The UNC basketball program went into Selection Sunday expecting to miss the NCAA Tournament after failing to do enough towards the end of the season to qualify as an at-large team.
After it became official that the Tar Heels would not be participating in March Madness, they became the first preseason AP No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 to miss the NCAA Tournament since the field expanded in 1985.
The Tar Heels also declined a bid to play in the NIT, ending their 2022-23 season.
But when it was all finished and the entire field was announced, some people still considered UNC to be an NCAA Tournament snub.
“UNC made some painful history Sunday night. The Tar Heels became the first AP preseason No. 1 team to miss the NCAA tournament since the field expanded to 64 in 1985. Despite returning four starters from last year’s national runners-up, North Carolina never came close to recapturing the form it displayed last March. The Tar Heels went 2-9 in Quadrant 1 games — and one of those victories came against an Ohio State team that finished second-to-last in the Big Ten. When North Carolina lost a defensive struggle to Virginia in the ACC quarterfinals, the Tar Heels seemed to know their fate. Asked if he had a “pitch” for why his team deserved an NCAA bid, head coach Hubert Davis said candidly, ‘At the end of the day, we had our chances.'”
The fact that North Carolina was still just the third team out of the field showed how weak the bubble teams were this season but also that if North Carolina had won maybe just one of the numerous games in which it held a second-half lead, it would be dancing.
Instead, UNC is off to find out what its roster will look like next season, expected to be active in the transfer portal.
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