North Carolina Basketball: An adjustment in the post for the Tar Heels approaches
After winning the NCAA title, North Carolina basketball may have to get unconventional with an inexperienced post group in 2017-18.
For North Carolina Tar Heels fans, the 2017-18 off-season has included at least one minor surprise. That would have been Tony Bradley leaving after his freshman season. He was ultimately justified in doing it too, since he was taken in the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft.
Bradley’s departure meant something else for the upcoming season. For the first time in a while, the Tar Heels would be going into battle without an established big. The Roy Williams offense has traditionally employed two big men down low. Usually these were conventional big men too, not the stretch type now roaming the NBA.
Now, Williams will be looking at situation where his most experienced big is 6’7” and is most famous for his three ball. Otherwise, the team is looking at three freshmen filling out that rotation. It is not the kind of continuity that Tar Heels were used to seeing when James Michael McAdoo, Brice Johnson, Kennedy Meeks, and Isaiah Hicks passed the baton to each other over the last four years.
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To go back to a similar moment of upheaval in the Tar Heel program takes the team back to 2005-6. That year the Heels lost their post rotation the year before. David Noel moved down to fill one of those spots. The other was filled by super freshman Tyler Hansbrough, which was not a surprise to Williams, though it may have surprised us at the time.
While Luke Maye has some parallels to Noel, Hansbrough is where the 2006 comparison falls flat. Not one of the three freshmen bigs is expected to have that kind of impact. It would be great if one of them did, because that would solve all kinds of problems and render the issue moot.
Instead, the Tar Heels need to figure out where production will come from. Of the 88 points per game that they averaged last year, 32 came from the first four post players. That number grows in importance when you recall that Justin Jackson’s eighteen points per game also are gone.
A best case scenario would be a breakdown like 2007-08 where there were three new freshmen big men in Brandan Wright, Deon Thompson, and Alex Stepheson. The three together averaged twenty points a game (Wright having the biggest chunk of it), but again they were playing off of Hansbrough. 20 points a game between Garrison Brooks, Brandon Huffman, and Sterling Manley would be well accepted.
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Keeping It Heel
However, the basketball is played when you have your best players on the court. The 2017-18 Tar Heels are heavy in wing and guard experience. Last year, this even meant playing odd groups including one with no center at all. That could well signal that the Tar Heels will spend a fair amount of time going small this year. While Joel Berry and Theo Pinson are guaranteed starter spots, minutes need to found to accommodate transfer Cameron Johnson along with Kenny Williams, Jalek Felton, Seventh Woods, Brandon Robinson, and even walk-on Walker Miller.
That task is easier if somebody gets shipped out to the four spot on occasion in relief of Luke Maye. Pinson has taken that role in spurts. Johnson is 6’8” and at least has the height to matchup with college type power forwards. While this path might slow the development of the freshmen bigs, it would maximize the skill level on the court. Coach Williams is not shy about playing small when he has to, since he did that very thing with P.J. Hairston.
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That will likely be the path that the team takes. The young bigs will get chances to prove themselves in the early non-conference, but look for the team to play smaller as the year goes on and Coach Williams tightens his rotation. Scoring will be key for this team, and any method to get more scoring on the court will be used.