University of North Carolina Athletics
Photo by: Jeffrey A. Camarati
Lucas: Modern Family
March 4, 2026 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Tuesday night showed what a modern version of the Carolina basketball family could be.
By Adam Lucas
Senior Night in Chapel Hill was an indelible reminder of two fundamental truths of Carolina Basketball.
Absolute number one: The Carolina Family is an essential part of the Tar Heel program. Without it, Carolina is just another team. We need all of this—RJ Davis making a cross-country trek to come back to watch his jersey hang in the rafters, seniors hugging at midcourt before the game, players who are connected to the University as a whole (Trimble recognizing "all the other seniors" in the building, including those in the seats, was perfect).
And absolute number two: The Carolina Family must evolve.
Tuesday's 67-63 win over Clemson was a fun reminder of what the family has been…and also where it's going.
Nobody does tradition better. The hugs and the smiles and the cheers pregame, with the arena roaring for a player who had just one more assist than turnover during his freshman season. There were absolutely people in the Smith Center during that 2022-23 season who said, "Seth Trimble will never be a player."
But there were also absolutely people who have seen dozens or hundreds of games here who smiled and said, "Just wait."
No one has time to wait for anything in college basketball anymore. If at first you don't succeed, go somewhere else and get a bag. Except for Trimble, who started three of his first 68 games at Carolina, lost his starting spot twice as a junior, and now leaves as a captain of the first team in school history to go 18-0 at home. Carolina's roster includes two likely first-round picks, but walking down Franklin Street on Tuesday afternoon, the shirts in store windows bore Trimble's picture.
Which made a nice companion to the RJ Davis shirts being worn by numerous students to celebrate his return. Davis was honored at halftime, the second-leading scorer in school history getting a massive ovation as he stood at center court and the entire family wiped away tears at the cheers he received.
The script was clear: Davis wasn't going to speak to the crowd. But in the moment, he simply needed to say thank you. So he demanded the microphone from Jones Angell like he was calling for a pass for an open three-pointer, and like he did so many times before, he swished this one, too.
"This is home for me forever," Davis told a crowd of over 20,000 that stood the entire time he was being honored, from row 1 on the front row of the lower level to row Y on the top row of the upper level. "I love you guys."
There were times it felt like Davis might play for the Tar Heels forever, but now he's been away for a year, and he's learned a little something. "The people and the family environment in Chapel Hill are something that can't be replicated," he said. "I've been away for a year, and then I come back and see how much love you'll receive from pouring your heart, sweat and tears into this program. Reminiscing on the memories brings you back to home."
It will always be home for the kid from New York. Trimble will never pay for a meal again in Chapel Hill.
So here's the question: can you create that same home in 2026 with less than four or five years to build the foundation?
Because Carolina won Tuesday night's game due to the contributions of a player from Montenegro who wasn't certain he was going to be a Tar Heel until about a half-hour before the season opener. He didn't sail with the Pilot or know how to go where he goes or dream of wearing the argyle uniforms. But there he was, sinking five three-pointers in the second half and scoring a season-high 20 points.
How big were his shots? Four of his six total three-pointers tied the game or took the Heels from trailing into the lead.
"The people here, whether they are six or 60 years old, they come to our games," Bogavac said on the Tar Heel Sports Network. "This is a culture. No matter if we win or lose, they are with us. They have really showed a lot about how much they care about us."
This is going to happen. Drake Powell is going to leave for the NBA and Jalen Washington will go to Vanderbilt and you have to go find Bogavac and Henri Veesaar, who continues to be the most indispensable Tar Heel in the absence of Caleb Wilson.
Under the current college basketball rules, that's going to happen every year. Every single offseason will blast holes in the roster. Then you have to go out and look all the way from Montenegro to right in the backyard, where you can bring Jarin Stevenson back home and watch him turn into the physical force some people said he could never be. The Chapel Hill native grabbed ten rebounds against a tough Clemson team. Three of them were offensive and they turned into five points in a game the Tar Heels won by four.
You can buy yourself a whole lot of talent. But you still have to figure out how to make a team, and you can't always do that with a checkbook alone. Just ask…well, you can figure out who to ask.
This year's team took pieces from Arizona and West Virginia and Montenegro and San Antonio and DC and Colorado State and Atlanta and Menomonee Falls and here they are, in early March, and they look an awful lot like a Carolina basketball team.
This year, it worked. And in addition to the wins, it feels like Veesaar and Bogavac and several others have found a home.
Will it be the same every year? I honestly don't know. There will be some years when it doesn't click. There are too many moving pieces for it to work every time.
What did RJ Davis say? It's the people and the family environment. He's one of those people now, of course. He watched most of practice on Monday and as soon as it was over, he wrapped Trimble in a hug and then started reenacting his former teammate's game-winning shot against Duke.
The family was built on those long-term relationships. Now the challenge is to make it work with accelerated relationships. One-year Tar Heel Justin Knox tweeted this week about Roy Williams' continuous efforts to stay in touch with him, about feeling like a part of the overall program despite his short stay in Chapel Hill. So if Williams can do it for Knox, well, we dadgum can do it for Luka, can't we?
That's a different world, but that's the new family. Brady Manek played one season in Chapel Hill and he's family. Caleb Love played two seasons in Arizona and he's family, too.
Trimble was in the locker room and didn't hear Davis's speech. But look at what both individuals said during their time addressing the crowd.
Davis: "This is home for me forever."
Trimble: "You will forever be my home."
