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CHARLOTTE — The return of Harrison Ingram’s sweet jumper has No. 5 North Carolina returning to the Sweet 16. Ingram scored 17 points and five 3-pointers as the No. 1 seed Tar Heels pulled away to win 85–69 in the second round of the NCAA tournament against No. 9 seed Michigan State in the Spectrum Center.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Teams have taken their shots at No. 1 South Carolina all season, but nobody has pulled off the upset. Only three teams have come within seven points of the 33–0 and top-seeded Gamecocks: reigning national champion LSU, Tennessee and the team they face in the second round of the NCAA women’s tournament at 1 p.m. Sunday (CBS) — No. 8-seed North Carolina.
Never mind trying to make a 3-point attempt with a defender’s hand in your face. RJ Davis and girlfriend Deja Kelly, both senior North Carolina guards who have led their teams to the NCAA tournament, had a bigger challenge a couple of weeks ago in the kitchen of Davis’ apartment.
Cormac Ryan, Harrison Ingram and Coach Hubert Davis met with the media ahead of UNC’s second-round game Saturday against Michigan State.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — You want to be playing your best basketball in March, and No. 8 seed North Carolina arguably produced that for one half of Friday’s game. The Tar Heels’ season-long trend of blowing big leads nearly bit them again.
But UNC delivered the early punches and lockdown defense throughout to take down No. 9 seed Michigan State 59–56 in the first round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at Colonial Life Arena.
CHARLOTTE — UNC freshman Elliot Cadeau and the Carolina band spent hours in production for seven seconds at the end of a 30-second Marriott Bonvoy commercial that debuted this week.
CHARLOTTE — No. 4 North Carolina watched Wagner’s First Four victory Tuesday night together, first on the team bus and then at the team hotel.
One day after AP awarded Carolina’s RJ Davis with one first-team All-American honor, he got two more from the United States Basketball Writers Association and the National Association of Basketball Coaches, announcing their teams on Wednesday.
RJ Davis on Tuesday became the 15th player in Carolina men’s basketball history to earn first-team AP All-America honors.
North Carolina fell one spot to No. 5 in the AP Top 25 men’s basketball poll as the Tar Heels enter the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed in the West Regional.
North Carolina, the No. 8 seed in the Albany 1 region, heads south for the first two rounds of the NCAA women’s tournament. In the first round, it will face Michigan State in Columbia, S.C., on Friday at 11:30 a.m. (ESPN2).
The path to North Carolina’s seventh NCAA men’s basketball title would take the Tar Heels from the Queen City to the City of Angels and, they hope, culminate in the Valley of the Sun. The No. 4-ranked Tar Heels (27–7) are the No. 1 seed in the West Regional, to be played at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles (home of the NBA’s Lakers and Clippers and the NHL’s Kings). It’s the NCAA-high 18th time that UNC has been a No. 1 seed since seeding began in 1979, one season after missing the tournament.
WASHINGTON — Was No. 4 Carolina’s 84–76 loss to N.C. State in the ACC tournament championship game Saturday night enough to drop the Tar Heels from the No. 1 seed line where they were projected before the game?
WASHINGTON — On the fifth day, N.C. State had plenty of magic left, and an out-of-sync Carolina team couldn’t do anything to stop it. The No. 10-seed Wolfpack became the first ACC champion in league history to win five tournament games and the lowest seed to win it, knocking off No. 4-ranked North Carolina 84–76 Saturday at Capital One Arena.
Conference tournaments ended frustratingly for several former Tar Heels, including Puff Johnson missing a potential game-winning 3-point attempt at the buzzer. In addition, Caleb Love’s No. 6 Arizona team, Justin McKoy’s Hawaii team and Kerwin Walton’s No. 25 Texas Tech team all lost Friday in the semifinals of their league tournaments.
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