One by one, North Carolina’s four starting players with NCAA eligibility remaining recently announced their decisions to remain with the Tar Heels for the 2022-23 season.

As a result, UNC almost certainly will be talked and written about for the next six months as one of the favorites for the national championship next spring. When the official preseason college basketball polls arrive in October, expect the Heels to be at or near the top. Their hope and goal, of course, is to be cutting down the nets at the Final Four in Houston next April.

Armando Bacot, this year’s runner-up in the ACC Player of the Year voting, could have opted to begin his professional basketball career. Instead, he will stay in Chapel Hill for his senior season, giving Carolina one of the rare commodities of modern college hoops: a proven, experienced low-post player who can impact every half-court possession at both ends of the floor.

RJ Davis and Caleb Love, who also were pivotal in the Tar Heels’ stunning run to this year’s national championship game, will be back for their junior campaigns. Veteran guards have played essential roles on all six of UNC’s NCAA title teams, from 1957 through 2017, and the Love-Davis combination will have a chance to continue that rich tradition.

Senior forward Leaky Black, one of the nation’s top defensive players, decided to take advantage of the pandemic-related NCAA rule that allows for a fifth season of eligibility. He’ll turn 23 this summer, and he also could have moved on to a pro career, likely in an overseas league, but he wanted one last ride with the Tar Heels, too.

As always, there will be unpredictable variables. Who will emerge as UNC’s fifth starter, with Brady Manek out of eligibility? Which returning reserves will be ready for bigger roles? How good are the freshmen, and how quickly will they be able to help?

Every team has questions, though.

UNC now knows it will have one of firmest foundations — offensively, defensively and experience-wise — in all of college basketball next season, and only a few teams get to say that.

Buckle up. It should be a heck of a ride.

 

Photo via AP Photo/Matt Rourke.

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