New York ? North Carolina, one of the youngest teams in the country, is off to one of college basketball’s best starts — and last season seems a long time ago.

The Tar Heels, with their heralded freshman class again leading the way, beat Stanford 74-57 Friday night in the championship game of the Preseason NIT.

Their 5-0 start has the Tar Heels three wins short of matching their victory total from 2001-02, an 8-20 mark that was the worst in school history.

Rashad McCants had 18 points for the Tar Heels, while fellow freshmen Raymond Felton had 16 points and seven assists and Sean May added 12 points and seven rebounds.

“What happened last season got me pumped up and ready to play,” McCants said. “I wanted to play for them last season but obviously couldn’t. Now, we’re here.”

They are, and this is UNC’s best start since it went 8-0 in 1998-99, a season that also included a Preseason NIT championship over Stanford.

“I don’t think I would say I’m surprised. I’m happy,” North Carolina coach Matt Doherty said. “We are good, but we can play better.”

It wasn’t a perfect night for the Tar Heels, who withstood a scoring drought in each half, but for a team that starts three freshmen and two sophomores, it was another impressive performance.

North Carolina beat No. 2 Kansas 67-56 in Wednesday’s semifinals, and there was no letdown for the young team, even in its first extended outing against a zone defense.

“We can guard people. Our team speed and quickness is pretty good, and every night you can count on your defense, you hope,” Doherty said. “Offensively, we may turn the ball over and miss some shots. A team may try to slow you down, throw in a zone, whatever. Defense, you hope to bring it every night, and so far we have.”

Josh Childress and Julius Barnes each had 17 points for Stanford (4-1), which beat then-No. 10 Xavier in the second round of the tournament and No. 7 Florida in the semifinals.

“North Carolina is a very, very good basketball team. They were really ready to play and took us out of our stuff,” Stanford coach Mike Montgomery said. “Their speed, their quickness and athleticism really hurt us.”

Montgomery, sounding like a coach, tempered the plaudits being thrown the Tar Heels’ way.

“We’re five games into season, and they haven’t gotten to the ACC yet, but what he has got is really good freshmen players,” Montgomery said. “Those three guys, in and of themselves, would turn most people around.”

In the third-place game, senior forward Matt Bonner and freshman forward Matt Walsh each had 22 points to lead No. 7 Florida to an 83-73 victory over No. 2 Kansas.

McCants, who was limited to 12 minutes in the first half because of foul trouble, opened the second half by hitting consecutive 3-pointers, and then sophomore Jackie Manuel hit another 3 to cap a 9-2 run that gave North Carolina a 48-33 lead with 18:13 to play.

“I just wanted to make up for clacking in the first half with the fouls,” McCants said. “My teammates told me I would get them going with a couple of 3s, and it really happened.”

The Tar Heels went 5:20 without a field goal as the Cardinal pulled to 63-51, but McCants, the tournament MVP, made one of two free throws and then had a driving dunk on the baseline to make it 66-51 with 5:38 left. Stanford never got closer than 13 points the rest of the way.

“We probably should have gotten out of the zone quicker. They obviously solved that,” Montgomery said. “Raymond Felton surprised us with his ability to shoot it from outside. The problem with the man-to-man would have been Sean May, because he’s so big in there, and we would have really had a hard time with him inside.

“But you know, we didn’t perform very well. We battled back when we got down, but we didn’t do anything very well.”

The Tar Heels made five of their first 10 3-point attempts in taking a 37-17 lead with 5:24 to play in the first half. Felton had three of those 3s, and it was his layup on a nice pass from Jawad Williams that made it 37-17.

As easily as the baskets were coming in the first 14 1/2 minutes for North Carolina, there weren’t any to be made over the rest of the half. Stanford was able to get to 39-31 with 14 seconds left in the half as the Tar Heels missed their last seven shots and turned the ball over three times.

Stanford, which committed eight turnovers in falling behind by 20, starting taking better care of the ball and Barnes got hot, scoring nine of the Cardinal’s last 12 points of the half.