The most discussed topic regarding North Carolina’s basketball team this summer has focused on the Tar Heels’ big men for the coming season. Many believe the Heels just don’t have enough.

That could be the case, nobody will know until the team is well into the season. However, with respect to junior Jalen Washington being asked to take on a much larger role than previously, there are examples in the past of noteworthy Carolina big men that have followed a somewhat similar path.

Either after their first or second year, they took off in playing time and reliable production. Each of the six players noted below were All-ACC performers to some degree, and five of them played for a while in the NBA.

As for Washington, he can be viewed as having played one or two seasons given that he was recovering from multiple knee surgeries in his first year, and hadn’t had a true offseason to work on his game until the summer before his sophomore campaign.

His numbers: