It’s no secret the 2022-23 season was a disaster for the UNC basketball program. It began the season as the preseason No. 1 and had national title aspirations. But as the season unfolded, it became clearer that the team just didn’t have it.

Eventually, the Tar Heels didn’t even get a shot at redemption, missing the NCAA Tournament and becoming the first preseason No. 1 to do so.

But what exactly went wrong? All year it felt as if this team wasn’t playing with passion and looked as if it was just going through the motions. Now, a pair of UNC legends are echoing those thoughts.

Antawn Jamison was a guest on Vince Carter’s podcast “The VC Show” this week to talk about their careers at UNC, the NBA and their friendship among other things. One of the big topics that came up was the struggles of this UNC team.

Jamison pointed to a visit he took to Chapel Hill this summer and had an alarming story to tell Carter:

“The feel for the game is not there. Vince, remember all the open runs that we had? I went to Chapel Hill the first day they were able to play pick-up. They played that day, and I told the team, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. You’re going to play tomorrow, right?’ They said, ‘Nah, we are scheduled to play next week.’ I was like, ‘Huh?’

“For us, we got a basketball scholarship to play at the University of North Carolina. Vince, we played every single day. We’ve got these guys that can dribble through their legs and do all this other stuff, but the feel for the game, the chemistry, and the competitiveness has taken a step back.”

(Transcribed via Grant Huges of Inside Carolina)

Well, that doesn’t sound good.

I don’t know if we should put that on the players, the coaches or both but that doesn’t sound ideal for a team that spent all offseason saying they were one rebound away from winning a national championship.

Playing at the University of North Carolina, you have to have a passion to play and practice whenever you can. That’s especially true for a team that had ‘redemption’ on its mind. But for this group, it doesn’t seem like the players had it all together in terms of chemistry. And that certainly showed all season.

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