Covering Carolina sports beyond just men's basketball and football — with the most complete women's basketball coverage
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.
Incoming UNC freshman Laila Hull’s ability to pour on the offense was on full display in the second half on Friday night at the first of two games in the Indiana All-Star series against Kentucky in Owensboro, Ky., putting up a double-double.
Tre Boston continues to advance his television career since the former UNC defensive back retired from the NFL. After serving as a co-host for the ACC Network’s “ACC PM” last football season, he and his wife Cierra are the new hosts for a series on The Weather Channel called “FAST: Home Rescue,” which begins its second season on June 18 at 10 p.m.
There will be half as many players from last season’s North Carolina roster playing for Penn State as will play for the Tar Heels. Junior 6–5 guard D’Marco Dunn announced Thursday on social media that he will join fellow former UNC teammate Puff Johnson in transferring to Penn State.
I’ll never forget driving on Lejeune Boulevard in Jacksonville, N.C., in the spring of 1984 when I heard a report on the radio that nearly led me to drive off the road. It was so stunning.
The radio reporter broke the news to me that Michael Jordan was going to forgo his senior season at North Carolina to enter the NBA draft. As a rookie sports writer at the Jacksonville Daily News making a paltry wage, I couldn’t imagine the riches ahead for Jordan.
Last season, Coach Hubert Davis had trouble keeping everybody happy, leading seven players to transfer. Now it appears that one of three members of his incoming freshman class at Carolina is already unhappy with the roster situation for next season.
Coach Courtney Banghart continues to bring in five-star recruits, so why not add another one? This time, it wasn’t because of a new commitment for North Carolina. ESPN updated its Class of 2025 rankings on Monday and upgraded 5–9 guard Lanie Grant from a four-star to a five-star and moved her up from No. 23 overall in the class to No. 20 and the No. 3 point guard in the class.
Five-star guard Lanie Grant, the only Carolina women’s basketball commitment for the Class of 2025, has earned a spot on the United States U16 team. Grant’s team will play in the FIBA Women’s U16 Americas Championship from June 13–19 in Merida, Mexico. High school players graduating in 2025 or 2026 make up the team, but Grant is one of only four Class of 2025 players on the 12-girl roster. Fifty-five players tried out for the team in Colorado Springs, Colo.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A year after working out of the losers’ bracket to win the Chapel Hill Regional, North Carolina couldn’t replicate that magic but made things interesting. UNC rallied from a three-run eighth-inning deficit after No. 2 seed Iowa seized control with Brennen Dorighi’s three-run homer in the fifth inning. The Hawkeyes earned their second victory over UNC in the Terre Haute Regional, ousting the Tar Heels with a 6–5 13-inning victory Sunday afternoon at Bob Warn Field.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Those homer-stealing Tar Heels keep snagging the spotlight. When redshirt freshman right fielder Casey Cook reached his arm over the wall and stole a two-run home run from Wright State’s Julian Greenwell in the fifth inning of UNC’s 5–0 Saturday victory in the Terre Haute Regional, it earned him the No. 9 play on the ESPN “SportsCenter” Top 10 Plays segment.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Swamp time was the right time for slugger Mac Horvath and North Carolina. Before the game, he had the words “SWAMP TIME!” written on the tape that was around his left arm, and “Donkey” — as his teammates call him — proceeded to deliver a key three-run homer in the Tar Heels’ 5–0 victory Saturday over Wright State at Bob Warn Field to stay alive in the Terre Haute Regional.
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