NCAAB analyst compares UNC Tar Heels' Hubert Davis' season to a "car accident"

The University of North Carolina Tar Heels has been a fixture of college basketball dating back to the days of legendary coach Dean Smith. They have basically been ACC stalwarts since the late 1960s, winning conference championship after conference championship, and a few more national championships along the way. The March Madness isn’t complete without a UNC sighting in the bracket.

This season though has been different. The Tar Heels being a part of the March dance this 2025 is far from a certainty. In the fifth year of the Hubert Davis era, UNC missing March Madness for a second time is still pretty much a possibility.

Missing a trip to the big dance will be unprecedented as the previous head coach, also-legendary Roy Williams, only missed the national tournament once in his 18 years at the helm (two if there was a postseason in the COVID year).

Ahead of the Tar Heels’ most important week of the season, where they’re in the bubble heading into Selection Sunday, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi evaluated where they currently stand.

“They’re North Carolina. We can’t turn our eyes away. It’s like a car accident. Their season, in some ways, has been like a car accident,” Lunardi said, via SportsCenter. “1-11 in Quad One. They’re getting tired of hearing it. We’re getting tired of saying it. But eventually they’ve got to get into and win a couple of those games.”

The Tar Heels have since beaten Notre Dame 76-56 and Wake Forest 68-59 to bolster their case for a berth in the postseason tournament. The good news for them is a win over Duke Friday night will go a long way in assuring them their place, the bad news is that they just lost to the Blue Devils less than a week ago at home. It’s all hands on deck for RJ Davis, Ian Jackson and crew to try and get a win to keep their playoff hopes alive.

Breaking down Tar Heels’ “car accident” season

North Carolina has had a rough 2024-2025 season, sitting currently in fifth place on the ACC standings at 22-12 with a conference record at 13-7. They had a brutal schedule this season, especially in non-conference games, where they had to go through Michigan State, Auburn, Alabama and Florida with all four of them losses. Against Quad 1 teams, they only have one win and that was back in December against UCLA.

Bad losses to conference rivals Pitt and Stanford also doomed them to their current position.

With a lot of outlets predicting the Tar Heels as a First Four Out or On the Bubble, a win over Duke Friday night will be a good statement against those predictions, but a loss would be equally as disastrous to their March Madness prospects.