That's the charge going forward. Take a very different world, and make it feel familiar. It's an exceptionally difficult challenge.
But it sure worked on Tuesday night.
Senior Night in Chapel Hill was an indelible reminder of two fundamental truths of Carolina Basketball.
Absolute number one: The Carolina Family is an essential part of the Tar Heel program. Without it, Carolina is just another team. We need all of this—RJ Davis making a cross-country trek to come back to watch his jersey hang in the rafters, seniors hugging at midcourt before the game, players who are connected to the University as a whole (Trimble recognizing "all the other seniors" in the building, including those in the seats, was perfect).
And absolute number two: The Carolina Family must evolve.
Tuesday's 67-63 win over Clemson was a fun reminder of what the family has been…and also where it's going.
Nobody does tradition better. The hugs and the smiles and the cheers pregame, with the arena roaring for a player who had just one more assist than turnover during his freshman season. There were absolutely people in the Smith Center during that 2022-23 season who said, "Seth Trimble will never be a player."
But there were also absolutely people who have seen dozens or hundreds of games here who smiled and said, "Just wait."
No one has time to wait for anything in college basketball anymore. If at first you don't succeed, go somewhere else and get a bag. Except for Trimble, who started three of his first 68 games at Carolina, lost his starting spot twice as a junior, and now leaves as a captain of the first team in school history to go 18-0 at home. Carolina's roster includes two likely first-round picks, but walking down Franklin Street on Tuesday afternoon, the shirts in store windows bore Trimble's picture.
Which made a nice companion to the RJ Davis shirts being worn by numerous students to celebrate his return. Davis was honored at halftime, the second-leading scorer in school history getting a massive ovation as he stood at center court and the entire family wiped away tears at the cheers he received.
The script was clear: Davis wasn't going to speak to the crowd. But in the moment, he simply needed to say thank you. So he demanded the microphone from Jones Angell like he was calling for a pass for an open three-pointer, and like he did so many times before, he swished this one, too.
"This is home for me forever," Davis told a crowd of over 20,000 that stood the entire time he was being honored, from row 1 on the front row of the lower level to row Y on the top row of the upper level. "I love you guys."
There were times it felt like Davis might play for the Tar Heels forever, but now he's been away for a year, and he's learned a little something. "The people and the family environment in Chapel Hill are something that can't be replicated," he said. "I've been away for a year, and then I come back and see how much love you'll receive from pouring your heart, sweat and tears into this program. Reminiscing on the memories brings you back to home."
It will always be home for the kid from New York. Trimble will never pay for a meal again in Chapel Hill.
So here's the question: can you create that same home in 2026 with less than four or five years to build the foundation?
Because Carolina won Tuesday night's game due to the contributions of a player from Montenegro who wasn't certain he was going to be a Tar Heel until about a half-hour before the season opener. He didn't sail with the Pilot or know how to go where he goes or dream of wearing the argyle uniforms. But there he was, sinking five three-pointers in the second half and scoring a season-high 20 points.
How big were his shots? Four of his six total three-pointers tied the game or took the Heels from trailing into the lead.
"The people here, whether they are six or 60 years old, they come to our games," Bogavac said on the Tar Heel Sports Network. "This is a culture. No matter if we win or lose, they are with us. They have really showed a lot about how much they care about us."
This is going to happen. Drake Powell is going to leave for the NBA and Jalen Washington will go to Vanderbilt and you have to go find Bogavac and Henri Veesaar, who continues to be the most indispensable Tar Heel in the absence of Caleb Wilson.
Under the current college basketball rules, that's going to happen every year. Every single offseason will blast holes in the roster. Then you have to go out and look all the way from Montenegro to right in the backyard, where you can bring Jarin Stevenson back home and watch him turn into the physical force some people said he could never be. The Chapel Hill native grabbed ten rebounds against a tough Clemson team. Three of them were offensive and they turned into five points in a game the Tar Heels won by four.
You can buy yourself a whole lot of talent. But you still have to figure out how to make a team, and you can't always do that with a checkbook alone. Just ask…well, you can figure out who to ask.
This year's team took pieces from Arizona and West Virginia and Montenegro and San Antonio and DC and Colorado State and Atlanta and Menomonee Falls and here they are, in early March, and they look an awful lot like a Carolina basketball team.
This year, it worked. And in addition to the wins, it feels like Veesaar and Bogavac and several others have found a home.
Will it be the same every year? I honestly don't know. There will be some years when it doesn't click. There are too many moving pieces for it to work every time.
What did RJ Davis say? It's the people and the family environment. He's one of those people now, of course. He watched most of practice on Monday and as soon as it was over, he wrapped Trimble in a hug and then started reenacting his former teammate's game-winning shot against Duke.
The family was built on those long-term relationships. Now the challenge is to make it work with accelerated relationships. One-year Tar Heel Justin Knox tweeted this week about Roy Williams' continuous efforts to stay in touch with him, about feeling like a part of the overall program despite his short stay in Chapel Hill. So if Williams can do it for Knox, well, we dadgum can do it for Luka, can't we?
That's a different world, but that's the new family. Brady Manek played one season in Chapel Hill and he's family. Caleb Love played two seasons in Arizona and he's family, too.
Trimble was in the locker room and didn't hear Davis's speech. But look at what both individuals said during their time addressing the crowd.
Davis: "This is home for me forever."
Trimble: "You will forever be my home."
That's the charge going forward. Take a very different world, and make it feel familiar. It's an exceptionally difficult challenge.
But it sure worked on Tuesday night.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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