Although the North Carolina Tar Heels were one of the top seeds going into the NCAA Tournament, they ultimately lost out to 66 other teams.
Despite taking a late lead, they lost to No. 4 seed Alabama 89-87. Their RJ Davis, who had a difficult shooting night, was receiving a lot of criticism after the game. Despite having 16 points in the end, the New York senior’s shot was by no means dropping. He made just four of his twenty field goals, missing all nine of them. As the distraught Davis was talking about his play, former Stanford guard Cormac Ryan made sure to step in and show his teammate and the media exactly how good he was.
“I must add my voice to this. You guys are free to write anything you want regarding the game tonight. It would be possible to discuss RJ and the statistics. You could discuss anything. Without RJ Davis and Armando Bacot, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Without these two players, Carolina would not be in this situation right now.
Say what you want, but there isn’t a true fiber in your body that could genuinely think that anything that occurred today was the consequence of something RJ did incorrectly since RJ has accomplished so much for this team. He has accomplished things never done before. He is among the all-time great Tar Heels. And for somebody to show up and make a disparaging comment
Even though the season didn’t go as planned, the Tar Heels managed to recover from missing the tournament the previous year. A big part of that was Davis, who Ryan made sure to guard. Davis led the team in scoring with 21.2 points per game and won the ACC Player of the Year award. Additionally, he played a crucial role in their championship run from a few years ago.
It remains to be seen what Bacot, Davis, and Ryan will do next, but it is obvious that they have a relationship that will last a lifetime and experiences that they will always cherish.
Prior to moving to North Carolina, Ryan, who began his career at Stanford in 2018–19, spent three seasons as a player at Notre Dame.
