Tag: UNC Tar Heels

Second half collapse costs North Carolina Victory Bell at Duke

Defense collapses as UNC gives up another win from their hands.

After going up 17 at the halftime break and 20 in the third quarter, UNC failed to put any more points on the board and the defense which held Duke to zero points in the first half, gave up 20+ unanswered points in the last quarter and a half.

Throughout the game, the defensive backs for North Carolina were on different pages every drive. One drive, they have Jordan Moore and Eli Pancol locked down and the next, they are letting Murphy do anything he wants.

For example, in the fourth quarter of the drive by Duke that led to the Star Thomas two-yard touchdown run, the backs had multiple miscues. They gave up a 43-yard pass to Moore from Murphy followed by Kaleb Cost pass interference in the end zone on a 3rd and 5 that gave the Blue Devils first and goal leading to a score that put the game within one score.

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On the ensuing drive by Duke after a punt by North Carolina, Murphy had four straight incompletions on great plays by Cost, Alijah Huzzie, and Marcus Allen that had the Duke receivers locked down.

On top of that, the front seven allowed Thomas and Peyton Jones to run all over them totaling 200 yards on the ground between the two of them with two scores.

If this team is going to be successful this season, the defense is going to have to find some sort of consistency. If they come out and shut teams down through the air and upfront, this could be an undefeated team. However, for the second straight week, the defense has cost UNC a win.

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UNC coach Hubert Davis adds first recruit in his Class of 2025

Hubert Davis gets on the board with his first Class of 2025 commit!

The Class of 2025 has been a rough one for recruiting in the eyes of Hubert Davis. Over the past couple of months, they have lost a handful of recruits and several of them to blue-blood rivals like Kentucky.

On top of actually losing recruits, several have shifted their desires and predictions. However, UNC is still in the running for the top overall player of the year in AJ Dybantsa who was just at Chapel Hill.

Hubert Davis also just boosted his presence by getting his first recruit of the class Derek Dixon on Friday. The combo guard from Washington, D.C., is the No. 51 overall player in the class as a four-star recruit with a 247 composite of .9782.

The 6-foot-4, Gonzaga High School basketball star has been dominating this season. According to Adam Finkelstein, “He thinks and understands the game at a high level and is both efficient and versatile with the ball in his hands. He’s a very good three-point shooter, with a compact release, and yet good loft and rotation”

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Dixon will be an excellent addition to the UNC family and it also puts UNC on the map for other recruits who may have had hesitations due to the Heels’s lack of commitments to this date.

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UNC wide receiver among semifinalist for Campbell Trophy

A Tar Heels receiver has made the semifinal list for the Campbell Trophy!

Senior Tar Heel receiver J.J. Jones is up for another award after being named a semifinalist in the Campbell Trophy. This season, Jones has played in four games for North Carolina and has 11 receptions for 175 yards in a slow start to the season. He is still waiting on his first score of the year.

He is coming off of his best season in his junior year where he totaled 46 receptions for 711 yards and three touchdowns in Drake Maye’s final season.

According to the Football Foundation, “Celebrating its 35th year, the Campbell Trophy recognizes an individual as the absolute best football scholar-athlete in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance, and exemplary leadership.”

This year, there was a record number of 203 semifinalists. This number is two more than the previous 201 record.

“The impressive list of candidates, from all NCAA divisions and the NAIA, boasts an impressive 3.63 average GPA, with more than half of the semifinalists having already earned their bachelor’s degrees.”

Jones has plenty of season left to continue to step up after having his best offense game in the 70-50 loss to James Madison. This week, the team will head on the road to take on Duke in the Victory Bell Battle.

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Two guards will represent UNC at ACC Media Day

These two long-time Tar Heels will represent UNC at the ACC Tip-off Event.

North Carolina basketball is almost ready to start playing. Practice has begun and Hubert Davis is heavily into how the two new freshmen will work into the rotation and who will step up in place of those players who departed.

On top of that, the ACC’s full schedule was released earlier this week. The Tar Heels now know all of their conference opponents, where they will be headed on the road, the stretch that might prove the toughest.

With the ACC Tip-off Event just a couple of weeks away, Hubert Davis has decided which players on the team will attend the media day with him. Historically, head coaches and two or three main contributors from the team take part in this event.

