1. vs. NCA&T 11/09/21. Good ACC teams are supposed to take first game (i.e. typically lesser non-con) opponents to the woodshed, so the 92-47 win here was simply meeting expectations. This one was important nonetheless, for two reasons: 1. The Aggies made The Dance in 2021 via the most exciting non-Heels game I watched last season when they clinched the MEAC title over Howard. Even having lost some important players, they were not exactly a team to be taken lightly. 2. This set the blueprint and provided the thesis statement on what Carolina could be at their best this year. The sophomores were what jumped out right away. Deja was a step faster on the floor and ten steps faster in processing the game and making quick, smart passes. Toddy's handles and shooting range had evolved to match her already phenomenal defense. 'Lys had added several new gadgets to her Swiss Army Knife game. And Anya's strength, footwork, and positioning in the post had amped up considerably. Pair all that with the arrival of stellar guard Carlie Littlefield, reunited with Coach Bang in Chapel Hill after their time together at Princeton, and the potential of this starting five was suddenly immense. Off the bench, Eva showed exactly why Coach had picked her up out of the portal with lethal shooting and her constant communication on defense. Lu was more confident offensively and more shifty/crafty on defense. Mo and Des, the (not-injured) freshmen, immediately flashed their capabilities. And, of course, Jaelynn, the unquestioned heart and soul of this team, would make her presence felt on-court or off, because it's what she does and who she is. Their overarching ethos was so clear from the opening tip onward. Efficient ball movement, leaking out at breakneck speed in transition, the team-wide all-gas-no-brakes motor, and most of all a relentless and perfectly calibrated defense. It's supposed to take teams with new players and new roles to play (which is to say most teams in most years) a few games to find themselves. The Heels had it all on lock from jump.
2. @ Minnesota 12/01/21. They call basketball arenas "barns" because in the early days of the sport, a lot of games took place in literal ones. They'd clear out the space, hang up some baskets, hastily construct some bleachers, and it was go time. (For a great portrait of this period in women's basketball history, I highly recommend Lydia Reeder's "Dust Bowl Girls.") These days, the last extant and specific reference to this is Williams Arena at The University of Minnesota; AKA "THE Barn." After blowing past every opponent so far by double digits, the Heels went to Minny for a true road test against a B1G opponent. This one was back and forth the whole game, with both teams making runs that could've capped it. Carolina had to dig down for every point and rebound, but pulled out the 82-76 victory in the end. Typical of the year, the box score was a ledger of balanced contributions and shared glory, but this was Anya Poole's night, y'all. 12 points, 16 boards, three dimes and three blocks. Her control of the paint unlocked everything else and stifled the Gophers at every turn. The other four starters and Eva all scored in double digits, with Lys' amazing 19-11(reb.) effort being the other double-double. In their first huge test of the season, UNC passed.
3. @ Boston College 12/19/21. Even the best teams get out over their skis sometimes. Exhibit A from this season would be South Carolina's inexplicable loss to Mizzou, but this one had a strong case as Exhibit B for the Tar Heels, despite eking an eventual 76-73 win. I think Coach Mac is building something very cool and very good up in Chestnut Hill, and it didn't surprise me at all that Boston College came out swinging. That said, UNC might have been glossing over this game a bit mentally, and did not play up to their standard for a good chunk of this game. Carolina led 17-16 after the first quarter, but BC won the next two by a combined 14 points, leaving UNC in a hole going into the final frame. What transpired after that was Carlie and Deja basically deciding "we are NOT losing this game!!!!" They were twin flashes of electric light down the stretch, getting to the rack and to the line, canning clutch J's, and willing the Heels to a 29-13 fourth-quarter scoring margin. Deja finished with a 19-3-4 line and Carlie with 22-3-1. Both had three steals. It must also be noted that this doesn't happen without Eva, who put up a critical 15 points with four boards and five dimes off the bench and came up big on defense as well, especially late in the game. It should have been a less stressful effort, but in the end Carolina kept the record clean, advancing to 11-0 and well on their way to a spectacular year.
