College basketball is officially back, and with that means the return of Carolina basketball. This is both an exciting and nervous time for Tar Heels fans because on paper this should be a really fun season
featuring a lot of talent. On the other hand, there’s a lot of talk about Hubert Davis being on the hot seat, and international transfer Luka Bogavac isn’t cleared by the school to play basketball yet. While the first issue is more of what is being said than it is a problem that the team will face in real time, the Bogavac thing could become a problem if they cannot get clearance for him to play.
Regardless, whether Bogavac gets cleared or not, there’s still a decent amount of talent on this team. Tonight we get to see the official college debut of Caleb Wilson, who looked really good in his first two exhibition games. We also get to see transfers Henri Veesaar and Jarin Stevenson in action, who are two bigs who should have a sizable impact on the team’s success this season. Finally, Seth Trimble has returned as the leader of this brand-new Carolina team, and the hope is that he will continue to be a big positive for the Heels on and off the floor. Fans should be excited for what could happen this season, but of course, there’s enough going on to be nervous as well.
The question that will hang over Hubert Davis’ head until the desired results are achieved is whether or not this team will be able to win enough Quad 1 games throughout the season to avoid sweating out the NCAA Tournament. They have to face off against Kansas in the second game of the season, so that will be an early test of this squad that is mostly composed of a new faces. They also have to face off against Kentucky and Michigan State, who are also AP top 25 opponents. This team won’t have long to figure things out, and it’s likely that they will have to win two of these three games to feel good about things before ACC play begins, especially since the conference was pretty unreliable from a Quad 1 game standpoint last season.
Before we get into any of the difficult games, though, first up is tonight’s game against Central Arkansas. Expect Hubert Davis to use a lot of different lineup combinations to see who can be on the floor at the same time, as well as some defensive wrinkles just to see what he can get his guys to do in what situation. We saw a bit of that in exhibition as well, and I would anticipate that continuing against a Bears team that they should have no issues putting away. It should be a fun game to watch, and hopefully many of you are able to make it to the Dean Dome tonight to catch everything live.
If you are not able to make it to the Dean Dome, then I invite you all to hang out with us during the game! And as always, we will be back afterwards with some post-game analysis and takes. Until then, Go Heels!
