Breaking News:Tar Heels receive very unpleasant news the question is,how’s Hubert Davis going to handle it

Jae’Lyn Withers watched Selection Sunday with his teammates, knowing they’d be one of the 68 teams extending their season — an assurance he didn’t previously feel in his college career.

It wasn’t lost on him that a trip to the NCAA Tournament had evaded him for three years while he was at Louisville. Just last season, he and the Cardinals were at the back of the line in the ACC standings.

It kind of hit me a little bit last night when I was reflecting on it,” Withers said. “I don’t know, I’m still trying to take it all in.

Withers isn’t alone in his gratitude for being in the tournament this season. Of the 12 non-freshmen on North Carolina’s roster, 11 missed out on last year’s NCAA Tournament.

UNC’s five transfers have made a combined three trips to the NCAA Tournament. Cormac Ryan played in three games with Notre Dame, James Okonkwo competed in the Round of 64 with West Virginia last season, and Paxson Wojcik was on the 2020-21 Loyola-Chicago team that reached the Sweet Sixteen.

North Carolina’s returning players — Armando Bacot, RJ Davis, Duwe Farris, Creighton Lebo and Rob Landry — have played in 17 tournament games, making the Big Dance twice prior to this season.

Mostly everyone on the team is either making their March Madness debut or returning after multiple years away. The stakes are much different from what some of the players on the roster are used to — including the team’s two freshmen — and Hubert Davis is aware of it.

It’s the first for a lot of guys,” the UNC head coach said. “Our job and our expectation is to be the best that we can be really in three areas that we’ve identified all year, for us to be really good defensively, rebounding the basketball, and taking care of the basketball. But most importantly, I want these guys to enjoy this experience and have fun