Covering Carolina sports beyond just men's basketball and football — with the most complete women's basketball coverage
With RJ Davis as the only current player who was part of North Carolina’s 2022 turnaround from February struggles to the national championship game, Coach Hubert Davis says he doesn’t mention that season to the team.
Even with UNC (13–10, 6–5 ACC) mired in a stretch of four losses in the last five games heading into Saturday’s 4 p.m. home game (ESPN2) with Pittsburgh (14–7, 5–5), he said that he emphasizes that there is plenty of time to turn the season around.
Caleb Love and Kerwin Walton had big games Saturday to help their streaking teams earn road victories, while Dontrez Styles had his best game of the season in a loss for slumping N.C. State and Ali Zelaya had her career-best game to finish a monster weekend. Both Love and Dawson Garcia hit memorable recent buzzer-beaters.
Alyssa Ustby did it all for No. 15 North Carolina to help the Tar Heels complete a huge 2–0 week in California. Ustby scored 16 points, tied her career-high with four 3-pointers and made a crucial defensive play at the end to help UNC hold on for a 69–67 victory Sunday at Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, Calif., after Stanford erased a 12-point fourth-quarter deficit.
North Carolina’s men’s basketball team clearly has a lot of work to do 43 days away from Selection Sunday, and that’s reflected in the latest bracket projections. The Tar Heels (13–10, 6–5 ACC) are left out of the field on 49.4% of the projections listed on Bracket Matrix (45 of 91), with the highest projection as a No. 10 seed by three: by Jason Wells (released Monday), Guru and NP.
DURHAM — Giving up height at every position, a daunting matchup for North Carolina turned into a nightmare, and the Tar Heels didn’t put up much of a fight until it was too late against No. 2 Duke. The talented Blue Devils took control early and rolled to an 87–70 victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night. UNC made the final score closer with an 18–2 run but lost for the fourth time in five games as an NCAA berth starts to look out of reach.
North Carolina making the College Football Playoff in Bill Belichick’s first season as coach? That’s the prediction of ESPN’s Bill Connelly in a column published last week, listing the Tar Heels as earning one of the at-large bids.
No. 15 North Carolina bucked the trend in the first season of the two-coast ACC and got a huge Quad 1 victory in the process with one of its best defensive performances of the season. The Tar Heels never trailed after the game’s first 70 seconds, breaking the game open with a 16–4 fourth-quarter run and rolling to a 65–52 victory at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley, Calif., to hand No. 19 Cal its first home loss.
CHAPEL HILL — It’s a sign that Coach Scott Forbes has returned North Carolina to one of the nation’s best programs when losing six draft picks hasn’t changed lofty expectations. The Tar Heels, No. 6 in the D1 Baseball preseason poll, reloaded.
PITTSBURGH — How North Carolina is losing has changed since the New Year, but the common maddening pattern remains — the Tar Heels rarely put two good halves together and have trouble finishing games. In November and December, UNC (13–8, 6–3 ACC) routinely fell behind by double digits in the first half and, in most cases, surged in the second half to make a game of it, with varied results, the latest a 73–65 loss Tuesday at Pittsburgh.
PITTSBURGH — North Carolina came to Pittsburgh hoping to get off the NCAA bubble, and with sloppy, disjointed offense, the Tar Heels may have done that. Just not in the way they expected. The Tar Heels are probably looking up at the bubble after blowing a 10-point first-half lead and falling 73–65 Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center.
Even after surviving what would have been a devastating home loss to Boston College, North Carolina’s NCAA tournament hopes are teetering after the Tar Heels began a tough four-game stretch with a Quad 1 loss. Only 50 of 86 bracket projections on Bracket Matrix have UNC in the field, with the average seed being the fourth-highest No. 11 seed. The Tar Heels (13–9, 6–4 ACC) were already in a bad position before Tuesday’s 73–65 loss at Pittsburgh dropped them from 40th to 42nd in the NET rankings.
North Carolina will have two five-star players playing in the McDonald’s All-American Games on April 1 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Forward Caleb Wilson, a 6–9, 195-pound power forward who committed to the Tar Heels last Thursday and 6–2 wing Nyla Brooks — the top players in the UNC men’s and women’s teams’ Class of 2025 — will represent the Tar Heels in the games.
Two days later, North Carolina’s defensive effort in its 102-96 victory Saturday over Boston College still befuddles Coach Hubert Davis. That frustration translated into some frank discussions with his team.
CHAPEL HILL — With the game on the line, Florida State guard Ta’Niya Latson showed why she’s the nation’s leading scorer and left No. 13 North Carolina heartbroken. After Latson’s shot-fake drew UNC’s Reniya Kelly and Indya Nivar in the air, she drove by them and Alyssa Ustby for the game-winning bucket at the buzzer to give the Seminoles an 86–84 win Sunday, their fifth consecutive victory at Carmichael Arena.
CHAPEL HILL — The only way that a Quad 4 win can help a team is if it’s a blowout, and North Carolina’s overtime victory Saturday over Boston College was decidedly not like that on a day that a Tar Heels loss earlier in the week was upgraded.
tarheeltribune.com 