Last season, North Carolina men's basketball entered the season ranked number 1 in the country. Coming off the heels of a National Championship appearance, AP poll voters placed a team led by Senior Forward Armando Bacot 1st overall. Early in the season, this team struggled to the finish line of most games, even against teams like Portland and College of Charleston. Finally, on November 25th, in their 6th game, they fell to Iowa State 70-65. This started a skid of 4 straight losses that would knock the former #1 out of the top 25.
The season continued like this, as they became the first preseason number 1 to miss March Madness. Star guard Caleb Love transferred to Arizona, and they lost 2 other starters, Leaky Black and Pete Nance, who had both used up all 5 years of eligibility. Despite all of this suffering, the team still brought back Armando Bacot and RJ Davis, quite possibly the two best players on the team. Additionally, they had a plethora of transfers actually coming in. Starters Harrison Ingram and and Cormac Ryan came from Stanford and Notre Dame, respectively. High school Junior Elliot Cadeau reclassed to join the team a year early, and it felt as though hope was finally restored.
They opened the season ranked number 17 in the country, and would get off to a hot start winning 5 straight, before facing Villanova in the semifinals of the Battle for Atlantis. Despite forcing overtime, the Tar Heels would fall by 2, and they faced a tough matchup against a ranked foe in Arkansas. They came out of the gate hot, and pummeled the Razorbacks 87-72. This was not the end of their tough schedule, though. In their next 5 games, 4 of them would be against ranked teams.
After beating Tennessee (and putting up 100 points on the # 1 defense) and Florida State, they would drop two straight games to UConn and Kentucky. They had 1 last chance to prove that they could hang with the big guys, against undefeated Oklahoma. In a huge momentum shifting game, Hubert Davis's squad took down the Sooners, and showed the world their full potential.
Fast forward to now, and the team has not lost since. They haven't been throw away games, either. They took down a ranked team in Clemson, and gutted out a tough win against in-state rival NC State.
The impact of the new additions has certainly been felt, as Harrison Ingram has picked up the slack multiple times when stars RJ Davis and Armando Bacot have had off nights. That is one of the big things that the team last year was missing, depth. The bench was pretty much 3 players deep then, as opposed to 5 or 6 now. To go along with Ingram, Elliot Cadeau that his decision to reclass was correct, and has elevated himself into a starting role. Cormac Ryan has knocked down big shots, and the whole team appears to have better chemistry than last year. They are currently ranked number 7, and have showed no signs of slowing down.
With this being the last year of the Bacot/Davis era of UNC basketball, the entire locker room vibe feels different. And if they can keep up this play, head coach Hubert Davis could find himself hoisting a trophy in April.
- Eli Knight
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