David Glenn

When former Duke star Jayson Tatum led Boston to the 2024 National Basketball Association title earlier this month, he won his first NBA championship ring and helped the Celtics to their record 18th crown.

About five months ago, before the start of the 2024 college baseball season, various preseason rankings pegged North Carolina as a Top 25-caliber team but not necessarily one of the favorites, either nationally or in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This year, the NCAA Tournament bracket includes seven in-state teams: Duke, ECU, High Point, NC State, UNC, UNCW and Wake Forest. Again, that was the highest number for any state; only Louisiana, with six representatives, is in the same neighborhood this time.

A recent meeting of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees was an embarrassing clown show, even without anyone wearing an oversized nose or shiny red shoes.

In the summer of 2020, North Carolina baseball coach Scott Forbes accepted a doubly difficult task. The long-time Carolina pitching guru was promoted to succeed the retiring Mike Fox, who was by far the most successful coach in the program’s proud history.

Although much has changed in American basketball over the past 40-plus years, college players’ typical approach to their NBA draft early entry decisions has remained at least partly intact.

Welcome to the “Wild, Wild West” era of college sports. While that phrase originally described the lawless, unruly culture often seen in the western United States in the 1800s, it applies nicely to the current state of college athletics, too.

When North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye walks on stage Thursday night, soon after hearing his name called in the first round of the National Football League draft, he immediately will step into a much larger television spotlight than anything he encountered as a UNC player.

When the National Hockey League playoffs begin this weekend, the Carolina Hurricanes will serve as hosts for the New York Islanders in the teams’ best-of-seven, first-round series.