dean Smith’s first two Atlantic Coast Conference championship and Final Four teams in 1967 and 1968.
Rest in peace, Larry Miller. A Tar Heel forever 🩵
🔗: https://t.co/ngLUgPrBx6 pic.twitter.com/jCpzOFicOR
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) May 12, 2025
He earned first-team All-America honors both seasons and was a consensus pick in 1968, as well as UCLA’s Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), LSU’s Pete Maravich, Louisville’s Wes Unseld, and Houston’s Elvin Hayes.
“Larry was the winner who made Coach Smith a winner. Everything starts with him,” Miller’s teammate Charlie Scott said in Miller’s 2020 autobiography Larry Miller Time: The Story of the Lost Legend Who Sparked the Tar Heel Dynasty, co-authored by Stephen Demorest.
UNC Went 70-21 With Larry Miller From 1965-68
Miller scored in double figures in 64 consecutive games, which is still the UNC record. He scored 1,982 points in three seasons and averaged 21.8 per game, the fifth-highest by a Tar Heel.
With Miller, UNC went 70-21, including 32-10 in ACC regular-season play, from 1965-68. He scored 32 points on 13-of-14 shooting from the field in the Tar Heel’s 82-73 victory over Duke in the 1967 ACC championship game.
After college, Miller played seven years in the American Basketball Association, setting the ABA’s all-time single-game record with 67 points as a member of the Carolina Cougars.
In 2002, Miller was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary men’s basketball team as one of the fifty greatest players in ACC history. He was also inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
In addition, his Hall of Fame class included fellow Pennsylvania high school standout Richard “Rip” Hamilton.
Following his playing career, Miller worked in real estate and construction in Virginia and North Carolina before retiring and moving back to Pennsylvania.
