Tar Heels out for redemption
With four starters back, UNC is being compared to ’17 team
Comparisons to North Carolina’s 2017 men’s basketball national championship team began the moment guard Caleb Love announced he’d return last Sunday, giving the Tar Heels four starters back in the fold.
And guard R.J. Davis, whether intentionally or in a Freudian slip, linked the current team to that title team while answering the first question Tuesday night in Kernersville, North Carolina, on the second stop of the Iron Five barnstorming tour.
“It’s a great feeling just to have my brothers back for a redemption year,” Davis told the sold-out crowd of 200, who paid $100 per ticket to attend the event. “To see how far we got, we came up short, but I’m glad to be able to return guys and run it back again next year.”
There, he said it.
Redemption.
Davis said out loud what was privately the name of a text chain Carolina’s returnees created in 2016 after their loss to Villanova in the national title game. It didn’t get revealed until later in the 2016-17 season.
But the Heels are already openly embracing a title chase and all that will come with it. Returning the core that reached the national championship game before falling 72-69 to Kansas could make Carolina the preseason No. 1 team next season.
That’s extremely different than the past year, where the Heels were only ranked in the Associated Press poll for the first two weeks of the season and in the final poll to conclude the regular season — and that was just at No. 25.
Davis told The News & Observer the newfound expectations “motivating,” while adding what had become a team mantra late in the season, to “tune out all outside distractions.” Puff Johnson said the attention is nothing new because playing at UNC always brings out opponents’ best shot. Forward Armando Bacot said it would be a new wrinkle, but he felt prepared for it.
“I’ve never been in a position, since I’ve been here, where we’ve been looked at as the No. 1 team in the country,” Bacot said. “But it’s something that I would say I’m excited for. I don’t feel any pressure because we played in all the big games last year. That
whole Final Four, it doesn’t get any bigger than that.”
Carolina’s been in this position before with a pattern of Final Four losses the previous year before winning the title. It happened in 1981 when the Heels lost to Indiana in the championship game before returning to beat Georgetown in 1982.
It happened in 2008, when the Heels lost to Kansas in the Final Four before returning in 2009 to beat Michigan State for the title. And the last example, the only one current players don’t view as ancient history, was their 2016 loss at the buzzer before beating Gonzaga for the 2017 title.
“We all know about it, we hear stories about just that whole team and their approach going into the next year,” said Bacot, who led the Heels in scoring (16.3) and rebounding (13.1) last season. “That’s something we’re trying to emulate. We definitely want to go back and win that ‘cause we got a taste of what it felt like to be in that big moment.”
Carolina will benefit from two factors that weren’t in play just five years ago. Forward Leaky Black is able to play a fifth year because the NCAA granted a waiver for the 2020-21 season due to the COVID19
pandemic. The ability to make money off Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) also was part of the reason both Love and Bacot, who in past years might have bolted for the NBA draft, didn’t even enter their names to “test the waters.”
Love and forward Brady Manek were the only members of the Iron Five who did not appear on Tuesday.
The Iron Five nickname was coined after the starters played the entire second half of Carolina’s win at Duke to close the regular season, coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final game in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Brady Manek is the lone starter who didn’t have the option of returning since he was a graduate transfer from Oklahoma. He led the Heels in 3-point baskets (98) and 3-point percentage (40.3), and his shooting kept opponents stretched out defensively, allowing the space for Carolina’s guards to drive or Bacot to post up.
And a big question on the Heels’ redemption is figuring out who will replace him in the lineup.
“It’s hard to make up what Brady Manek brought to the table, he’s just such a smart player,” Black said. “His IQ, his fire, his attention to detail was just different. But Puff, Justin, Dontrez (Styles), they’ve been tested. They’ve all stepped up at big moments this past year for us. So I feel like they’ll be ready.”