2012-2013 UNC basketball
The Schedule
The Results (25-11) (click each game for an analysis)
2013 UNC Season Preview
No longer favorites, can young Tar Heels
contend for the ACC title?
Unlike last season, when the experienced North Carolina Tar Heels were looking at a national championship or bust, the 2012-2013 team wil be looking to contend for the ACC championship with perennial power Duke and newly powerful N.C. State.
The Tar Heels lost four players who went in the first round of the NBA draft - Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, John Henson and, maybe most devastatingly, Kendall Marshall. Marshall left after his sophomore year and after his wrist injury certainly cost the Tar Heels a Final Four visit and perhaps a national title.
Marshall's field generalship will be missed. A lot of the burden of the success or failure of this current team will fall on his replacement, freshman Marcus Paige, who is highly regarded but thin and unproven. Paige is excellent ball handler and can shoot (although he didn't show it much in the preseason). Marshall was known for being able to see the floor well and make the difficult pass seem easy. Whether Paige can distribute the ball anywhere close to what Marshall did is a big question mark.
The guy he'll probably be looking for most is James Michael McAdoo, just a sophomore but looked to as the top inside scoring threat for the Heels. He only scored in double figures six times last season and only average six points a game but he came on at the end of the season and looks to take over the role held by Zeller last season. Despite his relative inexperience, McAdoo is one of six ACC players on the preseason nominee list for the 2013 John Wooden Award, which is presented to the National Player of the Year.
The only senior on the team is guard Dexter Strickland, who missed the last half of the season a year ago with a torn ACL. Known as a penetrator, a slasher, Strickland will need to step up his mid to long-range shooting this season. With the help of new coach Hubert Davis, I expect him to pick it up.
This could be a good outside shooting team with Strickland, Paige, Reggie Bullock, P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald all able to stroke it from deep.
Bullock could be the team's leading scorer this season if he make more moves to the basket rather than settling for long ones. Bullock can hit the long ones though and I suspect he'll shoot a lot of them and hit somewhere between 35-40 percent of them.
With Bullock, Strickland and Paige set to play at the guard and wing positions, Hairston and McDonald will be looking to provide sparks off the bench. Hairston can shoot but from outside as well but can he make more drop in that he did last year. He is a shooter but not a consistently good one yet. His playing time will also depend on improvement on defense.
McDonald missed all of last season with a torn ACL. His presence was missed last season as more and more Heels went down with injuries. He is probabaly the best three-point shooter of the bunch. There are many questions surrounding McDonald. Has he fully recovered from an injury considered worse that Strickland's? Will he primarily be a gunslinger off the bench when Coach Roy Williams needs threes? Will his work on being more active and aggressive show on the floor?
All that outside shooting will help open the inside for McAdoo, sophomore Desmond Hubert and freshman Joel James.
Hubert, the 6-9 sophomore, is trying to bulk up and is really the only other experienced big man on the team besides McAdoo. He rebounds and defends well, including blocking shots, but can he score?
James is a big boy at 6-10, 260-some pounds. Rather than bulking up, he's been trying to slim down. He'll do that under Williams' running offense and hustling defense. He's been impressive so far and will be a starter before the end of the season, if he doesn't start instead of Hubert early on. He has only been playing basketball for four years so he has a lot of room for growth but he can play defense and score. He may be a key for how far the Tar Heels go this season.
Unless there are injuries, this will be primarily a season of learning and seasoning for freshmen Brice Johnson, an inside guy who needs to get stronger, and J.P. Tokoto, an athletic wing man who has veterans ahead of him. Luke Davis, a Bobby Frasor type, will only play much if Paige gets hurt, and Jackson Simmons, will only play if McAdoo and James and Johnson get hurt or in foul trouble.
This season will remind Tar Heel fans of 2006 after a slew of underclassmen and, of course, seniors left for the NBA. The rising star of that team was freshman Tyler Hansbrough who led the inexperienced squad to 23 wins.
This year's team will probably finish with about 25 wins, finish second or third in the ACC, make it to the semi-finals of the ACC tournament and could be good enough to sneak into the Final 8 if they stay healthy and Williams works his magic with young players. A more realistic outlook would have the Heels falling in the Final 16 game.
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