North Carolina freshman forward James Brown will return to Chapel Hill for his sophomore year now that the deadline for entering the transfer portal has passed and he did not submit his name.

Brown was one of the few players not expected to leave from the outset of end-of-season meetings players had with head coach Hubert Davis. And it played out that way.

At 6-foot-10, Brown played sparingly this season for the Tar Heels. He saw action in 18 of 37 games averaging 2.9 minutes. He scored 21 points on 10-for-14 shooting and grabbed 15 rebounds.

His high scoring game was 6 points on 3-for-4 shooting in five minutes in a win over La Salle in December. He had 4 rebounds in a win over Notre Dame in the ACC Tournament. Brown played only 21 minutes since UNC’s loss at Wake Forest on January 21.

His greatest impact may have come in the second game of the season. Brown was inserted into the lineup with the Tar Heels struggling some and having some foul trouble. His impact was considerable.

He followed a missed layup in transition by Drake Powell by grabbing the rebound and immediately laying the ball back in just before the horn sounded ending the first half. It cut Kansas’ lead to 15 points, but the sequence infused the Tar Heels and led to a boost of intensity from Brown in the locker room at halftime.

“He came in with a lot of intensity saying they haven’t worked as hard as us and just trying to get us going saying different things,” veteran forward Jae’Lyn Withers standing outside UNC’s locker room in Lawrence, KS. “When HD came in, he matched the energy and we fed off that.”

Brown scored 2 points and grabbed a rebound in four minutes late in UNC’s win over San Deigo State in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament.

A native of Aurora, IL, Brown has three years of eligibility remaining.