Despite a devastating loss, North Carolina Tar Heels senior Cormac Ryan showed outstanding maturity following the Sweet 16.
Although they were a No. 1 regional seed in the West, the Tar Heels were eliminated by Alabama in March Madness on Thursday night in Los Angeles. North Carolina lost, 89-87, in a close match against the Crimson Tide.
Following the game, UNC’s RJ Davis was asked about his performance on the court. Davis had 16 points but struggled with his efficiency, shooting 4-of-20 from the field and 0-for-9 on his 3-pointers.
Ryan noticed that Davis was having a difficult time answering the question, so he helped him out. It showed an incredible amount of thoughtfulness.
"We would not be in this position today without RJ Davis and Armando Bacot" 🩵
Cormac Ryan with high praise for his teammates 🙌#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/N4IaciBhi1
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 29, 2024
Here is what Ryan told reporters:
“I gotta chime in here. You guys can write whatever you want about tonight’s game. You can talk about RJ. You can talk about the stats. You can talk about whatever. But we would not be in this position today without RJ Davis and Armando Bacot. Carolina wouldn’t be in this position today without these two guys and so say what you want. There’s just not a true fiber in your being that could actually believe that anything that happened tonight could be the result of something RJ did wrong because RJ’s done something incredible for this team. He’s done stuff that’s never been done before. He’s one of the greatest Tar Heels of all time. For anybody to come and say anything negative about RJ is unacceptable.”
Those are incredibly strong words from Ryan and likely meant a lot to Davis.
