No. 50 is gone, and so are a host of other starters, but the Tar Heels remain one of the favorites in the ACC thanks in part to an incoming class of five freshmen, many of whom can expect significant playing time.
“It’s hard to practice without Tyler Hansbrough, Danny Green and Bobby Frasor,” head coach Roy Williams said. “We lost some great guys who were bigtime basketball players, wonderful kids, wonderful leaders and very successful.”
Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington are the two other significant departures for North Carolina. Even with these losses, the Tar Heels go into the season ranked No. 6.
Seven-foot sophomore Tyler Zeller is one of North Carolina’s remaining frontcourt players who will have increased minutes, while forward Ed Davis is on the preseason Naismith watch list.
The Tar Heels look to their new seniors to replace the leadership lost from last year.
“Not only is Marcus [Ginyard] going to be a great leader,” Williams said, “but Deon Thompson is going to do a nice job with that as well.”
In the backcourt, North Carolina has a plethora of options to substitute in for Lawson, but it won’t be easy for any player to step in and replace the production of the newest Denver Nuggets point guard.
“You can’t replace a Ty Lawson,” Thompson said. “But when you’ve got a Marcus Ginyard and a Larry Drew and a Dexter Strickland and Lezzy McDonald—you put all those guys together—that’s a pretty good core group to replace one guy.”
The Tar Heels should find out quickly how well their young team gelled in the offseason with matchups against preseason No. 2 Michigan State and No. 5 Kentucky in December.
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