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Two individual national champions — wrestler Austin O’Connor and diver Aranza Vazquez — earned Athlete of the Year honors at the Rammy Awards on Monday night at Memorial Hall. The awards program recognizes excellence in Carolina athletics over the previous year. Women’s basketball center Malu Tshitenge of women’s basketball and football defensive lineman Kaimon Rucker were the hosts for the event, which was back at Memorial Hall for the first time since 2019.
Carolina picked up its fourth offseason transfer and most significant Saturday afternoon when former Stanford forward Harrison Ingram, who visited Chapel Hill on Wednesday, committed to the Tar Heels. Last Saturday, Coach Hubert Davis had an in-home visit with the 6–7, 230-pound junior, who originally picked Stanford out of high school over UNC, Purdue, Michigan, Harvard and Howard. Ingram was the No. 2 player in Evan Miya’s transfer portal rankings.
It was a rough night for Harrison Barnes and Cameron Johnson as they both scored 17 points but their teams lost Game 3s in their NBA first-round series Thursday. It was particularly frustrating for Johnson, whose Brooklyn Nets made a game of it but missed chances to win it or tie it at the end as Philadelphia took a 3–0 series lead with a 102–97 victory in Brooklyn.
Carolina picked up another transfer Thursday in former Notre Dame guard Cormac Ryan. Ryan, a 6–5, 195-pound graduate transfer, has one year of remaining eligibility.
The fifth of the six Carolina players to enter the transfer portal has committed.
Will Shaver, who played only six minutes over three games for Carolina before getting hurt, will play at Belmont with likely four years remaining eligibility.
Relentless, red-hot and fearless. Cameron Johnson was all that for Brooklyn on Monday night for one half, but, again, it wasn’t enough. Harrison Barnes again was a steady force as Sacramento took a 2–0 lead on Golden State. Johnson scored 22 points and had Joel Embiid flailing with a one-handed dunk in his face, followed by a stare-down of the 7-footer, in the first half. He added only six points in the second half, though, as the Philadelphia 76ers took a 2–0 series lead with a 96–84 victory over the Nets on Monday night.
The possibilities with artificial intelligence are fascinating, but the chatbots, such as Google’s Bard, still have a long way to go regarding accuracy. After watching this story on Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes,” I was curious about what sorts of stories Bard would produce from prompts related to Carolina sports. Some were interesting, many were amusing, and accuracy left much to be desired.
In a festive, college-type atmosphere in Sacramento, Harrison Barnes scored 13 points and a big late 3-pointer as the Kings won their first playoff game in 17 years. Cameron Johnson’s best career playoff game wasn’t enough for his Brooklyn Nets. Against the Golden State Warriors, where Barnes began his NBA career and won a league title in 2015, the Kings pulled out a 126–123 victory in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series in a highly entertaining game.
Where was Coby White with the game on the line at the end? That’s what many on social media wanted to know after his 3-pointer with 3:47 left (shown below) gave the Chicago Bulls a three-point lead. The Miami Heat outscored Chicago 15–1 the rest of the way, going on to a 102–91 victory in a play-in tournament elimination game to end the Bulls’ season.
Coby White scored all nine of his points in the second quarter as the Chicago Bulls became the first No. 10 seed to win a play-in tournament, rallying from a 19-point second-half deficit to win 109–105 Wednesday night in Toronto. The other four UNC alums in the postseason play their playoff openers on Saturday.
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