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Looks like R.J. Davis and Deja Kelly will have a long-distance friendship.
The good news that Davis is returning for his COVID fifth season spawned positive speculation that Kelly would do the same for the UNC women’s team. After all, they arrived in Chapel Hill the summer of 2020 and struggled through the no-crowd COVID campaigns their freshman years, and since then have been identified as one of the best-known “Carolina couples” on campus.
One of UNC’s most herald recruits, Kelly entered the transfer portal and is moving 3,000 miles away to play at Oregon, where the Ducks must have plenty of NIL extras thanks to Nike founder and owner Phil Knight. Deja will also be a little closer to her family in San Antonio now that her new school is joining the Big Ten and will play some road games in the Midwest.
The geographic splits also shine an unwanted spotlight on Courtney Banghart’s team, which despite the head coach’s popularity among alumni and fans is now in the “honeymoon is over” phase of Carolina women’s basketball.
Banghart has retained some of her best players – as graduate All-ACC star Alyssa Ustby is returning to add to her records and honors over four seasons.
But there also were surprise transfers beyond Kelly, such as North Carolina native Kennedy Todd-Williams, who departed for Ole Miss, and Raleigh’s Anya Poole, who will be playing her fifth season at Clemson after her lowest scoring average (2.8) in 2023-24. Banghart’s roster has been in constant flux due to injuries, outgoing and incoming transfers, the latest being junior Trayanna Crisp from Arizona State and fifth-year point guard Grace Townsend from Richmond.
Entering her sixth season at UNC, Banghart’s program has a 96-56 record. She has a career mark of 350-159, including 254-103 in 12 years at Princeton, where her 2015 team went 30-0 and earned one of her seven Ivy League titles. She played at Dartmouth and still owns the Ivy record for career 3-pointers.
Banghart has led the Tar Heels to four consecutive NCAA tournaments, including a Sweet 16 trip in 2022. Her 2023 team finished 22-11 and was ranked as high as No. 6 in the AP poll. Last season’s team went 20-13 and advanced to the NCAA second round, losing to eventual national champion South Carolina in Columbia by the embarrassing score of 88-41.
Her record in the ACC Tournament is another dark spot for the head coach with a 1-5 record and never reaching the semifinal round. Despite losing Kelly and Poole, the 2024-25 Tar Heels do have a solid nucleus back, including fifth years Utsby and Lexi Donarski, in what looks like a pivotal year for Banghart.
Featured image via Associated Press/Darron Cummings
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
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Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
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