4. @ Georgia Tech 01/23/22. Look, I said "Most Defining Games" not best or most fun, OK? This 55-38 shellacking in McCamish Pavilion at the hands of Nell Fortner's squad was horrifying to watch, but also a valuable learning experience. All the beautiful cuts and cross-court passing and outlets on the break that UNC had profited from heretofore were completely neutralized by the Jackets' overwhelming size and length. Tech simply snuffed out and/or staunchly contested anything Carolina tried, leading to 29.1%/23.1%/27.3% shooting splits for the Heels. That 38 points? Their lowest point total of the season. This wasn't just a humbling experience for a team that had mostly been cruising all year. It was an outline of precisely where their limitations were given their relative lack of size, how they'd been exploited, and a back-to-the-drawing-board imperative to make sure it didn't happen again. UNC had been smoked 45-72 two games prior by NC State in Reynolds for largely similar reasons, but getting walloped on the road by an eventual 1-seed in the tourney ain't the same as this. Going forward, this game made Carolina smarter and more careful, though no less ambitious when they had the chance to cook. Literally, metaphorically, and possibly even metaphysically, the Heels had been cutting hard and precise all year. This was the game that tempered the blade.
5. vs. NC State 01/30/22. Sorry to give y'all two L's in a row, but this is the last loss in this rundown, I promise. As alluded to above, Carolina got destroyed in Raleigh, but the game against the Pack in Carmichael was a much different affair. Toddy and Carlie put up a combined 27 points and 11 rebounds and the Heels absolutely scrapped like hell the whole game. If not for State outscoring them 23-11 in the third quarter, UNC might well have won this one. The important thing here was the toughness. They didn't let that first loss get in their heads. They fought. They played their game as flat-out and as hard as they could. It didn't work out, but 66-58 as opposed to the chasm final score of the previous meeting showed how much they'd learned and grown. This was the end of the downswing. After this, it was all apex trajectory. Starting (no disrespect to Jen Hoover and Wake Forest) with ...
6. vs. Miami 02/06/22. This was the game Carolina took the restrictor plate off the car for the rest of the season. The Heels dumped an 85-point barrage on the 'Canes while allowing a total of 38. Miami's scoring totals by quarter: 2, 11, 12, 13. Bear in mind, this Miami squad went on to ball themselves all the way to the ACC Champ Game. Katie Meier's teams are never to be messed with idly. And UNC just flat-out took them apart in every aspect. This was also the Ustby game. Not her gaudiest totals on the year by any stretch, but her most completely dominant performance. 'Lys had 11 points, 10 boards, two dimes, two blocks, and a steal. And y'all, she was just EVERYWHERE. All the time. She did a thousand little things that don't show up in box scores and she did them all game long relentlessly. She wasn't soloing, she was comping; a McCoy Tyner-esque display of understated brilliance. (She's a jazz pianist; the analogy feels apt.) It was how the whole team had already been playing, but this one showed us where subtle tremors could lead to earthquakes. UNC took on a really good team and completely dismantled them. It was exhilarating to witness, and we loved every second of it.
7. vs. Louisville 20/17/22. FINALLY. UNC beat the Cards. Sent 'em out of Carmichael with a big ol' L. More than even NC State, this team had vexed Carolina at every turn over the past ... well, forever or so. This was a collective win. Toddy and Deja poured in the buckets, Carlie and Eva dished and scored as needed, and Anya crashed the glass with some excellent help from elsewhere. This was a battle from jump and both teams were amazing, but the Heels pulled out the dub in the end. Matt Krause's call of Chelsie Hall's last-second trey attempt will ring in our collective ears forever: "It bounces once ... It bounces TWICE ... IT BOUNCES TO THE FLOOR!!!!!" Taking out an eventual 1-seed in The Dance, a conference opponent who has been a world-beater alongside State for the past five years, is the sort of win that can turn a program's fortunes and define the future. Being in Carmichael for this one was pure cathartsis.
