North Carolina ran Cinderella in the 2022 NCAA Tournament, but ended up just three points short of the national title game after entering the tournament as the No. 8 seed. If North Carolina returns to that level in this year’s tournament, it’s much more likely to be the favorite.
CBS Sports Bracket Scholar Jerry Palm Predict 2023 NCAA Tournament Fields, complete with a full seed. And Palm saw North Carolina earn the No. 1 seed in the East and his third No. 3 seed overall.
“At the end of the regular season, the Tar Heels needed to heat up just to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament,” Palm wrote. , lost to Kansas in the title game and fell short of the U.S. championship.Almost all of them came back to try again.Even though many of the players came back, big runs from the low seed.UCLA will go first in 2021. From the Four to the Final Four and the next season they were in the top four of everyone. The Bruins ended up being the No. 4 seed, which is a pretty reasonable jump.North Carolina is also up quite a bit from last season I should.”
North Carolina returns four starters from last year’s team, including preseason ACC Player of the Year Armando Baco. and the northwest transfer Pete Nance Brady Manek should fit in the open space left by his graduation from the college game, and Nance should join a few newcomers and greatly increase the depth of Tar Heels.
“I don’t like playing five,” North Carolina manager Hubert Davis said at a summer press conference about team thickness. Via Inside Carolina“It was the first time all year that I thought they were tired when I played Kansas. We were huddling in the second half. RJ was using thumpers on both calves. I felt like they were tired.They gave this.Team up all they had.I don’t want to play with 5 people.I want more rotations.
That lack of depth likely cost the Tar Heels a national championship, as North Carolina got banged and worn in the title game. That may not matter this year.
“I’m not going into the season saying I want to play 10 guys, I want an eight-man rotation, they decide,” Davis said. “The five guys who played a lot last year, especially towards the end of the year, decided that by their play in practice every day. It was confirmed by their play in the game.
“We now have 12 people on the team (now with Nance we have 13). Play. It’s up to the player to decide what the rotation is and how much time they get.”
