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In addition to UNC playing UConn in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase, the Tar Heels will play in an eight-team tournament with Iowa and star Caitlin Clark. The Tar Heels are one of eight teams in the Gulf Coast Showcase, a tournament that will reportedly include UNC, Iowa and Kansas State. The tournament hasn’t announced its field, so the other five teams for the event aren’t known yet.
The United States team rolled into the medal round with three blowout victories at the FIBA U16 Women’s Americas Championship, and future Tar Heel Lanie Grant returned for Thursday’s win over Mexico after missing a game. After Grant scored 12 points in the Americans’ 124–39 Tuesday victory over Puerto Rico, she was one of several players from other teams, all staying at the same hotel in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, who started feeling sick.
The inexplicable absence of Carolina junior Mac Horvath from the All-ACC first team continues to look like a massive injustice as more postseason awards roll out. On Thursday, Horvath made the Perfect Game All-America first team in one of the three outfield spots three days after the American Baseball Coaches Association named him to the All-Atlantic Region First Team.
Carolina senior guard Deja Kelly will try out next week for one of the four remaining spots on the United States Women’s AmeriCup team, which includes LSU star Angel Reese. The 5–8 Kelly travels to Colorado Springs, Colo., on Wednesday, where the team’s training camp for the competition begins next Thursday at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. The FIBA Women’s AmeriCup is July 1–9 in León, Mexico.
Under Coach Courtney Banghart, North Carolina is becoming a nationally respected program, and more evidence of that comes next season when the Tar Heels play perennial national power Connecticut for the first time in nearly 12 years in a showcase tripleheader. UNC (22–11 last season) takes on UConn (31–6) at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., on Sunday, Dec. 10, as part of the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase, with perennial national power South Carolina (36–1) facing Utah (27–5) and UCLA (27–10) going up against Florida State (23–10) in that facility the same day. Starting times and television will be announced later, with tickets going on sale Sept. 8.
Two Carolina seniors, guard Lexi Donarski and forward Alyssa Ustby, were named Thursday to the United States women’s U24 three-on-three team. The team will compete in select three-on-three events this summer with the goal of qualifying for the FIBA 3×3 Women’s Series final in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sept 16 and 17.
Cam Johnson has gone from a tumultuous season to an offseason of uncertainty, but he’s not planning to sit around and see where his NBA career goes next. Johnson, a restricted free agent, has committed to play for the United States in the FIBA World Cup in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia from Aug. 25 to Sept. 10, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, who reported that former UNC center Walker Kessler of the Utah Jazz also has committed to play for the team.
When Carolina makes the national championship game, it used to be a good bet that a few key players from that team would be around two seasons later. That may have been the conventional wisdom in the past, but in an era when players can transfer and not sit out a year, you can’t assume much from year to year.
The United States team got off to an impressive start at the FIBA U16 Women’s Americas Championship, and future Tar Heel Lanie Grant also showed why she’s a five-star recruit in the Class of 2025. Carolina’s only commitment so far in the class, ranked No. 20 by ESPN, came off the bench to score more than a point per minute in the first quarter and finished the game with 12 points as the Americans rolled to a 124–39 victory over Puerto Rico at Poliforum Zamna arena in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, on Tuesday.
The United States team, which includes five-star Carolina Class of 2025 commitment Lanie Grant, plays three pool play games at the FIBA Women’s U16 Americas Championship beginning Tuesday night. Grant, a 5–9 guard ESPN ranks as the No. 20 player in her class, is one of four players her age on the team.
Carolina’s field hockey and women’s tennis teams were two of the national championship teams honored at the White House on Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris welcomed 19 championship teams at a ceremony outside of the White House as the attendees battled a drizzle. Speaking before Harris was NCAA president Charlie Baker. Logan Eggleston of the Texas women’s volleyball team spoke after Harris.
Carolina’s national championship field hockey and women’s tennis teams will be at the White House on Monday as part of the College Athlete Day celebrations. Dozens of NCAA championship teams across different sports and divisions are expected to be part of the celebration.
Coach Courtney Banghart continues to be a big winner in the women’s basketball offseason, and the evidence comes with a couple of recent rankings.
Carolina will hire former Tar Heels player Megan Smith Lyon as its softball coach, according to a report Saturday by Extra Innings Softball. Smith Lyon, who graduated from UNC in 1999, has spent the last five seasons at Marshall, where her teams went 160–70.
For the second consecutive night, the star power of incoming Carolina freshman wing Laila Hull was on full display as her Indiana All-Stars faced a team of Kentucky All-Stars again. Hull scored a couple of huge buckets in the last two minutes Saturday and earned MVP honors with a second consecutive double-double to lead Indiana to a 71–67 victory in Indianapolis to avenge a loss one night earlier.
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