As the UNC basketball program looks more and more like a bubble team, a roster management problem continues to linger.
During last season’s NCAA tournament, the “Iron 5” gained a lot of publicity. Hubert Davis was counting heavily on the group, as the UNC basketball program made a rather surprise run to the national championship game.
With this team, depth seemed to be a big issue, as they lacked a true backup point guard and didn’t have much size other than the duo of Armando Bacot and Brady Manek.
It worked for last year’s team, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the case for this year’s team.
Throughout the 2022-2023 regular season, Hubert Davis’ use of the bench has been highly questionable, as the emphasis has not been placed on consistent playing time for any player in a reserve role.
Seth Trimble’s playing time has been inconsistent (and has been declining of late).
Jalen Washington, who has impressed in small spurts, hasn’t played more than six minutes in the Tar Heels’ last four games (but played a combined 46 minutes in the two games Armando Bacot missed against Virginia and Louisville).
Puff Johnson’s injuries have prevented him from finding a stable role.
D’Marco Dunn went from being a 15-20 minute per game player to one who would be lucky to play 5-10 minutes.
And who can forget Dontrez Styles and Tyler Nickel (other than the Tar Heels coaching staff), as both have struggled to get on the field for the most part.
Of course, I’m sure I’ll get some “that’s easy for us to say” comments about this. Frankly, everyone seems to know that except the UNC basketball coaching staff.
We obviously don’t see this happening in practice, but I would certainly like to see it. A guy like Nickel can’t be much worse defensively than we’ve seen, because other than Leaky Black (and Seth Trimble in his limited action), the rest of the Tar Heels have left a lot to be desired.
To add to that, how is it possible for a player to be effective on game day if he is not playing consistently? It’s very difficult to be thrown into the fire when “your number is called”, especially if you have spent the majority of time on the bench in previous games.
At this point in the year, the Tar Heels should have developed some depth and should have a consistent rotation to work with.
Like it or not, North Carolina has largely failed in this area.
We were so used to Roy Williams pulling the entire starting lineup when things were going bad, that you felt a sense of responsibility. However, with this group, the starters seem to have carte blanche and no repercussions, as it seems like they are always trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.
In today’s world of college basketball, the way Davis uses his players leads to one thing: roster overhaul.
It’s just not the era of ‘earning your role’ because players were thought to be there for three or even four years. Nowadays, if a player is unhappy with his role, he can simply enter the transfer portal and immediately play elsewhere.
Ask someone like Kerwin Walton, who has played more than 20 minutes in each of his last three games for Texas Tech.
If things don’t change and quickly, the UNC basketball program will have a hard time keeping guys. Ultimately, this might even impact recruiting, because who in their right mind would come to a program where the coach is determined to play 5-6 guys and use the rest sporadically?
There is simply no excuse. This year’s group has a lot more depth than it did all season ago. It’s time to find a way to define consistent roles so that this depth can help provide the much-needed spark.
I mean, it can’t be much worse than running the same guys for 30-35 minutes a night, which frankly doesn’t get the job done.
Following. UNC basketball shows its true colors in defeat. dark
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