Covering Carolina sports beyond just men's basketball and football — with the most complete women's basketball coverage
CHAPEL HILL — It’s hard to win in the rugged ACC without good pitching and North Carolina continues to struggle to find any since the league season started. A Tar Heels staff that had one of the best ERAs in the country and a low walk rate during the non-conference season has seen those numbers flip in league play, and that continued Friday night.
Leaky Black announced on social media Friday that he will use his extra season of eligibility to return to Carolina next season. Black has played four seasons for the Tar Heels and is taking advantage of his COVID year the NCAA is giving players who played during the 2020–21 pandemic season.
Brady Manek’s perimeter shooting, grit inside and leadership in helping North Carolina make an improbable run to the national championship game had many Tar Heels fans wondering if he was the best transfer in program history. You have to go back to the early 1970s to find a transfer who had more impact but you only have to look on last season’s roster team to find a member of his family.
After quite the flurry of Carolina men’s basketball activity on Wednesday, there are still more decisions to be made that will have an impact on Coach Hubert Davis’ ability to bring in players from the transfer portal. If Leaky Black decides to use his extra season of eligibility and everybody else returns, Carolina would be right at the 13-player scholarship limit and unable to bring in more players.
Ciera Toomey first marveled at the beauty of the UNC campus when she was 10, traveling home to Pennsylvania from a Pinehurst golf tournament. Toomey thought she’d just play golf for the rest of her life and remembers liking the idea of moving back to North Carolina at some point to take advantage of the terrific golf options and better weather. The No. 3-ranked player in the Class of 2023 committed to North Carolina on Monday night and will indeed head back to the Tar Heel state. But a “life-changing” breakout AAU season with NEPA Elite three years later before her freshman year in high school dramatically changed her focus.
Given the way that rosters fluctuate, you figured that there would be departures on Carolina’s roster and possibly the first one will be Anthony Harris. He entered the transfer portal on Wednesday.
It’s been widely expected that Armando Bacot will return for his senior season and he confirmed that in a tweet on Wednesday morning: “Tar Heel forever.” With NIL (name, image and likeness) money out there to be earned, it always made sense for Bacot to come back since he likely will earn more money than he would with a two-way contract, a G League contract or to play in Europe.
Most people familiar with the situation have known for some time that Dawson Garcia wouldn’t be coming back to the North Carolina program, so the news Wednesday that he’s entered the transfer portal, first reported by Inside Carolina, came as no surprise. Garcia, who averaged 9.0 points and made 37.5% of his 3-point attempts for the Tar Heels, transferred from Marquette and was expected to be one of the key players.
Not only is Carolina’s Alyssa Ustby a versatile basketball player who can punt, pass and kick a football, but she’s also a good student. For the second consecutive year, the rising junior from Rochester, Minn., was named to the All-ACC Women’s Basketball Academic team. The honor came Tuesday, days after she won the UNC punt, pass and kick competition and kicked a 35-yard field goal at Kenan Stadium at halftime of the spring football game.
It seems that Armando Bacot has done everything well this school year. On Tuesday, he added All-ACC Academic Men’s basketball Team honors to the All-ACC first-team honors he earned last month.
It’s a big sign that a women’s basketball program is taking huge strides on the national stage when it beats out Connecticut for a recruit. North Carolina has now done it twice in three years. Five-star 6–3 stretch-five Ciera Toomey, the No. 3 Class of 2023 player, committed to the Tar Heels on Monday night, picking UNC over seven other schools, including UConn, in an announcement on Twitter and Instagram.
By R.L. Bynum CHAPEL HILL — Carolina fans already knew that Alyssa Ustby was versatile from watching her score, pass, … More
After a breakout season that ended by giving eventual national champion South Carolina its toughest NCAA tournament game, expectations are high for North Carolina’s women’s basketball team next season. The Tar Heels peaked in the AP Top 25 at No. 16 on Feb. 28 but are higher than that in two “way-too-early” preseason rankings that came out this week. The only ACC team picked higher than Carolina on both lists is Notre Dame.
My Chicago Cubs cap got me some national television time and eventually got praise from Brady Manek. This was one of the craziest aspects of my long March experience that put me on the road 14 of 27 days. It started innocently enough. The television lights are so bright in these arenas that they’re hard on the eyes. Instead of constantly putting my hand above my eyes, I wore my Cubs cap.
Will North Carolina have the talent to come back from a loss in the national championship game to challenge for the title the following season, as the Tar Heels did in 1982 and 2017? Roster turnover in the age of the transfer portal can be harrowing for fans and coaches. But with NIL deals changing the equation for some players, UNC should be in a position to be a national contender.
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