Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Comparatively speaking, 2023 was not a great year for Carolina athletics.
Over the decades, UNC also stood for University of National Champions. Rarely have at least several Tar Heel programs not won an ACC, NCAA or other national championships.
Over the last academic or calendar year, two women’s sports continued to excel – tennis won another ITA indoor tournament title and its first NCAA team championship, and field hockey captured its second straight ACC and national championships, the first with Erin Matson as Player of the Year and the second with Matson as a rookie head coach.
Other stalwarts in women’s lacrosse and women’s soccer made their annual deep runs in respective NCAA tournaments but with surprising results.
Jenny Levy’s lax team could not defend its ACC and NCAA championships, losing to Boston College for the ACC banner and in the NCAA quarterfinal round to Denver, 5-4, in Chapel Hill. Anson Dorrance’s soccer program again fell short of winning its first NCAA title since 2012. After losing a late 2-0 lead over UCLA in the 2022 College Cup final, the Tar Heels followed up by losing a 3-0 lead at BYU in the last 30 minutes of their regional the day after Thanksgiving.
The marquee sports of football and basketball had tough outcomes.
Mack Brown’s Tar Heels followed up a 9-5 season in 2022 (losing their last four games after a 9-1 start). This year, the football team opened with a 6-0 record only to go 2-5 the rest of the way with one FBS win over Duke in double OT. Carolina continued its ACC football championship drought since 1980.
Hubert Davis’ first UNC team as head coach had a mediocre start in 2022, only to get hot and reach the NCAA title game before losing to Kansas. The hoop Heels were the preseason No. 1 pick for the 2022-23 season, only to become the first such team to miss the Big Dance, as their stock plummeted.
The controversial rule that allows college athletes to profit from use of their Name-Image-Likeness (NIL) and the infamous transfer portal have thrown Carolina athletics and many college programs into disarray.
UNC has yet to follow other schools in the unregulated NIL world by offering athletes money without regard for what they had to do to earn it. So “guaranteed” NIL payments have not been promised by Carolina as much as other football and basketball powerhouse programs.
With the transfer portal becoming linked to pay-to-play, the Tar Heels’ revenue-producing sports have not figured out how to keep multiple players from leaving and luring as many replacements through the portal.
May 2024 be better for all of them and for us.
Featured image via UNC Women’s Lacrosse on Twitter
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
