Welter: Cormac Ryan has already cemented a place in Carolina history and he's not done yet

By Pat Welter

Choose a shot, better yet a celebration and you've got your iconic image from Cormac Ryan's career night in an 84-79 win over Duke.

"I was telling everybody he's sick in the head, he's psychotic," Armando Bacot said during a post game interview scrum that felt more like a pro wrestling promo. "Having a psychotic guy like that stuff like this happens so we love it."

Ryan scored 31 points versus Duke, the most by a Tar Heel versus the Blue Devils since Antawn Jamison's 35 in 1998. It was the most by a Tar Heel at Cameron Indoor Stadium since Hubert Davis' 35 in 1992.

"His ability to be able to make shots, but even just as important his experience," Davis said after the game. "Having a guy that's been on this stage even though it was another school, he's played here he understands what it takes."

Ryan transferred to Carolina this season after four seasons at Notre Dame. One of those was a redshirt when he sat out the 2019-20 season following a transfer from Stanford. As a six year player Ryan really has played through it all, from a pandemic to the dawn of new transfer rules and NIL.

"It's been kind of a crazy journey," Ryan said when I sat down with Ryan at an empty Smith Center before a Carolina practice in late February. "I would have never imagined this is the way it would play out, but I'm grateful for every moment of it."

Ryan's firey personality and late season shot making are starting to echo another successful Hubert Davis era transfer, Brady Manek. In Manek's six game run to the 2022 National Championship he scored at least thirteen points in every game including 28 in an opening round win over Marquette and 26 versus No. 1 seed Baylor. Last season Manek's competitiveness and leadership were missed, Davis has found similar ingredients this year in Ryan.

"It doesn't matter shoot around practice, obviously games, but shoot around and practice he's locked in," Hubert Davis said during a weekly press conference in late February after I asked him about Ryan's intangibles. "His energy, his effort, his attention to detail, his enthusiasm."

"When I was here at Carolina one of the things I was thankful for was I had older players that showed me that way," Davis continued. "Just having older guys showing you how to put yourself in the best position to be successful. I'm thankful that our younger guys have Cormac here."

One example of what Davis is talking about, Ryan has been freshman Elliot Cadeau's roommate on the road.

"I love Elliot he's been amazing for us," Ryan said. "I'm still a college student, I'm a kid at heart, part of this is having fun with your teammates with your brothers, laughing and goofing around and enjoying this process."

Carolina's older players are thankful for Ryan too, even if it's just to have someone older than them on the roster.

"He acts old, I'll say that," Bacot said who at 24 years old is the second oldest behind Ryan at 25. "He definitely does a lot of immature stuff too. It's funny seeing him and Elliot interact, them joking around with each other."

As many prestigious schools as Ryan has attended, the family legacy was never in the cards. His mother Rosemary played soccer at Yale, his father, Mike, basketball at Yale, same with his brother Thomas.

"It's been magical and I don't say that lightly," Rosemary Ryan said on Cormac's season at UNC. "This is like basketball heaven and from the minute we came on a visit we were just embraced so warmly by, they call it a family for a reason."

One of five Ryan siblings, Cormac grew up in the SoHo and Greenwich Village area of Manhattan in New York City. He's enjoying basketball heaven, but he's from the Mecca.

"The history of basketball in New York City is long and robust," Cormac said. "We grew up playing in park leagues, going up playing in the Bronx, in Harlem, playing in Brooklyn, kind of playing with coaches and players who grew up in the city who knew what it was all about. I was fortunate to get a deep understanding of how to compete."

"Our parish church, St. Anthony's had a school attached to it with a gym," Rosemary said. "Father Joe, who is the pastor, gave us a key to the gym. So at night after dinner Mike would take Cormac, his brother Thomas, Owen, our daughter Summer, but mainly Cormac and Thomas over every night and they would practice basketball."

"The key to the St. Anthony's gym was probably the most prized possession in the Ryan family," Mike Ryan said. "We'd go there after dark and shoot hoops until the wee hours of the morning."

You could say Ryan was raised to play on the big stage, and in his college career he's delivered. At Notre Dame he scored 28 in a win at Cameron Indoor Stadium. In his one trip to the NCAA tournament he scored his previous career high of 29 points in a win over Alabama. His seven three pointers were a Notre Dame tournament record. Now that he's wearing Carolina blue he can't wait to get back there again.

"The NCAA tournament is like no other," Cormac said. "Being able to get back there with this group is something, that's why I came to Carolina is to win a national championship and to play in the NCAA tournament and I couldn't think of a better group to do it with so we are all really excited."