Comparisons to North Carolina’s 2017 men’s basketball national championship team began the moment guard Caleb Love announced he’d return Sunday, giving the Tar Heels four starters back in the fold.
And guard R.J. Davis, whether intentionally or Freudian slip, linked the current team to that title team while answering the first question Tuesday night in Kernersville on the second stop of the Iron Five barnstorming tour.
“It’s a great feeling just to have my brothers back for a redemption year,” Davis told the sold out crowd of 200, who paid $100 per ticket to attend the event. “To see how far we got, we came up short, but I’m glad to be able to return guys and run it back again next year.”
There, he said it.
Redemption.
Davis said out loud what was privately the name of a text chain Carolina’s returnees created in 2016 after their loss to Villanova in the national title game. It didn’t get revealed until later in the 2016-17 season.
But the Heels are already openly embracing a title chase and all that will come with it. Returning the core that reached the national championship game before falling to Kansas, 72-69, could make Carolina the preseason No. 1 team next season.
That’s extremely different than the past year, where the Heels were only ranked in the Associated Press poll for the first two weeks of the season and in the final poll to conclude the regular season — and that was just at No. 25.
Davis told The News & Observer the newfound expectations “motivating,” while adding what had become a team mantra late part of the season to “tune out all outside distractions.” Puff Johnson said the attention is nothing new because playing at North Carolina always brings out opponents’ best shot. Forward Armando Bacot said it would be a new wrinkle, but he felt prepared for it.
“I’ve never been in a position, since I’ve been here, where we’ve been looked at as the No. 1 team in the country,” Bacot said. “But it’s something that I would say I’m excited for. I don’t feel any pressure because we played in all the big games last year. That whole Final Four, it doesn’t get any bigger than that.”
Carolina’s been in this position before with a pattern of Final Four losses the previous year before winning the title. It happened in 1981 when the Heels lost to Indiana in the championship before returning to beat Georgetown in 1982.
It happened in 2008, when the Heels lost to Kansas in the Final Four before returning in 2009 to beat Michigan State for the title. And the last example, the only one current players don’t view as ancient history, was their 2016 loss at the buzzer before beating Gonzaga for the 2017 title.
“We all know about it, we hear stories about just that whole team and their approach going into the next year,” said Bacot, who led the Heels in scoring and rebounding last season. “That’s something we’re trying to emulate. We definitely want to go back and win that cause we got a taste of what it felt like to be in that big moment.”
Carolina will benefit from two factors that weren’t in play just five years ago. Forward Leaky Black is able to play a fifth year because the NCAA granted a waiver for the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The ability to make money off Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) also was part of the reason why both Love and Bacot, who in past years may have bolted for the NBA draft, didn’t even enter their names to “test the waters.”
Tuesday’s barnstorming stop — where they sold “Iron Five” T-shirts with the players faces and numbers and fans had replica jerseys to get autographed — was an example of an event in which players in the past would not have been able to participate until they exhausted their eligibility.
“It allowed me extra leg room to be able to come back and not leave money on the table,” said Bacot, who added that his sprained right ankle that hobbled him in the national title game still hasn’t fully healed, meaning he would have been limited in any NBA workouts anyway.
Black, forward Justin McKoy and football linebacker Cedric Gray were also among the six players present who took questions from the audience then made their way to each table to sign memorabilia and take pictures with fans.
Love and forward Brady Manek were the only members of the Iron Five who did not appear on Tuesday. The next stop is at Concord Mills High School, where Black played, on Thursday and it is also sold out.
The Iron Five nickname was coined after the starters played the entire second half of Carolina’s win at Duke to close the regular season and coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final game in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
Manek is the lone starter who didn’t have the option of returning as a graduate transfer from Oklahoma. He led the Heels in both made 3-pointers (98) and 3-point percentage (40.3) and his shooting kept opponents stretched out defensively, allowing the space for Carolina’s guards to drive or Bacot to post up.
And a big question on the Heels’ redemption is figuring out who will replace him in the lineup.
“It’s hard to make up what Brady Manek brought to the table, he’s just such a smart player,” Black said. “His IQ, his fire, his attention to detail was just different. But Puff, Justin, Dontrez (Styles), they’ve been tested. They’ve all stepped up a big moments this past year for us. So I feel like they’ll be ready.”
As major a role as Manek played, Carolina had more to replace after losing in the 2016 title game when guard Marcus Paige and forward Brice Johnson graduated. The duo accounted for a third of the team’s scoring and Johnson alone was responsible for 25 percent of the team’s rebounding totals.
Even with the transfers of forward Dawson Garcia and guard Anthony Harris, the Heels will return 75 percent of their scoring from last season and 80 percent of their rebounding.
