North Carolina’s inclusion as the last at-large team in the 2025 NCAA Tournament bracket sparked debate across the sports landscape over whether it deserved to make the field with a 1-12 Quad 1 record. As the Tar Heels prepare to take on fellow No. 11 seed San Diego State in Dayton, Ohio, in the First Four on Tuesday night, they’ve noticed the naysayers.
“I think we’ve all kind of felt the hate, the disagreement, all that, from everybody outside of the Carolina family and fan base,” junior guard Seth Trimble said. “We’re just running with it. We definitely feel like we’ve got something to prove. We wanted to be better this year, but we deal with the cards at hand.”
The No. 11 seed is the worst UNC has ever had for the Big Dance. But North Carolina reached the Final Four in 2022 as a No. 8 seed. VCU (2011) and UCLA (2021) have also shown that Final Four runs from the First Four are possible.
“For us to be considered an 11 (seed) and to have people asking, ‘do you think you’re a tournament team?’ that irks my soul because I know we are and I know what we’re capable of,” graduate guard RJ Davis said. “It’s really just about proving ourselves right than people wrong.”
If the Tar Heels can get past the Aztecs, they will play No. 6 seed Ole Miss in Milwaukee on Friday with a new lease on life that looked uncertain less than a week earlier.
“What happened in the regular season, what happened in the ACC Tournament is now in the past, and we’re focused on winning some games in March,” Davis said. “We’ve got to have that mindset and that mentality going into it because it can be anyone’s game, and I think that’s been shown previously throughout the whole years of March Madness.”
While the selection committee’s decision to include UNC has been heavily criticized — even by public officials in West Virginia — it was met with joy at least somewhere.
“The excitement was seeing the reaction of the guys when they saw our name being selected to the NCAA Tournament,” UNC coach Hubert Davis said. “As a coach, that’s what drives you. That’s what gives you joy, is to see the reaction and the happiness and the joy from the players.”
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