Erik,
Are you looking to debug over UART? Typically the debug connection should be set to a JTAG debug interface such as the XDS100. The XDS100v2 is what is present on most newer C2000 development kits.
If you open the .ccxml file that is part of your project what does it list as the connection? I suspect that you have "UART Connection" selected instead of the debug probe.
Regards,
John