Welter: By skipping the NIT, Carolina's season mercifully comes to an end

By Pat Welter

"We believe now is the time to focus on moving ahead, preparing for next season and the opportunity to again compete for ACC and National Championships," were the key words from Hubert Davis statement Sunday. UNC declined a spot in the NIT thus mercifully ending a historically disappointing season. If you were in the locker room like I was after Carolina's 68-59 loss to Virginia in the ACC tournament this news didn't come as a surprise.

"I mean I'll play if that's what coach tells us to do, but that's not something I want to do," Armando Bacot said. Bacot and Leaky Black were so ready for the season to be done they went to the bus before returning to the locker room to answer the same questions from the media that we had been asking all season.

"The story of this year was talking about last year," Bacot said when I asked him to contrast this year to last. "It's all we heard from ya'll and stuff we look back on I think it was just an over due long hangover."

If you're a Carolina fan this season probably drove you to a few hangovers or at least gave you a headache. The 2022-23 UNC team is the first preseason number one team to miss the NCAA tournament since the field expanded to sixty-four teams in 1985. Bacot isn't wrong when he says the story of this year was last year. From Carolina's very first game the questions have been about why they don't look like the team who made the national championship a year ago. Even when they won it was rarely convincing enough and when they lost the pressure continued to grow.

"I'm stressed the hell out," Bacot said after a February home loss to Miami. That's when the reality of missing the NCAA tournament really started to set in for Carolina. The previous season they were able to flip the switch and make a run late, there was a belief that could happen again, but it never did.

"Our record is our record," Hubert Davis said after being eliminated in the ACC tournament. "Regardless of our record we have shown through out the entire year that we can compete."

Davis was addressing a question about Carolina's case for the NCAA tournament. With several deep breaths and pauses, Davis was hardly convincing. After the pressure filled season he just had it looked like even his optimism had run out.

I was surprised to see fans on twitter express discontent with Carolina's decision to skip the NIT. I know Roy Williams had the 2010 team play the NIT, but I mean did you really want to see this group potentially fail again? Sometimes you have to lick your wounds and save some face. Even if Carolina won the NIT they'd still be the target of sarcastic humiliation. The benefit of playing would be for the young players to get some experience. We know Leaky Black and Pete Nance are finished. ESPN is reporting that Justin McKoy is transferring. If Bacot, RJ Davis and Caleb Love decide to enter the draft or transfer those young players are going to be it. So I see that side of the argument.

The question we are all still asking is why didn't this work? I remember after their loss to Kansas in the national championship saying on air that all of the starters except Brady Manek could come back. After I said it I kind of regretted it because I thought I might be mocked, no way they'd actually do it, but then one by one they did. It was a perfect storm of low NBA draft stock, eligibility, NIL and unfinished business. The Tar Heels were preseason number one because their close game experience should have been an edge in a sport with so little continuity. Instead that experience turned into a weakness. There was no joy to Carolina's games this season, playing looked like a job or a chore, especially when contrasted with the enthusiasm and togetherness we saw locally in NC State and Duke.

“I understand that when speaking to the team, whether in the locker room or wherever, I’m not just speaking to them," Davis said after Carolina's 92-85 loss at Wake Forest. "Every time that I speak to the team, I’m speaking to 30 to 40 voices there, not just 18. The voices of the families, the voices of friends, the voices of phones, the voices of agents, the voices of workout guys."

The Wake Forest game was the moment we got a glimpse into what was really going on behind the scenes. Davis admitted there were chemistry issues. Bacot shared that he told the team if they didn't want to be there then quit. RJ Davis later called a players only meeting which led to a 20 point Clemson win followed by back to back losses to Miami and NC State. So we can blame the coaching, we can blame NIL, we can blame Pete Nance and his lemon Oreos, or maybe the answer to this is more simple.

"I guess we just weren't good enough individually," Bacot said in Greensboro when I asked him what the biggest reason was for why this season didn't work.

He makes a good point. This isn't a team of first round draft picks. There's no guarantee any of the starting five get drafted. They were a Cinderella team when they made the national championship. Preseason number one expectations were unfair from the start.

In a lot of ways 2022-23 was a mirror image of 2021-22, last year's team just happened to get hot and a little lucky at the end. Last year's team suffered back to back twenty point losses to Miami and Wake Forest. Last year's team needed an overtime win over Syracuse and a win at then No. 4 Duke to get off the bubble in March. Last year's team needed Caleb Love to become a super hero to beat Syracuse in that OT game, beat UCLA in the Sweet 16 and send Coach K into retirement in the Final Four. The problem with Love this season was he played like he was always one three away from another hot streak and that hot streak would never come.

It's pretty wild, but I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Hubert Davis can go from being viewed as a master motivator to a mistake in a year. The beauty of modern basketball is he can turn it around quickly, just look at Kevin Keatts and NC State. Keatts changed his staff, nailed the transfer portal and has two four stars coming in. Davis has the number one class right now for 2024. In 2023 he needs to find himself the next Tyree Appleby, Jamarius Burton or Brady Manek in the portal or quickly develop the guys he has. Before the 2021 season Davis said "by the time [Dontrez Styles and D'marco Dunn] leave Carolina, they're going to be two of the best players ever to play in Carolina history." Through two seasons Dunn has averaged 2.7 points per game and Styles has averaged 1.4. I'd be shocked if Styles doesn't transfer next.

In the end I feel bad for this Carolina team. They were heroes after making the national championship, now they are the answer to a trivia question. Like most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Playing the NIT wasn't going to prove anything so let's hope they use this extra time wisely, they have a lot to figure out.