After it was announced that Davis had won the Jerry West Award, Love tweeted “Legendary 4”, congratulating Davis for his accomplishment. A lot has been rumored about their relationship, but every time one is mentioned in front of the other, there seems to be nothing but love. Please click here for more.

The daughter of the late Walter Davis, who died on Nov. 2, 2023 at the age of 69, Laird was at Final Four weekend to represent and celebrate her father being one of 13 inductees to be honored in August. Please click here for more.

Deja Kelly became the sixth and the most consequential North Carolina women’s player to enter the transfer portal. Please click here for more.

Trimble announced on Tuesday that he is entering the NCAA transfer portal, leaving Chapel Hill after two seasons. He met with Hubert Davis multiple times for postseason meetings in the last week, according to sources close to the situation. “… I feel this is the best step for me moving forward,” Trimble said in a social media statement. “Tar Heel family, I will love you for the rest of my life.” Please click here for more.

North Carolina is a season-high No. 10 in the latest D1 Baseball poll after going 4–0 last week and sweeping a three-game weekend series at Wake Forest, extending the Tar Heels’ win streak to nine games. Please click here for more.

RJ Davis saved the worst for last. The North Carolina senior All-America player made just four of 20 shots and missed all nine of his three-point attempts as the Tar Heels lost a late lead and fell to Alabama 89-87 in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. (3/28)

Certainly the blame doesn’t rest solely on Davis as other things went wrong for Carolina in the season-ending lost but the Tar Heels did lose by only two and it was the first time in 41 games, dating back to last season, that Davis failed to hit a three-point shot.

After the game, as Davis was talking about the “easy shots” he normally makes, transfer Cormac Ryan was having none of the blame Davis talk.

“I’ve got to chime in here,” Ryan said. “You guys can write whatever you want about tonight’s game. You could talk about RJ, you could talk about the stats. You could talk about whatever. We would not be in this position today without RJ Davis and Armando Bacot. Carolina wouldn’t be in this position today without these two guys.

“And so say what you want, there’s just not a true fiber in your being that could actually believe that anything that happened tonight could be the result of something RJ did wrong, because RJ’s done something incredible for this team. He’s done stuff that’s never been done before. He’s one of the greatest Tar Heels of all time. And for anybody to come and say anything negative about RJ is unacceptable.”

UNC, which ends the season with a 29-8 record, shot just 25 percent as a team (10 for 40) in the second half, its worst shooting performance in a half all season and the lowest in a Tournament game since shooting a paltry 22.6 percent in the second half in a lost to Kansas in 2012.

The Tar Heels erased a five-point deficit in the first half to take an eight-point lead, 54-46, at the break. The Heels were hot offensively in the first half, shooting 52.6 from the field including 10 of 16 from the three-point line.

But in the second half, the cold Heels quickly lost the lead as Alabama went on an 11-2 run over just three minutes to go up 59-57.

The Tar Heels came back with a 13-5 run of their on, highlighted by a pass from Davis to Armando Bacot for a dunk that put the Heels back in control, 70-64.

Carolina still led 75-70 after a Ryan three before the tide changed on a 12-2 Crimson run, highlighted by threes from Aaron Estrada and Grant Nelson, that put Alabama up 82-77 with just 3:43 to play.

With Davis abandoning the three and driving to the hoop, the Tar Heels came back to take an 85-82 lead following a Davis runner and four straight free throws.

But Alabama took over from there, outscoring the Heels 7-2 over the last 1:20, even forcing a Carolina shot clock violation late in the game to seal the victory.

“Always in the closing minutes, it comes down to a play here or there,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “I’ve talked all season about the little details that make big things happen, not just necessarily shots — rebounds, free throws, loose balls. At the end of the day, they made down the stretch more plays than us. And unfortunately we came out on the short end.”

The 24-11 Alabama team, led by Nelson’s 24 points (12 came in the last seven minutes), plays Clemson with a chance to go to the Final Four.

Carolina now must look forward to next season without Bacot, Ryan and Paxson Wojcik – and possibly RJ Davis, who has another year of eligibility if he wants to get the bad taste out of his mouth.

For a box score, video highlights and more, please click here.

Alabama isn’t like many, if any, other teams in college basketball. The Crimson Tide’s offensive approach is almost as unique as the triple option is in football. Almost. There’s only so much room for variation in basketball, and Nate Oats’ team is about as atypical as they come. The Tide like to run, play fast, shoot fast, and score a ton. And they do it usually only using certain parts of the floor. Please click here for more.

