For North Carolina, a loss to Alabama in the Sweet 16 would be a heartbreaking exit from the NCAA Tournament

LOS ANGELES — With his feet sunk into an NCAA cooler filled with crushed ice, his eyes glued to the black carpet inside the North Carolina State locker room, Cormac Ryan tried to answer a simple yet impossible question:

How do you feel now?

“I was angry first and foremost,” Ryan said. “I wanted to win that game. We all did.

Naturally. So in moments like these — not even a half-hour after UNC's season-ending 89-87 loss to Alabama in the Sweet 16 — that's the first logical reaction. You keep replaying missed shots and other mistakes in a nightmare-like mental loop. The internal, visceral response is frustration, that burning fire of failure.

And then, in real time, the rest sank in. How once Ryan takes his shirt off, he can't put it back on. The season is over. And for him? His college basketball career was over. Just like this. Gone forever.

Ryan's lips twitched. Deep exhale.

“You know, I'm sad,” he continued, more slowly, “because this will be the last time with this group. I love these guys. I love this university.”

And it was, even despite Thursday's result at Crypto.com Arena, a special group. No, North Carolina State won't be traveling to Phoenix next weekend for the Final Four, but that disappointment doesn't (or shouldn't, at least) negate this team's other accomplishments. Winning the ACC regular season title. Obtaining record number 18 for the program. Production of both player And Conference Coach of the Year.

“Getting Carolina back,” R.J. Davis said, “back to where it used to be.”

But it's hard to cling to those things now that the team's lofty dreams have turned to dust. The finality of it all is what makes the NCAA Tournament the best postseason in sports — and perhaps the most painful. Because with one minute to go, you've got a lead of three and 92 seconds remaining, and an Elite Eight berth is within your grasp. The next day, the bell rings and you're on a red-eye flight home.

One locker to Ryan's right, after Armando Bacot's 169th and final college basketball contest, the UNC big man tried to put that feeling into words.

“I'm just shocked. I don't even really know,” Bacot said. “I'm blank right now. no feelings.”

The shock is also appropriate — especially after those final 92 seconds, which will haunt the Tar Heels for some time. They'll be talked about like Kendall Marshall's broken wrist in 2012, like Auburn's unstoppable shooting in 2019. Like Kris Jenkins in 2016, though obviously not to that level of drama. But in the same painful way.

Davis had just hit the second of two free throws to give UNC a three-touchdown lead. It was the final point in a personal 6-0 run, one that seemed redemptive after his worst game of the season. For the first time in 37 games, the All-American didn't hit a 3-pointer, going 0-of-9 from deep. But this 6-0 run, part of an 8-0 stretch for North Carolina, restored the lead for the Tar Heels and appears to undo any previous mistakes.

And then everything was undone.

It started with Mark Sears, Alabama's All-America guard, driving for a layup to make it a one-point game. On UNC's next offensive possession, the Crimson Tide double-teamed Davis as they had them all game, coming off of forward Jae'Lyn Withers on the perimeter. Withers tied. And then, for just the 20th time all season, a 21 percent 3-point shooter rose up and shot a three-pointer, with Davis behind him demanding the ball.

clank.

“The shot I took was crucial,” Withers said. “I work on it day by day, but I think with the time and the scoring there, I could have gotten to the free throw line there. I could have gotten to the basket.”

instead of? Alabama took that defensive rebound and slammed it down the floor for forward Grant Nelson — who scored 19 of his game-high 24 points in the second half — just in time to convert a layup and-1 on Withers.

Nelson made the free throw, putting Alabama up two, then nailed Davis' final attempt on a volleyball-style layup on UNC's offensive possession. The Tar Heels never made another attempt. Shot clock violation with 7.7 seconds remaining.

soccer.

And while those final, futile possessions will be what haunts North Carolina in the days and weeks to come, that stretch was sorely emblematic of the entire Tar Heels evening. He missed 15 of his first 17 shots in the second half. Failure to make Davis, who shot 4-of-20 overall, go in any discernible way. Allowing Nelson, a 26.5 percent three-point shooter, to get to his spot over and over again, without any defensive adjustment.

It was an impressive coaching job by Alabama's Nate Oats, as he flatly refused to let RJ Davis take on his team on his own. The opposite was done by Hubert Davis, who had plenty of fire on the sideline but few solutions.

In the coach's locker room after the game, Davis sat with his head in his hand, staring blankly into space. He will have to sit with his outcome and the role he played in it.

So do the hurting UNC players and their distraught families sitting behind the UNC bench. Bacot's father, Armando Sr., didn't go around with other parents discussing what went wrong. He just sat there, his North Carolina navy hoodie covering his head, silently wiping away his tears with a crumpled brown tissue.

This sadness will subside somewhat in the next few days. But next weekend, when either Clemson or Alabama play in their first Final Four game, it will be painful again. Maybe worse. Because it will become clear what opportunity North Carolina missed here, with a Final Four trajectory as poised as it had hoped.

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There was no Arizona waiting in the Elite Eight. There wasn't a much-discussed matchup against former UNC star Caleb Love — who, like Davis, shot 0-of-9 from 3 in his team's loss Thursday. there was Clemson, a UNC team that was beaten by 10 points on the road in January and lost by four points — despite a 17-2 start — at home amid Duke's apparent hangover. Obviously nothing is guaranteed, other than a No. 16, No. 9, No. 4, and No. 6 seed? To reach the Final Four?

Take it eight days a week.

“Our goal was to win a national championship, but we didn’t do that,” Ryan said.

Another deep breath. His best attempt was to swallow the knot in his throat.

“This really hurts,” he finally whispered, “and it will hurt us for the rest of our lives.”

(Photo: C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)