8. vs. Duke 02/27/22. This was the All-Vibes game. Senior Day against those ... people, over in Durham, is always a thing. But it wasn't this year; or at least it wasn't the most important thing that day. This one was for Jaelynn Murray, period. Win, lose, whatever, the biggest thing was how Jaelynn came in and immediately started dropping buckets, just flat-out cooking. It was the perfect end to her career in Carmichael. She has been, always, since she stepped on campus, the pulse of this team. And when she went off like that, there were plenty of cheers, but there also was not a dry eye in the house for Carolina fans. Stomping Duke 74-46 was almost an afterthought. If you weren't crying already when Jaelynn buried that last J (I was), you just had to look at the Heels' bench and watch them going absolutely bonkers for our girl. The connection between Jaelynn Murray, this school, these fans, and this place will be eternal.
9. (Technically) @ Arizona 03/21/22. Carolina blitzed past SFA to get out of the first round of the tourney for the first time in a while. Then they had to deal with a phenomenally difficult challenge: A Wildcats team playing in the comforts of home, where they had only lost once all year, and that was to Stanford. This was last year's runner-up for the Natty, a well-coached and well-balanced squad who had been hooping at peak levels all season. It didn't matter in the end. The Heels nonchalantly waltzed into their home gym and delivered a 18-point beat down. This was Toddy's apex-predator game from start to finish. 19 points, seven boards, five dimes, and three steals. Coach Bang has called her the "Scottie Pippen" of this team, but she's also a "Jurassic Park" Velociraptor, a hyper-intelligent and destructive presence whose speed and feel for the game counteracts everything anyone else anyone tries. She is the unquestioned tip of the spear for UNC's suffocating defense. She put all of that on display in this one, and coupled it with a jaw-dropping offensive performance. Throw in Deja dropping 15 and Lys' 12-12, and 'Zona never had a prayer. Making the Sweet 16, especially against this opponent and in these circumstances, was a truly special accomplishment.
10. vs. South Carolina 03/25/22. Every game from #6 onward on this list was a notification of sorts, a steadily mounting stack of evidence that Carolina was to be taken seriously. This one officially flipped the switch in the national conversation from "don't sleep on UNC" to "y'all don't want this smoke." Both Vegas and HerHoopStats had the Gamecocks by double digits prior to tip off. This wound up being a four-point game with two minutes left. Eventually, the Heels fell to the Gamecocks, just like everyone save Mizzou and Kentucky did this year as SC rolled to Dawn Staley's second National Title. But that 61-69 loss told the whole world this team can hang with anyone. Carolina squared up against the best team in the country and made them earn the dub, even without an interior player remotely capable of slowing down NPOY/DPOY/Everything-Else-OY Aliyah Boston, who finished with an insane 28-22 on the night. (PS - a healthy Teonni Key changes this game significantly.) We have to shout out Ali Zelaya here, whose 10 points and three boards off the bench were massive, especially with several Heels in foul trouble. That said, here are three more words: Deja. Freaking. Kelly. On a national stage and in the most intense crucible possible, Deja put up 23-5-3 on 50% shooting with a block and two steals to boot. I may or may not have dragged my laptop to my work-from-home station last season to watch the season opener, and the first thing out of my mouth to Ags afterward may or may not have been "We've got Baby Hollywood." This game showed the world I wasn't far off. This team showed the world that something special is happening in Chapel Hill, and that Carmichael is a PLACE TO BE if you want to watch brilliant, electric, selfless basketball played by a team that is long on talent but longer still on joy and belief.
There's a bit in the co-authors' notes of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's "Good Omens" that has stuck with me ever since I first read it. Pratchett talking about Gaiman: "He's no genius. He's better than that. He's not a wizard, in other words, but a conjurer. Wizards don't have to work. They wave their hands, and the magic happens. But conjurers, now ... conjurers work very hard. They spend a lot of time in their youth watching, very carefully, the best conjurers of their day. They seek out old books of trickery and, being natural conjurers, read everything else as well, because history itself is just a magic show. They observe the way people think, and the many ways in which they don't. They learn the subtle use of springs, and how to open mighty temple doors at a touch, and how to make the trumpets sound."
That was this season of Carolina Women's Basketball. Not magic, but a conjuring. Hard, subtle, painstaking work which produced something that looked and felt like magic, but was far more real and lasting and resonant. This was the jump point. From here, it's off into the Wild Tar Heel Blue Yonder. I can't wait to be in Carmichael for whatever comes next. Go Heels.
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