Covering Carolina sports beyond just men's basketball and football — with the most complete women's basketball coverage
From her days as a kindergartener, taller and better than everybody on a team of second-graders, Laila Hull has played beyond her years. She already had two scholarship offers by September of her ninth-grade year, when it was evident that coaches recognized her potential early.
UNC senior guard Deja Kelly will try out for the United States AmeriCup team in Colorado Springs, Colo., on May 11–15. Kelly will be one of 22 college players vying for 12 spots on the team representing the U.S. at the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup in Leon, Mexico, July 1–9. Two other ACC players will be at the trials — Syracuse’s Dyaisha Fair and Florida State’s Ta’Niya Latson, last season’s league rookie of the year — as well as former Wake Forest guard Jewel Spear, who is in the transfer portal.
Coach Courtney Banghart continues to build an elite women’s basketball program, and Carolina rewarded her Thursday with a five-year contract extension. Banghart, whose deal runs through the 2027–28 season, begins her fifth season in Chapel Hill this fall after her team rose to as high as No. 6 in the country last season, finished 22–11 and made the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Carolina got its third women’s basketball transfer commitment when former Stanford combo guard Indya Nivar, a North Carolina native and former McDonald’s All-American, committed to the Tar Heels on Sunday to give them six former five-star recruits on next season’s roster. The 5–10 Nivar, born in Fayetteville but an Apex Friendship High School graduate, will be a sophomore with three seasons of eligibility.
Coach Courtney Banghart’s fifth North Carolina team will be her deepest and most talented. That will create plenty of competition for playing time and many more options at her disposal — with the transfer portal still packed with available players.
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.
Coach Courtney Banghart picked up another significant transfer on Monday when former Iowa State guard Lexi Donarski, a former five-star recruit, picked the Tar Heels. The Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year last season with 32 steals is ranked as the No. 4 player in the portal by 247 Sports and she is considered the best shooter in the portal. She played three seasons with the Cyclones and has two seasons of eligibility remaining.
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.
The Jersey girl is going home. Destiny Adams, one of Carolina’s most aggressive and dogged defenders during her two seasons in Chapel Hill, will transfer to Rutgers University, where she’ll be a junior with three years of eligibility.
Former UNC women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell spoke out Thursday in favor of a North Carolina General Assembly bill that wouldn’t allow transgender athletes to compete on high school girls teams.
Boston College center Maria Gakdeng has committed to North Carolina, Coach Courtney Banghart announced on Monday. The 6–3 junior will have two years of eligibility.
Seven-year-old Reniya Kelly is in tears after she struggles with a ball-handling drill at an AAU tryout. Kelly keeps crying, embarrassed that she can’t do it better. Kelly sits silently in the back seat during the 20-minute drive home up Interstate 59 until her dad pulls over after they take the Allison-Bonnett Memorial Drive exit southwest of Birmingham, Ala. Even though they are almost home, he wants to stop and ask what’s wrong. “ ‘I need you to show me how to be great,’ ” her dad U.J. Mitchell recalls her saying that day in response. “I knew that comment was different, coming from a child that young.”
Former Carolina wing Kennedy Todd-Williams committed Wednesday to Ole Miss, six days after entering the transfer portal. Loaded with transfers this past season, the Rebels advanced to the Sweet 16. The 6–0 Todd-Williams made the announcement in a video on social media.
A year after enduring the pain of tearing her right ACL and the anxiety of not knowing what would come next, Ciera Toomey led Dunmore High School to its first Pennsylvania Class 3A state title on Thursday night. There were doubts about whether the highest-ranked of Carolina’s talented four-player incoming freshman class would recover in time to play her senior season. She still is working her way back to being the player she was before the injury but it was remarkable that Toomey even played this season.
Kennedy Todd-Williams said Friday that her decision to enter the transfer portal after two seasons at North Carolina wasn’t driven by NIL possibilities or money. “Has nothing to do with money,” Todd-Williams said in a Twitter direct message. “It’s never been about that. It’s about doing what’s best for me regardless of the situation here.”
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