Familiarity, defense will mark Sweet 16 battle between UNC Women’s Basketball and Duke
UNC and Duke have played 110 times in women’s basketball, but never on a bigger stage as they will Friday. It’s a product of the ACC getting eight teams into the field that the first NCAA tournament meeting between the rivals will take place in the Sweet 16, on Friday in Birmingham, Alabama. “It’s something super special,” forward Alyssa Ustby said. (Tar Heel Tribune
Hubert Davis: “We’ve Got to Get Bigger” Through the Transfer Portal
“We’ve got to get bigger,” Hubert Davis said during his weekly radio show. “We just do. From A to Z, we just do. And we talked about the physicality of Ole Miss (in the NCAA Tournament) and their positional size was bigger than us. And pretty much that’s the way we were the whole season. So that’s one of the things that we’re definitely going to address”
UNC Women’s Basketball Pre-Duke Sweet 16 Press Conference Video and Transcript
The No. 3-seed UNC women’s basketball team met with the media Thursday ahead of its Friday Sweet 16 clash with No. 2-seed Duke. For the Tar Heels, it was Coach Courtney Banghart, Alyssa Ustby, and Reniya Kelly at the press conference, in addition to locker-room interviews with Lexi Donarski, Indya Nivar, Maria Gakdeng, Lanie Grant, and Grace Townsend. (Tar Heel Tribune)
Chansky’s Notebook: Just Too Small
Despite the preseason confidence shown by Hubert Davis, the media reported from Day One that the Tar Heels were just too small. Two 6-foot guards in Elliot Cadeau and R.J. Davis and no true big man to succeed Armando Bacot. Despite coming off an ACC regular-season championship in 2024, this season’s North Carolina lineup had size problems. (Chapelboro.com
