Ranking UNC’s Top 10 Games of Last Season: No. 9 spotlights a March that ended in overtime heartbreak

The countdown keeps rolling, and for North Carolina fans, No. 9 in the “Top 10 Games of Last Season” list is the kind of entry that feels inevitable in a program’s memory, even when it is hard to revisit. The game is described as one no Tar Heel supporter will ever forget, and it carries the specific weight of a result that was not what fans hoped for. Even so, the writers emphasize something that is often true in postseason basketball: sometimes the path matters as much as the destination, and this one offered plenty of both.

At the center of the No. 9 selection is North Carolina’s men’s NCAA Tournament first-round loss to VCU that went to overtime, a detail reflected in the accompanying game-day image caption. The Tar Heels’ guard, Seth Trimble, is shown reacting after the overtime defeat at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, as the scene captures how quickly a March story can swing from urgency to regret. The overtime itself is the dividing line, the point where “close game” turns into “how did we not finish it?”

The framing of the list matters because it is not built around wins alone. By calling the ending painful while still highlighting that the game was entertaining, the selection implicitly acknowledges a recurring truth about college basketball. Fans judge games through a mixture of narrative, effort, and momentum. For a program with a long tradition of tournament presence, the most memorable losses are often the ones that feature enough drama to live longer than the final scoreboard.

For UNC, the tournament setting amplifies the stakes of any overtime contest. Single-elimination basketball compresses every mistake and every burst of execution into a finite sequence, and overtime intensifies that compression. When a game reaches extra minutes in March, it usually means the teams have traded answers so effectively that neither side can claim control for long. The No. 9 entry’s emphasis on entertainment, despite the defeat, suggests a matchup that kept unfolding rather than settling into one team’s steady advantage.

There is also a cultural angle to a “best games” list that features an outcome that stings. Such rankings can function as a shared fan scrapbook, a way to align collective memory. The words “no Tar Heel fan will ever forget” are not about a highlight reel that ended in celebration. They are about the lasting emotional impression of a night when the game refused to end on schedule, and when the difference between moving on and going home came down to the final possessions in overtime.

What to watch next is the continuing countdown itself, because No. 9 is only part of the season’s larger arc. Lists like this typically build toward the games that defined the team most, whether through near-upsets that still carry meaning, breakthrough performances, or moments that reshaped expectations. If No. 9 is an overtime tournament loss that still ranks as entertaining, it raises the question of what the remaining slots say about what UNC’s last season ultimately represented.

Beyond the list, the broader takeaway for college basketball is how quickly tournament experiences become benchmarks for a team’s identity. A first-round overtime loss does not define a season by itself, but it can shape how returning players and coaches view pressure, preparation, and finishing under fatigue. The Tar Heels’ No. 9 spot serves as a reminder that March games can be both story-rich and outcome-disappointing at the same time, and that those are often the contests fans carry forward.

If you are using this entry to revisit last season, the most productive approach is to focus less on the “what went wrong” narrative and more on the rhythm of how the game stayed compelling enough to reach overtime. The entertaining label, paired with a painful ending, suggests a contest with momentum shifts worth studying, regardless of the final result.