It’s time to see what this year’s team is made of.
The 2023-24 college basketball season is finally here, and the North Carolina Tar Heels are on a mission to bounce back from their disastrous 2022-23 campaign. At this point, we don’t need to go over everything that happened this offseason personnel-wise, but for those who haven’t been following along, I’ve discussed everything that happened with the list in my article on the best and worst scenarios a few days ago.
UNC’s first task is to take down Radford at the Dean Smith Center. For fans expecting this game to be a crazy blowout, it’s worth noting that last season the Highlanders faced Notre Dame, Marquette and Kansas State, and the worst loss was by 10 points. Should the Heels win more than that? Maybe, but I wouldn’t panic if this ended up being a closer victory than expected.
With that said, let’s take a look at three things to watch for in tomorrow night’s game.
Who will Hubert Davis start?
In the exhibition win against St. Augustine’s, Hubert Davis started RJ Davis, Cormac Ryan, Paxson Wojcik, Harrison Ingram and Armando Bacot. The obvious and notable absence here is freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau, but there’s reason to believe Davis has no plans to start making a mark in high school just yet. Chief among those reasons may be that Cadeau will have to work on defending at the college level without committing fouls – he committed four fouls against St. Augustine’s – but it may also be very difficult to justify leaving Cormac Ryan the bench.
So, will the lineup we saw in the exhibition game be the one we see against Radford? If I had to guess, this might be the starting lineup we see all season, but in reality, we’re probably going to see some bench players get big minutes. Gift will obviously be in high demand, but I expect Davis to also get quality minutes over Zayden High, Jae’Lyn Withers and Jalen Washington. James Onkonkwo will likely get burned as well, but the extent of that burn depends on how seriously Hubert Davis wants to use his depth. The Heels’ starting lineup is probably set, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in what name is called during introductions, as we should (hopefully) see a number of guys contribute this season.
Will Cormac Ryan make the difference this season?
I know this is more of a macro topic than anything specifically focused on Radford, but I’ve heard a lot of really good things about Notre Dame transfer Cormac Ryan. Fans obviously know him as a very good perimeter shooter who gave the Tar Heels fits during his time with the Irish, but what fans may not know is that Ryan is really, really competitive. As, Really competitive.
It’s like throwing a basketball into the stands because you didn’t make the shots you wanted to make after a competitive workout.
The Daily Tar Heel published a very good story about Ryan’s competitiveness which includes quotes from Hubert Davis and other Tar Heels. This is perhaps Armando Bacot’s best quote:
“I mean, it’s a different type of fire,” Bacot said. “That’s something we haven’t seen since I’ve been here: guys who really care about winning. So I feel like it might seem a little crazy, having one guy throw the ball, but sometimes you need stuff like that to get the team going.
The Ryan fire also had an impact on how training was conducted. According to Bacot, the practices were “bloodbaths”, which may be the first time I’ve personally heard of that word used in a non-game scenario. Yes, Ryan is a very talented shooter who should be dangerous on the perimeter for the Tar Heels, but think about it: what has every UNC championship team since 2005 had? Tyler Hansbrough, Joel Berry and that guy from the 2005 team who I won’t name are all guys who were extremely dangerous competitors and would rather leave this Earth than lose. Oh, and we’ve all heard the Brady Manek stories, right?
Doesn’t Ryan’s presence guarantee participation in the Final Four? No, but it does mean that a vital part of how the Tar Heels got this far in the past exists on this team.
How many assists will we see against the Highlanders?
An underrated aspect of the exhibition game against St. Augustine’s is that UNC finished the game with 23 assists, one assist shy of its high from last season. While it can be argued that competition matters, let’s put things into perspective: Last year’s team had 26 assists against College of Charleston, UNCW and Gardner-Webb combined. We tend to dilute performance based on competition a lot, but anyone who watched the game knows that the way the ball was moving on offense was much better than anything we saw last year, and that’s not all. It’s not even close.
While it’s easy to have confidence in the Heels’ ability to move the ball, the other part of getting so many assists is knocking down shots. Radford should be a tougher defense to play against, so it will be really interesting to see if they will be able to get as many quality shots as they did in exhibition games. If the Heels can share the ball at a consistently high level this season, it will be very difficult for their opponents to stop them.
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