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Davis has selected fifth-year guard and reigning ACC Player of the Year, RJ Davis, and Seth Trimble. Despite Trimble hitting the transfer portal this offseason before deciding to return to North Carolina, he still proves to be a key contributor on defense this season.

This will be our first opportunity to see how the players and coaches feel about their chances in the upcoming season.

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ACC releases full 2024-25 conference basketball schedule for UNC

UNC will look to go undefeated in conference play with this schedule for the upcoming school year.

Practices for the 2024-25 college basketball season have been underway for a couple of days and play will begin in just over a month. North Carolina now has their Atlantic Coast Conference schedule.

The Tar Heels will open up conference play in the ACC on December 7 against Georgia Tech at home. It will take a short break before taking on Louisville at home on January 1 to start the thick of conference play.

UNC will not head out west as California and Stanford, the two new ACC West Coast teams will come out to Carolina.

The Heels will take on rival Duke on February 1 for the first of the two matchups with that one at Cameron Indoor Stadium. They will welcome Duke back to the Dean E. Smith Center at the conference finale on March 8.

Below is the full ACC schedule for North Carolina:

(All times ET)

  • Dec 7 vs Georgia Tech, 2 pm
  • Jan 1 vs Louisville, TBD
  • Jan 4 at Notre Dame, noon
  • Jan 7 vs SMU, 9 pm
  • Jan 11 at NC State, 4 pm
  • Jan 15 vs Cal, 7 pm
  • Jan 18 vs Stanford, 2:15 pm
  • Jan 21 at Wake Forest, 9 pm
  • Jan 25 vs Boston College, 2:15 pm
  • Jan 28 at Pitt, 9 pm
  • Feb 1 at Duke, 6:30 pm
  • Feb 8 vs Pitt, TBD
  • Feb 10 at Clemson, 7 pm
  • Feb 15 at Syracuse, 6 pm
  • Feb 19 vs NC State, 7 pm
  • Feb 22 vs Virginia, 4 pm
  • Feb 24 at Florida State, 7 pm
  • Mar 1 vs Miami, TBD
  • Mar 4 at Virginia Tech, 7 pm
  • Mar 8 vs Duke, 6:30 pm

UNC closes out its season with four of its last six conference games at home with only Florida State and Virginia Tech in those two road games.

The Tar Heels will take this schedule get back to practice and begin to work towards another ACC regular season and tournament championship this year.

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Nassir Little finds second chance with this NBA franchise

Former UNC basketball forward Nassir Little get picked up by the Miami Heat for another shot at making a role on an NBA team.

With training camp just days away and this former UNC forward still sitting on free agency, the likelihood of him earning a contract at that point looked bleak. That was until his phone rang with this franchise on the other line.

Nassir Little spent one season with North Carolina in 2019 as a freshman. In 36 games as a Tar Heel, Little averaged 9.8 points and 4.6 rebounds per game. Despite having developing to go, Little left after his freshman season for the NBA.

He was selected as the No. 25 overall pick in the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft by the Portland Trailblazers. He went on to spend four seasons in Portland never averaging more than 10 points and six rebounds per game.

In his best season, he averaged 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game in 25.9 minutes per game. He started 23 games that season for Portland.

Last year, he spent the season on the Phoenix Suns playing in 45 games and starting just two. He averaged 3.4 points and 1.7 rebounds per game in just 10 minutes per game.

He was not re-signed after his one-year contract in Phoenix and has been sitting on free agency since. However, this week, he received a call and signed a one-year deal with the Miami Heat for the upcoming year.

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UNC doesn’t have biggest fall in USA Today’s Week 4 CFB re-rank

UNC falls but not as much as some other teams after Week 4 loss to JMU

It is no secret that the North Carolina football team had a rough weekend. The team went in undefeated and not only came out with a loss, but they have been laughed at, mocked, and dismayed since the close of the 70-50 loss to James Madison at home.

Fans left at halftime, the boos rained in, and it was nothing that anyone wanted to be a part of. After the game, turmoil ensued in the locker room surrounding the topic of Mack Brown and his job and potential resignation.

