After failing to make the 2023 NCAA Tournament, the North Carolina Tar Heels have announced that they will be turning down a bid to the 2023 NIT. The team posted a message to social media from Head Coach Hubert Davis announcing that they would be ending their season. North Carolina is the first preseason number-one team to fail to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Had they decided to play in the 2023 NIT, the program would have been a one-seed due to them being one of the four teams listed in the NCAA’s “first four out”.
Tar Heels choose not to participate in 2023 NIT.
?: https://t.co/o6wWdno4uo pic.twitter.com/fIu4NVgX6k
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) March 12, 2023
This season the North Carolina Tar Heels finished with an overall record of 20-13 and an ACC record of 11-9. The team just did not get the quality wins that it needed to make the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Their final game was a loss to the Virginia Cavaliers in the 2023 ACC Tournament. It will be a long offseason in Chapel Hill, North Carolina filled with questions and hopefully answers within the program. The first few questions will be about who will be staying with the program and who will be moving on next season.
Fifth-year senior Leaky Black and graduate transfer Pete Nance will be moving on from college basketball this offseason with no eligibility left, but the questions remain about the three other starters. Armando Bacot, Caleb Love, and RJ Davis can all return if they want to next season. The rest of the bench could also return, but there are rumors about transfers coming in and out of the program. The starters are also not confirmed for next season at this time. Next season the North Carolina Tar Heels will hope for a much better result.