What we’ve learned from the 2022-2023 season

Now that the UNC basketball program’s NCAA Tournament hopes are all but gone, here are some things we’ve learned from this disappointing season.

Last March was a lot of fun.

The UNC basketball program went on a miraculous run to the national championship game, as the team that no one expected to be in that position proved everyone wrong.

Falling just short of another banner, the main core decided to ‘Run It Back,’ as North Carolina went into the 2022-2023 season with a very high set of expectations.

However, if there’s one word to describe this season, frustration would probably do it. We’ve all witnessed some frustrating losses, but it seems as if this season as a whole was frustrating in itself.

Pending an NIT bid (whether they accept it or not), we might have seen the last of the UNC basketball program this season. Now that mission ‘Run It Back,’ essentially failed, here are some things we’ve learned from this disappointing year of college basketball.

Not Every Team is the Same

We all thought (and I’m guilty of this too) that this group would pick up where they left off last season.

Essentially, the Tar Heels returned four starters from that Final Four team, as the roster looked very similar (other than Pete Nance replacing Brady Manek).

To add to that, North Carolina added depth that we all expected to fill in the void, especially to avoid having to live by the ‘Iron 5’ type of motto.

Although we had hopes of them returning to that level of play, it just simply didn’t happen.

It’s time to be honest: this group just didn’t fit.

They didn’t fit for most of the 2022-2023 season, and if we’re really looking back, other than that NCAA Tournament run a year ago, last year’s group had a lot of the same issues that this year’s squad did. Those issues were covered up by a run to the title game, as we all expected that it just took time to figure it out under then-first-year head coach Hubert Davis.

This should be a lesson learned for us all: regardless of how many players return to the mix, it doesn’t automatically mean that the future group will be successful because of it.

The Pressure Was On (Way too Much)

One thing that college basketball fans seem to forget is that these players are student-athletes.

At a program like North Carolina, student-athletes are expected to carry on the tradition of high-level basketball. Yes, the way of college athletics has changed (especially with the NIL in place), but at the end of the day,…