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A Successful Season
A perspective from Thad Williamson
What a difference a year makes!
A year ago, the North Carolina men’s basketball team completed perhaps its most disappointing season ever, relative to preseason expectation, with a dreary and frustrating ACC Tournament loss to Virginia.
That loss moved me to write in this space that Carolina fans still had so much to be grateful for, including the players and coaches who no doubt felt the disappointment more intensely than any fan can imagine. Most of that same team, of course, had been part of the legendary 2022 run to the NCAA Tournament final.
The piece also stated that Hubert Davis and the coaching staff were well aware that what happened last year didn’t meet the program’s internal expectations. Two days after my piece ran, Coach Davis took the controversial—but correct—decision to decline an NIT bid, so as to begin the process immediately of getting his program where it needed to be.
What followed was an offseason unlike any other. Multiple players left—not just role players, but one bona fide Tar Heel legend (Caleb Love).
New players joined via the transfer portal—at first the inconspicuous addition of Paxson Wojcik from Brown, to be followed by Harrison Ingram (Stanford), Cormac Ryan (Notre Dame), Jae’Lyn Withers (Louisville), and James Okonkwo (West Virginia).
Then Davis secured the early enrollment of all-everything high school point guard Elliot Cadeau, albeit at the cost of losing another highly rated commitment to St. John’s.
Most importantly, the veterans Armando Bacot and R. J. Davis committed to play another season in Chapel Hill. It was those decisions that provided Coach Davis a foundation to rebuild his team around, and to be able to tell the other newcomers that the Tar Heels had a credible chance to be very successful this season. Two promising rising sophomores, Seth Trimble and Jalen Washington, also elected to stay.
Here’s what’s remarkable: this unprecedented array of roster moves in fact produced a very good team that recognizably plays Carolina basketball—that is with pace, unselfishness, and poise. Davis sought to improve shooting, ball movement, and tempo—and succeeded.
Equally important, the team has a defensive and physical toughness not always associated with Carolina basketball. Harrison Ingram, who has shown a knack for stepping up in the biggest games, leads in this department, but Trimble, Withers, and Ryan all regularly contribute grit and toughness. Cadeau, too, plays with utter fearlessness on both ends.
This assemblage of talent gave Carolina a chance to be good, but it was by no means guaranteed. Other programs (see Kansas) who landed even bigger names in the transfer portal have not had the kind of regular season Carolina has.
The reason? Because the newcomers fully bought in to the team, the program, to Coach Davis, and to the Carolina way of doing things. As Coach Davis stated in his victorious press conference Saturday night in Durham, this is a team that likes doing everything together, on and off the court.
That togetherness shows. One of the things I love about this team is that the role players accept their role, and come in ready to battle when their number is called. On a given night Washington or Withers may see four minutes of time or may see twenty, but you know what you’re going to get from them in those minutes. The players are comfortable in their roles and there’s no sense that guys are hunting shots to prove they should have more time.
Wojcik, who began the season as a starter, is now a high-energy reserve. Okonkwo and freshman Zayden High can be trusted on the court when called upon. All three of those guys, who would be seeing major minutes many places, are engaged in support of their teammates at all times.
There’s also been significant individual improvement. Seth Trimble has made a huge leap from a season ago, especially on the offensive end of the court. He had three important first half buckets against Duke to keep momentum on Carolina’s side. His offensive capabilities combined with his elite defensive ability make him the ideal “third guard” alongside Cadeau and Davis.
Then there’s R.J. Davis himself, the runaway favorite for ACC Player of the Year, who’s taken him game to a different level this year, combining high volume and efficiency. Most important, he delivers what the team needs, when it needs it. He didn’t need to score 42 points vs. Miami two weeks ago to be ACC Player of the Year, but all those buckets were needed for Carolina to win that particular game. Conversely, he helped the team win against Duke, despite only scoring 9 points, precisely by not forcing anything.
Finally, there’s Armando Bacot, still the co-leader of the team, who has long since proven himself as one of the all-time great Tar Heels. We can talk about his rebounds, his durability, and his competitiveness, but the most important thing, as he said after the Notre Dame game, is that no one has loved this university more. And it’s that love which has made Carolina’s quick return to the top possible. Bacot (also known for his recruiting skills) has been the indispensable building block of Carolina’s quick recovery.
One more person who loves the University of North Carolina a great deal is Hubert Davis. He had both a vision and expectation of how to reset the program, and how to assemble a team that from the very first exhibition game one could look at and say “That’s Carolina Basketball.”
A 17-3 league record and ACC regular season championship is a remarkable accomplishment—one worth savoring just a bit before attention turns to tournament play. Carolina had not won an outright regular season title since 2017. And in March 2023, not many would have bet the Tar Heels would back on top. But here they are.
And yes, perhaps there is more to come. This week in Washington Carolina has a chance to do something almost as rare as win a national title: follow-up an outright ACC regular season title with the tournament title. That’s actually only happened eight times: in 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1977, 2008 and 2016.
Carolina has won’t an ACC Tournament since 2016, either. Armando Bacot and R. J. Davis have now played nine seasons for UNC between them and haven’t sniffed so much as a title game. They will want to change all that in D.C.
Beyond that, there’s March Madness, and the hope that somehow Carolina could make it all the way back to the national title game and grab hold of what slipped away in the second half against Kansas in 2022. It’s not impossible, but it’s also not impossible Carolina could slip up at a much earlier point. This is still an imperfect team that must be at or near its best every night, especially defensively, to win.
That’s why it’s wisest to take a few moments now to enjoy and appreciate what this team already has done—something few expected at the beginning of the year, and that many doubted even a few weeks ago when the Tar Heels were 11-3 and had lost three of five games.
Because whatever else happens this season, 2023-2024 has already been (quite literally) a banner year for Carolina basketball.
Go Heels!
Thad Williamson, who grew up in Chapel Hill, is Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. He is author of More Than a Game: Why North Carolina Basketball Means So Much to So Many (2001).
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