GREESNBORO – Yes, yes, and yes.

Those were basically the answers given by North Carolina’s players and head coach Thursday night when asked if the immense expectations for the Tar Heels this season were way too much early on and created swelling psychological hindrance.

Of course, they were, given that UNC sits at 20-13 and its season likely over. The odds are quite slim Carolina will earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament, and the vibe around the team right now hints it might decline an invitation to the NIT.

The weight of the season was a real thing, and it became an albatross around the Heels’ collective necks. No matter how hard they tried; be it tactics such as players-only meetings or practicing with literal weighted vests, the team couldn’t escape the effect of grand expectations as the losses piled up.

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With each defeat, social media got nastier, and perhaps some self-doubt seeped in. If UNC doesn’t reach the NCAAs, it will be the first preseason No. 1 team, since the field was expected to 64 teams, to not reach the big dance. Carolina is already the only preseason No. 1 team to lose four in a row in that season, and have multiple three-game losing streaks.

The Heels tried talking their way out of it, repeating positives and optimism, but the truth is, Carolina’s season started out poorly and never really got on track except for a few flare-ups.

“This year has been so tough,” forward Leaky Black said following a 68-59 loss to Virginia in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. “It’s been a roller coaster.”

Starting out as the No. 1 team in the nation carries tremendous pressure, but it was magnified when the Tar Heels themselves started calling this season “championship or bust” last summer. They doubled down on it in the fall

Multiple players said it multiple times, first in July and later in October, embracing it as their motto, fully supported by Hubert Davis.

“I’m okay with them saying that,” UNC’s coach said at the ACC Tip Off in Charlotte in October. “For me, I don’t look at it that way.”

The program was so confident it would contend, and probably win, the national title, it even recreated an iconic Sports Illustrated cover from the 1981-82 season that included Dean Smith and four returning starters Matt Doherty, James Worthy, Jimmy Black, and Sam Perkins.

The one UNC made public last fall was Davis and returning starters Armando Bacot, Caleb Love, RJ Davis, and Leaky Black. North Carolina Basketball was all-in on the hype, fueling it as much as the media. And that’s why as the season progressed, the Heels sunk deeper into quicksand trying to talk their way out of the decline.

So, now they will wait to formally see their name missing from the field of 68 on Sunday evening, and then a release by the school likely will come out later that night indicating it won’t play in the NIT and that its season is over. At least that is currently the expectation.

“It's not a great feeling,” junior point guard RJ Davis said. “Not the expectations that we had coming into the year. It was definitely frustrating and disappointing.”

Black said he always believed they would turn it around and become the team everyone expected, “even after we lost to Wake Forest,” he said, noting the Heels’ ugliest performance of the season.

Not only did the Tar Heels not satisfy their mission, they didn’t even match their coach’s desire. Human nature suggests Davis carried that with him all season, too.

“My hope is this year’s team reaches its full potential,” he said last October. “And my hope in reaching our full potential puts us in a position to be where we were last year, and maybe change the narrative and be the last team standing on Monday night.”

That won’t happen because the team never came close to living up to expectations, and because, well allow Bacot to explain.

“I guess we just weren’t that good,” he said.