Michael Malone’s first North Carolina roster comes with a clear tradeoff: the backcourt looks deeper and more versatile, but the front line doesn’t have the same kind of star power the Tar Heels enjoyed a year ago.
UNC is bringing back just three players from last season - Isaiah Denis, Jarin Stevenson and Jaydon Young - and only one of them had major playing time before. That means Malone is essentially building around a fresh group, and his first offseason in Chapel Hill has already reshaped the team in a big way.
The biggest upgrade shows up on the perimeter. Last season, point guard play was unstable from the jump.
Derek Dixon started most of the year, but his cold stretches created the kind of inconsistency that kept the Heels from finding a real rhythm. Seth Trimble, Luka Bogavac and Jonathan Powell all logged useful minutes, but the guard group was still the weaker part of the roster.
That should change this season. Malone has added Terrence Brown, Matt Able, Kevin Thomas and Neoklis Avdalas, giving North Carolina a much fuller and more varied backcourt.
Young and Denis return as well, and both are expected to keep developing. Malloy Smith is also in the mix as a depth option, though how much he actually plays remains unclear.
Up front, though, the ceiling is harder to match. North Carolina had what was probably the best frontcourt in the country last season with Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar.
Malone did bring in help there in Sayon Keita and Alexandros Samodurov, but the talent drop is still obvious. It also leaves one big what-if hanging over the roster: how good it might have looked if Veesaar had chosen to come back.
Even with that frontcourt dip, the overall view of this roster is optimistic. The expectation is that this team can make a deeper NCAA Tournament run than last year’s group. If the pieces come together the way they’re capable of, that goal should be well within reach in Malone’s first season.
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