However, despite the misery, North Carolina did not plummet in USA Today’s latest college football re-rank as everyone had anticipated.

They did fall, specifically from No. 36 to No. 50; however, the 13-rank drop was not even the largest of the weekend. Nebraska dropped 13 spots as did Georgia Tech, Memphis, and Minnesota.

There were also plenty of teams that saw a bigger drop than UNC football experienced. Toled dropped 21 spots; TCU dropped 16; Northern Illinois dropped 16, NC State dropped 21; Coastal Carolina dropped 16; Arizona dropped 15; and Kansas dropped 18.

Was last weekend rough on North Carolina? Yes. Was it the end of the season and hope? no. We are not the only program going through tough Week 4 losses.

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UNC men’s basketball opens up practice for 2024-25 season

UNC men’s basketball opens practice today with sights set on an NCAA Championship.

While the UNC football team might look in disarray, the men’s basketball team is hyped up and ready to start practicing with eyes set on another National Championship for one of the most distinguished programs in collegiate history.

North Carolina is bringing back fifth-year senior RJ Davis who is the reigning ACC Player of the Year as well as adding two major transfers in Cade Tyson from Belmont and Ven-Allen Lubin from Vanderbilt.

On top of that, the team also added freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell to bolster the team. Jalen Washing and Jae’Lyn Withers are expected to step up and take on big roles as is Elliot Cadeau in his second season with the team.

Sean May is quoted in the hype video saying, “Every day we set out, the first day of practice, the first day of summer, coach said, ‘You guys are good enough. You guys are good enough to be there in the end, but will you do it?'”

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This team is poised for greatness, but they will only rise as far as they want to. Their effort and self-will can propel them to the seventh National Championship in North Carolina history, and it starts today.

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UNC football commit almost flawless over weekend

UNC has some high hopes for the future with Bryce Baker coming to town.

While UNC looked anything like a stellar team over the weekend, their Class of 2025 quarterback commit looked the best he has all season. The ironic part about the situation is that UNC has had such a quarterback controversy over the past three weeks of play.

Bryce Baker, a four-star quarterback our of Kernersville, North Carolina, put his talents on display over the weekend as his high school, East Forsyth, took to the road to take on Reagan High School.

They ended up dominating the game, winning 69-21 in a conference matchup. Baker threw for 213 yards and four touchdowns in the win while also running six times for 18 yards.

Baker completed 17 passes seeing just one of his 18 attempts fall to the ground in an incompletion. The near-perfect outing for Baker adds to the stellar play that the quarterback has had to begin his senior year.

Baker is now up to 1,288 yards and 14 touchdowns with one interception this year. He has completed 79% of his passes which is up from 66.6% last season. He is also averaging 65 yards per game more than he did in his junior year.

The future is bright at the quarterback position for North Carolina.

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UNC comes in atop the Misery Index after Week 4 loss

Misery… a word used to describe the state of UNC football following a 70-50 loss in Week 4.

UNC football went into Week 4 of the college football season undefeated and feeling good. It took just one quarter in the home game with James Madison for the Tar Heels to lose that feeling.

Despite bouncing back and forth with some key mistakes on the Heels side, the first quarter was only a 25-14 game. However, the second quarter is where all hope was thrown out of the window as JMU scored 28 points to UNC’s seven in the quarter leading 53-21 at the break.

To add to the mayhem, North Carolina didn’t produce any player for the media after the game and reports swirled after the postgame talk in the locker room of Mack Brown’s status as the head coach at UNC going forward.

With all that emotion and commotion in the air, North Carolina was on top of USA Today’s College Football Misery Index after Week 4.

It’s sad and uncomfortable and uncouth to talk about so bluntly, but even a beloved Hall of Famer like Brown reaches a point where it no longer makes sense to run a college football program that is trying to win at the highest level. Losing in such an awful fashion to James Madison will supercharge that conversation. And that’s why North Carolina is No. 1 in the Misery Index, a weekly measurement of which fan bases are feeling the most angst.

Bubba Cunningham and North Carolina will have decisions moving forward, but foremost of the conversation, Mack Brown needs to find a way to get back on the winning side as the team goes back on the road against a good Duke team to open up ACC play.

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