A 2025 Year-in-Review of UNC sports in the AP Top 25

SB Nation

Usually in the early part of the week, one post that gets published here at Tar Heel Blog is our weekly rundown of the AP Top 25 rankings. With football now into bowl season — and UNC not particularly

relevant in 2025 — and basketball season in full swing, we usually take a look at the newest AP Poll and highlight where the UNC men’s and women’s basketball teams landed.

However, with there not being a particularly large amount of games last week over Christmas, the AP is not releasing new polls this week. Therefore, instead of just reposting the same rankings as last week, I thought we could use these final couple days of 2025 to look back at how the various Tar Heel teams performed in this year’s AP Top 25 rankings, which for the purposes of basketball at least, includes the end of last season.

Men’s Basketball

Current Ranking: #12

Weeks Ranked: 8 (out of a possible 20)

Highest Ranking: #12 (first on 12/15, still currently)

End of 2024-25 Ranking: none

Preseason 2025-26 Ranking: #25

UNC’s 2025 in men’s basketball has been a tale of two halves. The Tar Heels quite famously struggled on the court for much of the stretch run of last year’s basketball season, as they barely squeaked into the NCAA Tournament, having to take part in the First Four. They won a game in Dayton, but then lost to Ole Miss in the first round, ending the season on a whimper.

However, coach Hubert Davis remade the roster over the offseason, and so far it’s paid off. Caleb Wilson looks like a star, Henri Veesaar has been the perfect fit in the frontcourt, and the team has answers all over the court in general. Carolina is 12-1 on the season so far, and have a couple of potential big wins for the résumé come tournament time. They still have to prove it now in ACC play, but the Tar Heels are in a good place going into 2026.

Women’s Basketball

Current Ranking: #16

Weeks Ranked: 20

Highest Ranking: #8 (2/24 last season)

End of 2024-25 Ranking: #14

Preseason 2025-26 Ranking: #11

On the other side of things, the UNC women have appeared in every AP Poll in 2025. They were a good team last year, getting an NCAA Tournament #3 seed and advancing to the Sweet 16. (The less said about what happened there, the better.) They started out this year ranked, and while they’ve slid a little bit from where they started the year, they’re still on track to earn another high seed come tournament time.

Coach Courtney Banghart’s team’s issue both this season and last is that they’ve been a good team, they just haven’t been able to take the step to great. They’ve played games against the UConns and South Carolinas of the world, they just haven’t been able to pull off a win. The potential is certainly there for the program to get to that tier, but they’re not there yet.