We have been grading all four classes of the 2025-26 Carolina Basketball team this week, and now it is time to grade the entire team. For UNC fans, it probably feels a bit like kicking us while we’re down after finding out yesterday that Tommy Lloyd is signing an extension with Arizona. But the quicker we get this over with, the quicker that we can forget about it and move on…right?
If we’re being honest with ourselves, there were some good moments with the Tar Heels that deserve recognition. Probably
the most enjoyable moment of the season that didn’t involve Duke was beating Kansas in the Dean Smith Center. Caleb Wilson decided to have a coming out party to the tune of 24 points, seven rebounds, four assists, and four steals. It was during that game that it felt like the Heels just might have something special brewing now that they had a bonafide star, an excellent center in Henri Veesaar, and a backcourt in Kyan Evans and Seth Trimble (just as a reminder, they combined for 30 points and six assists in that game).
As the non-conference season progressed, UNC just kept winning with the exception of the game against Michigan State. It felt like an anomaly at the time, and ultimately they would go into ACC play with just the one loss. They took down Florida State in decisive fashion to open up conference play, and then that’s when things started getting frustrating.
When looking at where this season went wrong, the losses against SMU, Stanford, and Cal will tell you everything you need to know. The defense disappeared in those losses, Kyan Evans ended up on a milk carton, and nothing that Wilson, Veesaar, or Trimble did was enough. We also saw Zayden High quite a bit for reasons that I will never understand. The worst part was that nobody could properly explain what was happening. Everyone, including Hubert Davis, knew the team was capable of more, and the players knew it too. But not being able to explain why effort and intensity suddenly went missing was a big reason why we are currently searching for a new basketball coach. Davis isn’t a bad basketball coach, but his negatives were puzzling to say the least.
Still, despite the awful West Coast trip, the Heels rebounded and five-game win streak that included a win over Duke. It felt like things were looking up, but then losses to Miami and NC State gave everyone pause. The NC State loss was troubling, though Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar being injured were fair excuses. Still, it didn’t explain them getting beaten as badly as they did. The vibes felt like they were going downhill, and so did the season as a whole.
To speed things up, the Heels found a way to go on a four-game win streak, Wilson injured his other hand and wouldn’t return for the season, and the team would proceed to lose against Duke, Clemson, and VCU. The games against the Tigers and Rams looked much like the West Coast games, but without Wilson to save them from themselves, the season ended and Hubert Davis was out the door.
When looking at what went right this season, the answer is that Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar were as good as anybody could’ve asked for. The fact that we didn’t get to see these two play together in the NCAA Tournament is painful, and there’s a decent chance that the Heels would’ve won their first tournament game and Hubert Davis would still have a job. Seth Trimble also had a career season, and he will leave Chapel Hill with one of the coolest memories that any Tar Heel can ask for: a buzzer beater over Duke.
As far as what went wrong, the list is a bit longer. First, Kyan Evans did not pan out at all. The start of his season was promising, but it seemed like he was only getting worse as the season progressed. It was said at some point earlier in the season that he did not feel like a proper fit for Hubert Davis’ system, and that turned out to be true. Davis also didn’t get what he would’ve liked out of Jonathan Powell, Luka Bogavac, or Zayden High. The team’s depth by the time the postseason arrived was non-existent, which is a callback to Davis’ inaugural Iron Five season.
Roster struggles aside, Davis was not good at getting effort and consistency out of this team. Roy Williams used to say that you can’t coach effort, but here’s the thing: you can. You 100% can coach effort, and Williams knows that better than anybody. One of his strengths as a head coach was knowing what buttons to press with individual players. He knew how to get through to Brice Johnson, but knew that how he got through to him didn’t work with Kennedy Meeks or Isaiah Hicks. It never felt like Davis knew how to do that. No matter how much many times he yelled, kicked imaginary soccer balls, threw off his glasses, and said funny words to replace swear words, nothing seemed to stick. That’s not a player problem, that’s a communication problem, which is something that we witnessed not only with the players, but with the media as well. Oh, and while we’re on the topic, he wasn’t good at communicating with donors either, which caused issues in the money department. Communication has to be a strength when you are a head coach, and ultimately that was Davis’ downfall.
Overall, it would be unfair to say that Carolina’s season was tragic, but to say that it was a good season would be a lie. Anybody that didn’t watch every single game will tell you that UNC firing Hubert Davis was a wild move and that their season wasn’t that bad, but there were consistent patterns throughout the season that at times were easy to overlook because Caleb Wilson was that good at basketball. These patterns also existed during each season of the Hubert Davis era, and acting like they didn’t exist is disingenuous. But as far as this season goes, a C seems like a fair grade. There were a handful of good moments, some really bad moments, and ultimately they comfortably made it into the NCAA Tournament without having to sweat out Selection Sunday. It was an improvement over last season, but the Heels yet again failed to meet the Carolina standard.
Overall Grade: C
