North Carolina came into the 2022-23 season with massive expectations after reaching the national championship game the season before. However, the Tar Heels stumbled to a wildly disappointing 20-13 record and became the first preseason No. 1 team to miss the NCAA Tournament since 1985. The season's outcome didn't surprise UNC legends Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison, who said the writing was on the wall early in the year.
"We got comfortable and cocky that we had our main core guys returning," Vince Carter said Thursday on his podcast, The VC Show. "I went for a preseason game, and I was a little concerned. We played Johnson C. Smith, and we should have blown them out of the water, and we didn't get it done. It was like, 'OK, it's preseason or whatever.' But all the games were like that, and I got concerned. It felt like we could turn it on, but then it got out of hand."
Jamison says Name, Image and Likeness took the Tar Heels' focus away from basketball last offseason. The Wooden and Naismith Award winner compared the months following UNC's national championship defeat to the work he and his teammates put in following the Tar Heels' loss to Arizona in the 1997 Final Four, their first of two straight national semifinals appearances.
"NIL," Jamison responded when asked what went wrong with the 2022-23 team. "Vince, think about this, after our sophomore year, when we lost to Arizona. We come back. Everyone stays both sessions of summer school. We play all summer. We were staying up to three or four in the morning just putting up shots. Think about coming back next season, and after you get done with practice, you have to go shoot a Dunkin' Donuts commercial. After I get done with practice, I got to go shoot a car dealership commercial. I get it. I truly believe players deserve to get paid for their Name, Image and Likeness, but I probably don't think we make it to the Final Four next year because you're getting almost a million dollars."
Jamison says UNC's lack of motivation was never more evident than during their 63-57 loss at Duke on Feb. 4.
"The game at Duke. I remember the ball just rolling on the floor, and no one is diving for the loose ball," Jamison said. "That is a Duke and Carolina game. I love the guys; I just think we got to the point where we got complacent and thought it was going to be as easy as it was last year. I talked to Hubert, and he told me, 'This is a totally different team than what I had last year. They have to worry about other things outside of basketball.'"
Jamison says that the 2022-23 Tar Heels didn't have a "feel for the game" and was shocked by their practice schedule during a campus visit last offseason.
"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."
Jamison played forward at UNC from 1995-98 and became the first player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to earn first-team All-ACC honors as a freshman, sophomore, and junior. He became the second Tar Heel (with Lennie Rosenbluth) and third player to win ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament MVP, NCAA Regional MVP, and National Player of the Year honors in the same season. As a junior, Jamison scored 822 points, the second-highest figure in UNC history, and pulled down a school-record 389 rebounds. He averaged 22.2 points and 10.5 rebounds, the first Tar Heel to average a double-double in 22 years.