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Carolina basketball needs more than lightning in a bottle.
Hubert Davis has established himself as the leader of a basketball program with what the Tar Heels did in two of his three seasons at the helm. But there was a lot of good fortune that helped him through his learning curve from a player, ESPN analyst and assistant coach.
Now, Davis and his staff have a chance to prove they truly know what they are doing with the entire sport in flux due to the transfer portal and NIL money that induces players to jump from school to school to school.
It wasn’t like that when Hubert got the head job in the spring of 2021.
The first of three significant transfers who did not come for money was Brady Manek, the fifth-year player from Oklahoma whose 3-pointers helped turn Armando Bacot into a rebounding legend at UNC. Manek’s accuracy supplied some big baskets that moved Carolina off the NCAA bubble and, with the help of Bacot and Caleb Love, all the way to the unforgettable wins over Duke and into the NCAA championship game.
Manek was succeeded by transfer Pete Nance, who had a decent season but never shot the ball as well as he had at Northwestern. Poor shooting was a big part of the preseason No.1-ranked team in the fall of 2022 not making it back to the Big Dance. Nance still made it to the NBA in a reserve role.
Coach Davis lost seven players and banked on two high-profile transfers, Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan. Hubert knew of Ingram from having recruited him out of high school before he chose Stanford. Ryan came with the resume of good outside shooting, defense and teamwork at Notre Dame. Both said that wearing the North Carolina jersey and all the exposure was a big part of it.
Throughout helping the Tar Heels to their first outright ACC regular season championship since 2017, the duo fit perfectly into a team that needed them to be as good as advertised, and they were. That they left their prestigious universities was more about playing on a bigger stage than NIL.
With the college basketball portal wide open and filled with hundreds of players wanting other schools, can Carolina catch that lightning like they did in 2022 and last season? With NIL pay-to-play rampant, UNC has its national reputation as a carrot, but won’t get into any big bidding wars.
Attracted will be players from mid-major schools, such as 6-foot-7 three-point shooter Cade Tyson, who hit better than 46 percent from the arc at Belmont. Several other players have been linked to Carolina, which is still awaiting Ingram’s and R.J. Davis’ decisions on coming back.
Playing in Chapel Hill is a big deal for almost any player, but the brand no longer means as much as bigger bucks offered elsewhere. Hubert and the Heels are using only the potential of earning NIL money during the process, so they will need a combination of good scouting, good recruiting – and good luck.
Featured image via Associated Press/Mike Stewart
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