A physical, aggressive Michigan State team put North Carolina on notice early as the Spartans raced out to 12-point lead. But after a fiery UNC coach Hubert Davis went ballistic during a timeout, the Tar Heels matched and exceeded the competitive fire, going on to beat a tough Michigan State team 85-69. (3/21) 

Down 26-14, Carolina rallied to go on a commanding 26-5 run that turned the game around and put the Tar Heels in front 40-31 at the half.

“He instills confidence in us at time like that when we go down 12,” Armando Bacot said of his coach.

RJ Davis, who led Carolina with 20 points, said, “Coach Davis gives us that passion, fire and competitive spirit to play to the best of our abilities.” He said that the timeout speech really got the Tar Heels going as the team responded immediately.

Coach Davis said that Michigan State punched them first and the Tar Heels didn’t match their physical aggression. “We started to compete,” he said. “We joined the fight.”

That game-changing 26-5 run was fueled by five threes by three different Carolina players – Davis, Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan. Ingram hit his third three of the run just seconds before halftime.

“Today I was open and I was able to hit the shots,” said Ingram, who finished five of seven from three for 17 points. “But we’re all about team. I was just able to hit them today.”

The Tar Heels hit six of 16 from three in the first half and finished 10 of 28 in the game for 38 percent. The Heels shot 47 percent from the floor compared to 44 percent for Michigan State.

It didn’t start that way as the Spartans hit seven of their first 10 shots to get a double-digit lead at 17-7.

“They brought the fight and were really killing us but then our defense started going for the rest of the game,” Bacot said.

Carolina blocked six shots and came up with five steals. The Heels scored 16 points off 11 Michigan State turnovers.

The Tar Heels did lose the rebounding battle for the first time in 25 games, 37-32. Carolina didn’t get an offensive rebound until a tip in by Bacot put the Heels up 48-43 with 16 minutes left. But UNC was effective after that outscoring the Spartans in second-chance points 10-2.

The game stayed close for much of the second half until a 14-2 run erased any doubt of the outcome. A free throw by Davis gave the Tar Heels their biggest lead at 76-59 with 3:35 to go.

Michigan State, who finish the season 20-15, were led by Tyson Walker’s 24 points.

Bacot and Ryan joined Davis and Ingram in double figures with 18 and 14 points respectively. The Tar Heels, now 29-7, advance to the West Regional semi-finals in Los Angeles to play the winner of Sunday’s game between Alabama and Grand Canyon on Thursday.

For a box score, video highlights and more on the game, please click here.

North Carolina, rebounding from a disappointing ACC Tournament Title loss, was too big, too deep and too talented for Wagner as the Tar Heels won going away 90-62 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Charlotte. (3/21) 

Although Wagner never led, it was uncomfortably close early on as Carolina had trouble getting out in transition without turning the ball over. Charlotte native Jae’Lyn Withers and Armando Bacot were beasts inside, helping the Tar Heels get some distance from Wagner.

With the score tied at 13-13 after the first seven minutes of the game, Carolina went on a 16-6 run to go up 31-21. During that run, Withers had seven points and an assist.

“I think he did set the tone,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said about Withers, adding that the Heels were out of sync early on with several unforced turnovers. “He came off the bench and he ignited us.”

It was Withers best game of the season as he scored a season-high 16 points and hauled in 10 rebounds. “My family is sitting courtside and I get a double-double so it’s great,” Withers said.

First-team All-America RJ Davis and third-team All-America Armando Bacot did their usual damage scoring 22 and 20 points respectively. Bacot led all rebounders with 15. The Tar Heels outrebounded Wagner 43-24.

Wagner, who had several injuries during the season, was playing with just seven players and both of their big men got in trouble in the first half. Still, Carolina had not broken the game open yet as the Heels led 40-28 at the break.

In the first half, RJ Davis said the Heels didn’t do a good job of getting out on the fastbreak on offense and didn’t do a good job communicating on defense, leading to some open threes which Wagner hit.

That all changed in the second half as Carolina outscored Wagner 50-34. The lead got as high as 30 at 88-58 when Paxson Wojcik drilled a deep three late in the game. The scout team even got into the action as Dewey Farris passed to Rob Landry on a nice play with less than a minute to go.

It won’t be that easy as Saturday’s second-round opponent Michigan State looked solid against Mississippi State to advance to play UNC.

Julian Brown and Mel Council each scored 18 points to lead Wagner who finishes the season with a 17-16 mark.

Joining Davis, Bacot and Withers in double figures for Carolina was Cormac Ryan with 13 points. The Tar Heels, now 28-7, advance to the second round against ninth-seeded Michigan State in Charlotte on Saturday.

For a box score, a video and more on the game, please click here.