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The new Carolina basketball schedule is out and it’s a winner.
If the 2024-25 Tar Heels are as good as advertised, they will be no worse than 10-3 heading into the new calendar year, where they will have 19 straight ACC games in a larger league that still looks average.
In a broad brush stroke, every ACC team has lost key players from last season — including the Tar Heels sans Amando Bacot, Harrison Ingram, Cormac Ryan and Paxson Wojcik. However, the Heels have the best veteran cast in the ACC, easily.
Their barometer games will be in November and December, making only their second-ever trip to Lawrence, Kansas, go to Maui for a rugged three-day tournament and face last season’s NCAA vanquisher Alabama in the Dean Dome. After 13 games, 10-3 will look good.
UNC has some new players, which everyone has with the transfer portal and NIL luring them to move around. But who has a backcourt of returning ACC Player of the Year and Jerry West Award winner R.J. Davis, passing master sophomore Elliot Cadeau and veteran Seth Trimble who can spell either; big guys Jalen Washington and Jae’Lyn Withers; sleeper transfers Cade Tyson and Ven-Allen Lubin and 5-star freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell. No one has all those pieces.
If Hubert Davis and his staff can put the rotation together to highlight pressure defense, fast break offense, slashing scorers and good outside shooting, losing Bacot underneath won’t prove fatal.
There are so many interchangeable parts in the backcourt with R.J. and Elliot, who will get the most minutes but can take blows and not lose a lot with junior Trimble and also use top talents Jackson and Powell as swing wings. Tyson may be the most intriguing newcomer, as the 40 percent long-ball shooting ace who at a stringy 6-8 can play small forward and turn power forward into finesse forward.
A lot depends on junior big man Washington, who according to reports is stronger and more assured around the basket. The starting center position is his to lose, but he also has help from the returning Withers and former Vanderbilt star Lubin, a 6-8 junior who shined on a bad team but whose savvy was loved by former coach Jerry Stackhouse.
It looks like a nine-man rotation that, at the outset, all deserve to play while knowing their roles and capable of creating chaos for opponents around the perimeter. Carolina is picked second behind freshmen-loaded Duke, which continues to play the one-and-done game under Jon Scheyer that pretty much failed in the post-season for Coach K.
Their two clashes are February 1 and March 8, one of only three home-and-homes in the 17-team schedule, are as usual the ones to circle, but one of the blue bloods has almost all new faces while the other has a good-looking mix of new young and old that with the right chemistry, could concoct a team of ACC champions and maybe more.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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.
