Tripartisan : Looking ahead to Carolina's 2020-21 basketball season
I don't pay a lot of attention to recruiting. I already spend far too much of my life allowing my mood to be impacted by 18- to 21-year-old kids, so I've made a conscious decision to not permit even younger 16- and 17-year-olds to do the same thing.
This is especially true in football, where a player will verbally "commit" to a school, only to "de-commit" and re-open their recruitment two months later, but I apply the philosophy to basketball also.
As a result of this core belief, I can't tell you what top-ten high school sophomore Roy Williams is going to fly out to see this Thursday or what big name junior is leaning the Tar Heels' way.
Truth be told, I seldom even pay attention to a player that has signed an LOI. Sure, I see the tweets celebrating a big commitment and allow those to provide me with some form of assurance that Carolina will continue on as a basketball powerhouse for another season, but I can't spout off names, positions, heights, and star rankings of future players at the drop of a hat.
I like to form my own opinions on players once they arrive on campus and play in games rather than decide that X player is just a role player or Y player is the savior before I ever see them on the court. This may sound crazy to you, but to this day I have never seen a Seventh Woods high school mix tape (or whatever the kids call them these days).
As a result, I never got angry at Seventh for not "living up" to the hype. To me, he had no hype, other than that he had managed to be good enough to that point in his career to receive a scholarship to play basketball for North Carolina.
He was just like every other incoming freshman on that season's roster.
That being said, I've found this life philosophy works much better for me when North Carolina is a top-10 team in the hunt for the national title as February comes to a close.
This season, though, the Tar Heels are limping – quite literally – to the conclusion of a disappointing year, complete with the first losing season of Roy Williams' career.
So today I decided to take a brief peak into the future to try to assure myself that the Tar Heels' stay in the ACC cellar will be short lived. I started, as always, by projecting who Carolina will have back from this season.
The 2020-21 squad will likely see Garrison Brooks, Leaky Black, and Armando Bacot playing "significant" minutes, with Andrew Platek, AnthonyHarris, and Jeremiah Francis all contributing, as well. While the decision has obviously not been made, I am penciling in Cole Anthony's name on the NBA draft board, and while I'd love to see it, I am not going to expect anything from Sterling Manley (but if he can get healthy, this team would become even deeper down low).
That's six returning players for Roy Williams to work with. Brooks has proven he has what it takes to put up great numbers playing tons of minutes in the ACC, and Armando Bacot has shown the potential to follow a similar trajectory.
The other four players may not be superstars, but with more experience running the Carolina system, they are valuable role players to build a team around.
So who will be around them? Well here are the names, positions, and high school rankings (per 24/7 Sports) of all five commits:
Day'Ron Sharpe (Center) – 14
Walker Kessler (Center) – 17
Caleb Love (Point Guard) – 18
Puff Johnson (Small Forward) – 48
R.J. Davis (Combo Guard) – 54
As a frame of reference, here are the high school rankings of the six previously mentioned returners:
Bacot – 27
Black – 71
Harris – 72
Brooks – 131
Francis – 179
Platek – 217
If the returning players look like a solid group of role players to build a team around, the incoming group looks like the perfect set of players to add to them.
Two extremely skilled big men who can come in and spend a season playing behind two experienced big men, allowing them to learn the system without the immense pressure of being relied upon as the primary options from day one.
A highly touted point guard who can come in and compete with Francis and Black for the starting spot, and at least provide substantial minutes off the bench if he doesn't win it at the start of the season. And then, what this team desperately needs, a couple of shooters.
A lot of folks might look at the national rankings (and this season's lack of success) and claim the incoming group should just be the starting five when the season begins. That thought process ignores the importance of the experience the returning players will bring.
It also ignores 30 years of history that suggests Roy Williams values and rewards seniority.
I'm not saying no freshmen will start. I'm just saying that all freshmen won't start. Carolina has seen success in the past by blending experienced upper classmen with talented newcomers, and with a little luck – or at least, with the absence of the quantity of bad luck the Heels have seen this season – they can see success with it again next year.
Is that roster a national championship caliber team? Maybe, maybe not.
The answer to that will depend on whether the incoming freshmen play to their rankings, whether the returning players can put this season behind them,
whether shooting improves, and whether the point guards can learn and run Roy's system…among many other things.
But whether they make the Final Four or not, on paper that team certainly appears to have hopes of being a team that heads into March Madness with a relatively low number beside its name. And at this juncture, that's all I'm looking for.
A little bit of hope