Written by DAVID GLENN
In the history of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which started way back in 1939, no team — from any school — had ever overcome a 19-point deficit to win a first-round game.
Until now.
VCU, the Atlantic-10 Conference champion and a #11 seed in this year’s Big Dance, rallied from 19 points down to defeat #6 seed UNC on Thursday night, sending the Tar Heels home from Greenville, S.C., in quick and inglorious fashion. In their final three games of the 2025-26 season, the Heels lost by 15 to archrival Duke, by one to Clemson in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals, and by four — 82-78 in overtime — to VCU in the NCAA round of 64.
Fifth-year UNC coach Hubert Davis, who led the Tar Heels to the 2022 NCAA title game and the 2024 ACC regular-season championship, now also has his signature on one of the biggest postseason collapses in Carolina basketball history. Previously, the Heels had been 48-1 in the Big Dance when leading by double digits at halftime.
The Tar Heels’ devastating loss to the Rams included the continuation of some of UNC’s most alarming regular-season themes during an otherwise solid 24-9 season.
After playing the worst 3-point defense in the ACC during the regular season, Carolina allowed VCU to shoot a sizzling 42 percent from long range, with most of that damage coming in the second half, when the Tar Heels squandered an 11-point halftime lead.
VCU’s offensive resurgence was led by guard Terrence Hill Jr., who scored 34 points and made seven of 10 3-point shots against UNC. That continued a familiar trend in which the opponent’s leading scorer, despite assumedly being circled on Carolina’s scouting report, far exceeded his season average. Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears, SMU’s Boopie Miller and Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie were other star guards who did something similar in three of the Tar Heels’ regular-season losses.
Finally, UNC — one of the worst free throw shooting teams in ACC play, at approximately 69 percent — repeatedly missed key opportunities from the charity stripe down the stretch against VCU, ultimately hitting just 12 of 20 free throws, for a woeful 60 percent.
Everyone realizes that the 2025-26 Tar Heels’ biggest dreams ended weeks ago, when two injuries to star freshman Caleb Wilson derailed any realistic hopes of a long postseason run. One-and-done exits at both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments, though, represented an embarrassing ending to the season for one of the most prominent programs in college basketball history.
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Featured photo via AP Photo/Brynn Anderson.
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