North Carolina’s 2025-26 season may not have ended with the result Tar Heels fans wanted, but the production it got from Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar was the kind of thing that doesn’t come around often in Chapel Hill.
In fact, their numbers put UNC frontcourt play in a place the program hadn’t seen in 66 years. Wilson and Veesaar became the first pair of Tar Heels teammates to average at least 16 points and 9 rebounds since Lee Shaffer and Doug Moe did it in the 1959-60 season.
Freshman forward Caleb Wilson finished at 19.8 points per game and 9.4 rebounds per game, while junior center Henri Veesaar posted 17 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. That production made them the first UNC teammates to reach those marks since Shaffer and Moe, who averaged 18.2 points and 11.2 rebounds, and 16.8 points and 11.3 rebounds, respectively, in 1959-60.
“Freshman forward Caleb Wilson (19.8 points per game, 9.4 rebounds per game) and junior center Henri Veesaar (17 ppg, 8.7 rbg) were the first UNC teammates to average at least 16 points and 9 rebounds since Lee Shaffer (18.2 ppg, 11.2 rbg) and Doug Moe (16.8 ppg, 11.3 rbg) did it in the 1959-60 season.
“After ending a 66-year drought in Chapel Hill with their production in the post, Wilson and Veesaar are preparing for their NBA careers and Malone has to find a way to replace the irreplaceable,” Rodd Baxley wrote.
That kind of frontcourt output is hard to ignore, even in a season that didn’t finish with a national title. Wilson and Veesaar gave North Carolina rare production inside, and now the challenge shifts to what comes next with both players moving on and UNC needing to fill that void.
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