On Friday, months of anticipation will finally be answered, as we get to see Michael Malone’s UNC men’s basketball team play basketball for the first time. It will be an exhibition/preseason game, but it’ll be televised and it’ll be against a legitimate opponent in USC, so even though the game won’t count, it’ll still be a balm to those who have been waiting to see Carolina Basketball since March — certainly it’ll give us a lot more than some offseason social media clips. There are naturally a lot of questions
that have been asked, and will continue to be asked, leading up to and well after we see this team for the first time on Friday and even after we see their first game that counts on November 2nd. Those questions are going to be pretty big, with ramifications for how well UNC can perform this year and how much, in the near future, the Tar Heels can reclaim their status as one of the sport’s absolute premier programs. But I’ll start us with a smaller one: Who are the first five Tar Heels you think we’re going to see take the court under Malone?
The positional makeup of Malone’s first roster is a little bit interesting. Both in top-end talent and in depth, he’s got significantly more to work with on the wings than he does either in terms of bigs or primary ballhandlers. You imagine that the three big transfer portal acquisitions on the wings, namely Neoklis Avdalas, Matt Able, and Terrence Brown Jr, would all be preferred starters, but it gets a little positionally wonky. Avdalas is a fantastic playmaker, but doesn’t have the kind of handle that an up-tempo ballhandler needs and is ill-suited to guarding opposing point guards, while Brown is a very good ballhandler who hasn’t, thus far in his career, been much of a passer. And even in a four-out system, running them as 2/3/4 leaves you pretty small at the power forward spot; Avdalas has the height for the position but maybe not the bulk or rebounding acumen. So Malone is left with a decision — do you leave one of them, likely Able, as a sixth man, or do trust your ability to turn Brown into a more complete, head-up point guard? Listening to both Malone and Brown’s quotes this offseason would have you believing the latter, but theory and practice are two different animals. And I don’t think freshman Kevin Thomas is one to entirely ignore, either.
If Brown is not the starter at point guard, then there’s also some intrigue in a battle between returning sophomore Isaiah Denis and super-senior transfer Angelo Brizzi. Brizzi’s track record is more as a ballhandling sniper than a playmaker, but his college experience is certainly something that both his teammates and his coach could lean on. Denis played sparingly last year but showed some signs of a high-tempo lead guard with a good shooting stroke, but again, we don’t know a lot about how he can make his teammates better. I suspect that this means there’s no real reason to expect Brizzi to start, because if Malone is okay with a veteran point guard with low assist numbers, then he’d just start Brown. But because Denis is such an unknown, there’s always the potential for surprise there if you choose to be a believer.
In the post, assuming Avdalas isn’t playing a small four, Malone has a choice between senior Jarin Stevenson and freshman Maximo Adams. If Malone weren’t a first-year coach, then you’d expect Stevenson to start at least to begin the year just based on seniority, but there’s not really such thing under a new coach. That said, Stevenson’s status as one of three returning players from last year’s roster, and the one who played by far the most minutes (not to mention his local ties), would seem to be instrumental in helping make this version of Carolina basketball feel at least a little connected to its history. That doesn’t have to translate into playing time, but it is worth noting. Stevenson, after two years as a big wing who played a little scared of contact at Alabama, was a significantly more physical player and a much better fit as a smallish power forward as a Tar Heel. He was able to take more shots around the basket, defended opposing bigs well, and crashed the offensive glass. But he was still a streaky, inconsistent shooter, an only okay rebounder on the defensive end, and while he didn’t turn the ball over, he was a bit of a black hole on a team where post passing was basically the win condition. Adams comes into college basketball with a reputation of being a plus shooter with soft hands that help him score close to the basket as well, good on the boards, and a more willing passer, even though that comes with a few more turnovers. Of course, you don’t know how immediately he’ll be able to adjust to the speed and physicality of college ball, and it’s always easy to get sucked into shiny new toy syndrome, so even though the traits sound like an improvement over Stevenson’s, that’s based on what he did against high schoolers.
The one spot that’s not in question, I think, is at center. To me, that’s Sayon Keita’s spot through and through. Alex Samodurov doesn’t do much that Keita doesn’t as a center, though he has some pick-and-pop ability, and Cameron Fens’ role, if he’s even eligible, will be as a backup enforcer more so than a starter.
The safe money on UNC’s first starting lineup is probably Brown/Able/Avdalas/Stevenson/Keita. I think Adams can push for Stevenson’s spot and could win it by the turn of the calendar, but it’s probably too soon to imagine that happening in a first preseason game. And even if I were to think that Denis was underused on a roster last year that badly needed a primary ballhandler, it’s hard to imagine that if he’s capable not just of contributing but starting this year, he wouldn’t have been kept on the bench for so much of last season, no matter how behind he might have been on defense or picking up plays.
Do you think any different? How stable do you think that starting lineup is, and what do you expect of it? Sound off below, as we get closer and closer to having basketball back on our screens.
