This year’s North Carolina Tar Heels men’s basketball team is an intriguing one. On paper, they have a lot of talent and seem to fit together coherently as a team more than a couple of other recent UNC
teams. However, while they have players who have been good in college, they don’t have anyone on the team who has been a genuine #1 option on the college level. While you obviously don’t need a National Player of the Year contender on your team in order to be good, Carolina will probably need someone to step up in a big way if they want to contended for an ACC title, the Final Four, and more.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the team’s prime candidates to take a big step forward in 2025-26.
Seth Trimble
Sure, you can argue that it’s tough to call the best returning player a “breakout” candidate or that he already did breakout to some extent, but it’s certainly possible that he could jump to another level this coming season.
Last year, Trimble finished the year averaging 11.6 points per game, good for being the third-leading scorer on the team, behind the now departed RJ Davis and Ian Jackson. What makes him an intriguing breakout candidate this time around is that the roster around him could be better suited for his game. On paper, the Tar Heels have a good amount of shooting all over the floor. Trimble did have a 41.9% three-point percentage back in 2023-24, but otherwise hasn’t been an exceptional deep ball shooter. However, if the rest of the team is as advertised, that could be very helpful for Trimble. More shooters almost always leads to more space in the lane, and Trimble could use his athleticism to take advantage of that in getting to the basket and scoring and/or drawing fouls.
Henri Veesar
The big name of UNC’s incoming transfers, Veesar is another that you could argue has already broken out. However, he only averaged over nine points and five rebounds last season. The reason he ended up so coveted is that he caught fire in the second half of the season. If he can do what he did then over the course of an entire year, you’re looking at a player that could be All-ACC.
Jarin Stevenson
Having lost out on him out of high school, UNC have brought in the in-state product Stevenson in a transfer from Alabama.
In his two seasons with the Crimson Tide, Stevenson averaged 5.3 points in 17.6 minutes per game. Considering his 6-10 height, he’s also proven to be a somewhat decent long distance shooter, hitting over 30% of 2.7 attempts per game. Stevenson was serviceable in Alabama, but not excellent. With his size and skillset, there’s always the chance that if he starts to figure things out, he could explode in a big way.
Ivan Metlekovic/Luka Bogavac
Grouping these two together because they’re both players that I just have no idea what to expect with. UNC hasn’t really dipped into the international player pool in this way, so having two players with some professional-ish experience in Europe is uncharted water for the program. Maybe one of them ends of up being a ACC Player of the Year candidate, maybe the end up being replacement level, I truly have no idea what to expect.
Those are the names I was thinking of, but let us know who you think could be a breakout candidate for this year’s Tar Heels?
