NCAA Basketball: 25 biggest offseason winners heading into 2021-22 season

While Duke set itself up with a transition period for their coaching change, North Carolina’s happen suddenly with the retirement of Hall of Famer Roy Williams. His successor, assistant Hubert Davis, had to quickly pull things together to risk not losing players to either the portal or the NBA Draft.

And in the few months on the job, Coach Davis has to be given an “A” grade. While the Tar Heels lost Walker Kessler, Garrison Brooks, and Day’Ron Sharpe, the team was able to keep their best frontcourt player on the roster in Armando Bacot, who led the team with 12.3 ppg and 7.8 rpg.

Joining him in the revamped frontcourt is Oklahoma stretch forward transfer Brady Manek, as well as Virginia combo forward Justin McCoy. But the big-named addition came later in the offseason in Dawson Garcia, the best player for Marquette this past season as a freshman who came back from the NBA Draft. This new group of forwards compliments each other much better than last year’s Tar Heels frontcourt and should open things up for the backcourt, who all return and has more experience.

Starting point guard Caleb Love is a potential breakout candidate, while RJ Davis, Kerwin Walton, and Leaky Black are good players as well. This roster Coach Davis has created has arguably a better floor than Duke’s and should be good enough for a top-tier finish in the ACC.

And lastly, Coach Davis has proven he can win on the recruiting trail, landing four-star guard Seth Trimble and five-star big man Jalen Washington. And look for them to be in the picture for a couple of other top-100 prospects in the 2022 class as well. So far so good in the sudden, yet effective transition for the program.