Two names cast a large shadow over the UNC men’s basketball media day session on Tuesday.
The reason that matters is because Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige played their final game in Tar Heel uniforms over six months ago.
Despite returning six key contributors from a year ago, the remaining Tar Heel players face an uphill challenge this season as they look to establish their own legacy.
Head coach Roy Williams wasted no time reminding reporters how much love he had for both Johnson and Paige as players and as people. He brought up the incredible stats Johnson posted during his final year, while also praising Paige for being one of the team’s best players for each of his four seasons on campus.
And while he recognizes that the Tar Heels have enough talent to compete on the national scale again, he’s interested to see how new leaders—such as point guard Joel Berry, small forward Justin Jackson and big man Kennedy Meeks—respond to the challenge.
Joel Berry experienced plenty of success late last season. The Tar Heels will need him to take his game up another notch this year without Marcus Paige by his side in the backcourt. (Todd Melet)
“Those other guys—as I’ve said many times—they’ve really gotta step up,” Williams said. “Because it’s not just two guys out of eight, it’s [our] two best—and markedly you could say maybe the two best at every part of the game.
“When Tiger [Woods] and Phil [Mickelson] were the best–if all of a sudden they weren’t available for the Ryder Cup–that would have been a big loss.”
The most obvious area where UNC will need fresh faces to take over—outside of replacing the on-court statistics—is with vocal leadership.
Players such as Meeks and junior wing Theo Pinson bring lively personalities to the table, while the quieter players like Berry, Jackson and Isaiah Hicks prefer to lead by example.
In his role as the point guard, though, Berry naturally takes more of that pressure on his shoulders. Instead of trying to escape Paige’s shadow, he has embraced the thought of speaking up more—often leaning on lessons he learned from Paige to make the transition easier.
“He was just always vocal, always positive,” Berry said of Paige. “If someone made a mistake, he would always take the blame. And then when we went and watched film you could see it wasn’t his fault—but as a leader you don’t want to get in a confrontation with a teammate during a game. He did a great job of that.
“I’m a quiet person,” he added. “But in my position I’m gonna have to be louder than I was last year.”
The player with perhaps the biggest shoes to fill is Hicks, the senior who is expected to take over for Johnson at the power forward spot.
Although he’s had flashes of brilliance off the bench over the last couple seasons, Hicks has never been a full-time starter to this point in his college career. His explosiveness and rebounding will be sorely needed for a Tar Heel team that doesn’t have quite as much depth in the post as it has in the past.
While Johnson was always UNC’s most emotional player on the floor, Hicks is about as laid back as they come. As a leader in that fashion, Hicks said he feels like he’ll be able to do his part when called upon—but he expects the other returning players to take on some of that responsibility as well.
Isaiah Hicks (far left) knows he’ll have big shoes to fill, as he takes over the starting role once occupied by
Brice Johnson (right). (Todd Melet)
“Everyone knows we don’t have Marcus and Brice, so everyone else is picking it up,” Hicks said. “You’ll see Joel Berry talking more and he’s pretty emotional too–so he’s got a little bit of both [Paige and Johnson].
“Not only that, you got Nate, Kennedy, Justin, and Theo,” he continued. “Everybody’s been stepping up and doing what they can to fill that void.”
To truly make their own mark, this bunch of Tar Heels will need to leave a lasting impression come tournament time yet again. UNC will likely be ranked among the top 10 in all of the major polls once the regular season finally gets underway. A second straight Final Four trip isn’t out of the equation either, once the leadership issue is taken care of.
Because this team has the luxury of experiencing excruciating pain together against Villanova, the players only need to think back to what their coach told them after Kris Jenkins’ heartbreaking buzzer beater cost them a national title.
Provided they do that, the rest should take care of itself—regardless whether Paige or Johnson step foot in the Smith Center at all this year.
“I told them in the locker room [after the loss to Villanova], ‘Let’s use this as fuel to work harder in the offseason, let’s use this as fuel to motivate, and use this as fuel to put in the extra time.’” Williams said. “Know that we were this close to what we wanted”
