NCAA Tournament 2022: 5 biggest storylines from 1st weekend games

North Carolina

North Carolina has played so well that they get their own story written about them. A month ago, the Tar Heels were a firm bubble team and may have been on the outside looking in. North Carolina had just come off a week when they suffered back-to-back 20-point conference losses. Big Man Armando Bacot and some of the other older players had a meeting and a clear the air session when they got everything out there and that helped build chemistry and trust. North Carolina is a team that trusts each other right now.

March is a month that has been good to North Carolina, they beat Duke to close out the year which secured their bid into the NCAA tournament. Then once they made the tournament they came out and buried Marquette by making a ton of three-pointers in the first half and cruised to a 30-point victory.

Then the second game against the defending champion Baylor Bears, the Tar Heels picked up where they left off on offense. They got out to a 25-point lead with 10 minutes left to go in the second half. Senior Brady Manek then was ejected after a flagrant 2 foul and that changed the momentum. Baylor was then able to get their press dialed up and ended up tying the game at the end of regulation. The Tar Heels prevailed, and they made Baylor the only one seed to not advance.

North Carolina is playing at a really high level right now and all their players are contributing right now. The depth was a question for the Tar Heels heading into the tournament. Players like Justin McKoy and Dontrez Styles saw their roles increase in the game against Baylor and both made key contributions to the Tar Heels winning that game.

North Carolina is playing at a very high level right now and if that continues and they continue to put up 90 points a game in the tournament they are going to be extremely hard to beat. They look like a final four team right now.