MILWAUKEE—The North Carolina Tar Heels’ season out of couldn’t have ended in more fitting fashion.
Dig a 20-plus-point hole? Yep.
Somehow, against all odds, climb back into it? You bet.
And those key late-game gaffes that lead to a loss in a suddenly winnable game? Sure, why not those, too.
It’s a script the Heels trotted out all season, starting on a Friday night at the Kansas Jayhawks where a furious comeback fell short. They rallied 21 down to beat the Dayton Flyers in Maui, then turned around and lost in OT to the Michigan State Spartans after trailing by eight with three minutes to go. They surged back from a big deficit against the Florida Gators, led by four with four minutes to play and lost … just to complete one of those comebacks later that week against the UCLA Bruins. And then there was the ultimate comeback in the ACC tournament, fighting back from 24 down against the Duke Blue Devils just to be foiled by a lane violation in the closing seconds.
“If there had to be one end to this season, that’d be it,” guard Seth Trimble says.
Just as expectations had started to build for the Heels, fresh off a dominant First Four win over the San Diego State Aztecs that conjured images of UNC’s 2022 Cinderella run to the title game, UNC came out with one last first-half no-show. And in the end, like has been the script far too often this season, the furious late rally wasn’t enough to make up for it. Just in the first four minutes, UNC lost a cutter on an out-of-bounds play for a dunk, botched a switch that generated an open three for Jaemyn Brakefield and threw an errant pass that looked targeted for press row more than it did any individual Tar Heel.
“I hadn’t seen that since at Clemson [on Feb. 10],” coach Hubert Davis said. “I felt like on both ends of the floor, we were going off script. And the inconsistencies of the discipline and details that you have to have over the last two months, we’ve been sharp with it. As a result, we’ve played our best basketball. But that first half just reminded me a lot of earlier in the season.”
The second-half surge came Friday, just as it did so many times this season. But when chasing 20, small mistakes are quickly magnified, and the Heels were far from perfect in the closing moments. RJ Davis and Trimble each got point-blank looks at the rim with a chance to cut the deficit to two with under four minutes to go and missed both, with Ole Miss guard Sean Pedulla responding with a bucket at the other end for some breathing room. They gave up a huge offensive rebound with two minutes and change to go that led to a trip to the free throw line for Ole Miss. And on the biggest possession of the game, a defensive one with a stop needed for the Heels to get a chance to tie or take the lead, Trimble inexplicably went under a screen on Pedulla, who took advantage of the space to swish home his 80th three of the season and ice the game.
“If we were down 10 instead of 20, we would’ve won the game,” guard Elliot Cadeau says.
Games like these were what made North Carolina this college hoops season’s ultimate tease. Watch some of the second halves mentioned above (including Friday’s) and you’d think this was one of the premier teams in the country. But the only times the best version of this Tar Heel bunch came out were seemingly when the Heels were on the verge of embarrassment. No one in the locker room seemed to have any answers for the baffling yearlong trend and how it had never been fixed, just that they had almost become used to it at this point.
“We just [kept] digging ourselves a hole, and it’s really hard to get out of it,” Cadeau said.
The 14-loss campaign (and especially how it happened) has raised plenty of questions of Hubert Davis, who has now overseen two smashing successes and two jarring failures in his four seasons succeeding the legendary Roy Williams in Chapel Hill, N.C. This season, he started on third base with a potential All-American in RJ Davis coming back for a fifth year and failed to put the right pieces around him, with the Heels’ portal whiffs in the frontcourt the most obvious flop. And how UNC repeatedly found itself behind the eight ball in games, from its first week to its final chapter, is hard to figure, though Hubert Davis suggested postgame Friday that today’s sluggish start was more about effort than X’s and O’s.
But one thing that couldn’t be questioned with this Carolina group was its fight. It’s a group that could have rolled over as a bust by early February, when its tournament hopes seemed shot. It’s one that could have easily packed it up midway through Friday’s game or the week before against Duke when faced with 20-point holes, but didn’t. If Hubert Davis deserves credit for anything, it’s that he kept this group believing when just about everyone else had given up on the Tar Heels.
“This team all season, when knocked down, has gotten back up and taken a step forward,” Hubert Davis said. “Every time. There hasn't been one time where they have stayed down.”
“The beginning of the year was a struggle,” Trimble says. “If you would have asked every guy in this locker room if we were enjoying the season, enjoying playing on this team, enjoying being coached, whatever it is, the answer’s probably no. The way we’ve sacrificed personal motives for each other, the way we put aside all outside noise and came together as a team, that made the season unforgettable.”
Still, major fixes are needed for Hubert Davis to stabilize his tenure and get North Carolina back to the winning ways they expect in Chapel Hill. Next season’s roster promises to look a lot different, with a five-year fixture in RJ Davis graduating and other players’ futures in question as the transfer portal opens Monday. North Carolina is in the process of building the most professionalized “front office” structure in college basketball, with a high-priced general manager in Jim Tanner hired from the agency world and a staff expected to be filled out around him to arm Hubert Davis with all the necessary support to build an elite roster. Over the next month, Davis will have the chance to right the wrongs of last spring’s portal disaster and position the Heels to get back to the top of the ACC.
And so sets up as important a spring and summer as anyone in college basketball will stare down. Get it right, and North Carolina will be competing for championships again this time next year. Don’t, and Davis might not be the Tar Heels’ head coach. This baffling season produced plenty of entertaining finishes, but was clearly short of the standard. It’s up to Davis to prove this was a blip and not a sign of things to come.