By Adam Lucas DAYTON—That felt good. Carolina opened NCAA Tournament play by obliterating San Diego State in the First Four, rolling to a 95-68 victory that was not as close as the score indicated. After 51 hours of hate, it was a satisfying win. We’ll get to that. But it was also a very, very good display of basketball. Carolina quite simply did everything better than San Diego State. They scored better, defended better, ran better and rebounded better. Maybe that’s making it too complicated.
Here’s the easy version: they were better.
Carolina was better because it had RJ Davis, who became the first Tar Heel ever to go 6-for-6 from three-point range in an NCAA Tournament game. And the Heels had Elliot Cadeau, who played maybe his most complete full game of the season on offense and defense, He scored or assisted on 13 of Carolina’s first 17 field goals and several of his 12 assists were gorgeous.
It was the full trio of UNC guards that SDSU couldn’t stop. Seth Trimble scored 16 points in the game—one more than he scored in his entire NCAA Tournament career prior to tonight. Trimble also was a defensive beast, contesting every dribble and putting a hand in the path of every pass. His effort set the tone the entire night; late in the game, he was still battling for an offensive rebound that turned into a jump ball. Carolina was up by 28 points at the time.
It was supposed to be San Diego State that was the defensive clinician in this game—the Aztecs lead the country in defensive field goal percentage and have a well-earned defensive reputation. But it was Carolina that dictated the game defensively, turning the opponent into purely a jump shooting team, starting from the very first possession when seven-footer Magoon Gwath settled for a three-pointer. Much of that defense turned into offense. In the first 28 minutes of the game, there were eight instances where the Tar Heels scored points within seven seconds of gaining possession. There was a five-minute stretch late in the first half that was indicative of how completely and in how many different ways Carolina dominated the game: At the 9:19 mark, Cadeau lofted an absolutely perfect pass over the majority of the San Diego State defense for a Trimble layup. The Tar Heels went over the Aztecs. Three minutes later, Trimble magically elevated and hung in the air to score over the top of multiple defenders. The Tar Heels went around the Aztecs.
And another minute later, Jalen Washington recognized a switch had him being defended by a smaller player. He decisively called for the ball, received the pass, and made a quick move for two points. The Tar Heels went through the Aztecs.
“We did a number of good things defensively to put us in position to score on offense,” Hubert Davis said.
The performance itself was satisfying. It’s always fun to play well. But it’s even more fun to dominate an opponent when you’ve heard for two days how undeserving you are. How inferior you are. How unworthy. And that was what made these last two days a little jarring. Look, you can criticize Carolina’s record. The Tar Heels lost 13 games this season. It’s fair to critique their play. But so many of the commentators in the last two days let it get personal. It’s not often you get to make a name (or, in the bizarre world we’re living in, even a lawsuit) at North Carolina’s expense. The Tar Heels get clicks. No one ever gained a Twitter follower—which some of these folks value more than oxygen—by making a snarky comment about Xavier. The Tar Heels rarely raise the curtain to outsiders or throw nuggets to the personalities who thrive on attention. It’s just not Davis’s style. So when those same people see an opening to take a shot, they’re going to fire first and consider later.
What was it Armando Bacot said to one of Carolina’s detractors during the 2022 run? “It pissed us all off.”
In Dayton, Carolina looked, felt and played like a team that was a little miffed. One thing is for certain: no one wishes more fervently than San Diego State that a different team had filled that last spot in the field.
“We hear what everyone has been saying,” Seth Trimble said on the Tar Heel Sports Network. “We hear the hate.”
Carolina does seem to recognize that the job isn’t done. Tuesday was a very satisfying victory. But all they’ve done is earn a spot where 64 other teams already reside. Tuesday’s satisfaction can very quickly be Friday’s disappointment if they are less focused against Ole Miss than they were tonight.
The main thing the Tar Heels accomplished on Tuesday was forcing everyone to acknowledge what we’ve all been saying for the last four weeks: this Carolina team is better than the one everyone saw in December and January. You know what? If this was that same team, it would have been a miscarriage of justice for them to participate in the NCAA Tournament.
But the outsiders focusing on the metrics and the numbers obscured the very simple reality that the Tar Heels are simply playing better basketball. Those numbers were compiled by a team that played differently. Something happened after everyone made up their minds about the 2025 University of North Carolina basketball team: they got better. They kept going to practice and they made a couple lineup tweaks and they figured it out. The “experts” were too busy trying to shout as loudly as possible to get on television or get the most interactions on social media to ever really notice. Even on Tuesday night, even in the middle of the rout as Carolina very clearly demonstrated they are one of the best 64 teams, some of those same observers were still trying to figure out a way to justify the stance they’d taken on the Tar Heels. Carolina’s postseason fate has been a topic for months, and the head coach heard none of it. He is allergic to noise. He largely hasn’t watched much television this season. He didn’t watch any of the post-selection shows. He is vaguely aware that some negative comments were made, because he has been asked about it several times, but it’s not as if he has photos of certain personalities taped to his office dart board. He just likes doing what maybe some of those other folks should try at some point: he just watches his team.
“Over the last two months, this team’s commitment to the team is continuing to grow,” Hubert Davis said. “I talked earlier in the year about how quiet this team was. The volume of the voices right now is exactly where it needs to be. In the huddle, on the bus, on the floor—this is a real connected group right now.”
The reward for this team isn’t quieting those who will never really be quiet. The reward is getting to play again.
Davis and the Tar Heels will arrive in Milwaukee in the very early hours of Wednesday morning. And for the first time in months, absolutely no one (who matters) will wonder whether they belong.
