{"id":767358,"date":"2026-02-21T19:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/767358\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T19:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T19:27:14","slug":"keith-gill-reveals-how-caleb-wilson-henri-veesaar-injuries-impact-ncaa-tournament-seeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/767358\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith Gill reveals how Caleb Wilson, Henri Veesaar injuries impact NCAA Tournament seeding"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Caleb Wilson<\/a> and Henri Veesaar<\/a> out on Tuesday, North Carolina<\/a> suffered a blowout loss to NC State<\/a>. That game, along with Wilson\u2019s long-term injury, could impact UNC\u2019s seeding in the NCAA Tournament, and selection committee chair Keith Gill explained how.<\/p>\n

Wilson suffered a hand injury, which will keep him out indefinitely, while Veesaar missed two games with a lower body injury in addition to an illness. He made his return Sunday against Syracuse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But injuries have been a problem throughout college basketball this year, which is why Gill said the committee has had to put everything into context. With regard to Wilson and Veesaar\u2019s absences against NC State, in particular, he said that is part of the evaluation process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great question because the context matters,\u201d Gill said Sunday on the CBS reveal show after announcing the current Top 16 seeds<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to really have a nuanced evaluation of wins and losses, so player availability is really important.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour two best scorers aren\u2019t in the game, that\u2019s going to impact it vs. the teams that beat that team with those players available. I do think it\u2019s impactful. We\u2019ve seen it up and down the seed line so far. It\u2019s impacted us a lot this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson was in the midst of an impressive freshman season at the time of his injury. Across 24 games, he was averaging 19.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks \u2013 leading North Carolina in all four categories. His 2.7 assists per game also put him second on the roster behind Kyan Evans.<\/p>\n

A timeline is for Wilson\u2019s return is uncertain after UNC said he would be out indefinitely. However, the former Five Star Plus+ recruit said he plans on coming back<\/a> at some point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful for whatever God is trying to tell me through this injury!!!\u201d Wilson\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0via X. \u201cI will be back Tarheel Nation\u2026 I LOVE THIS TEAM AND PROGRAM\u00a0#StayTuned\u201d<\/p>\n

North Carolina\u2019s loss to NC State marked the program\u2019s second in three games. That includes a loss to Miami<\/a>, which was the game Caleb Wilson got hurt. He returned to the game in the second half, though, after heading to the locker room.<\/p>\n

Entering Saturday, UNC sat at 20-6 overall and 8-5 in ACC play. On3\u2019s James Fletcher III<\/a> also had the Tar Heels projected as a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament, according to his most recent Bracketology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar out on Tuesday, North Carolina suffered a blowout loss to NC State.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[109175,7,109176,49,48],"class_list":["post-767358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-caleb-wilson-25-holy-innocents-episcopal-school","tag-football","tag-henri-veesaar-22-estonia","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116110271824980339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}