MILWAUKEE, WI – The transfer portal for college basketball opens Monday, even for the remaining teams playing the NCAA Tournament and other postseason events. It’s here and it promises to be wild.
Movement will occur on every roster, including North Carolina’s. Who will leave and what players will become Tar Heels through the portal remain to be seen. But expect an active and aggressive approach from the UNC staff.
UNC had 11 scholarship players this season, three of whom no longer have eligibility. RJ Davis, Jae’Lyn Withers, and Ty Claude are moving on. Three freshmen will arrive this summer, but the other eight Tar Heels do is currently a mystery.
On top of that, this is a twofold situation: The players have personal decisions to make but head coach Hubert Davis and general manager Jim Tanner must determine how they see those Heels fitting in.
Do they encourage any of those players to find another school because they won’t play much next season? Do they want certain players back but also recognize to elevate the performance of the program, they must portal recruit over those players, which could prompt some to leave?
Monday is also when Davis will begin having exit meetings with his players. That could quickly steer Carolina’s searches in specific directions. For example, what if Ian Jackson decides he’s not ready for the NBA and wants to return?
What will it cost UNC? Is the price tag a sensible move for the program? And who on the roster would that affect? All hypothetical, of course.
Whatever Jackson is thinking by Monday wasn’t on his mind Friday after the Tar Heels were eliminated by Mississippi in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“I think as I think about it some more, and like thoroughly think about it, I would start to understand what I want to do,” Jackson said. “I just didn’t get a chance to think about what to do.”
The general response from Heels with decisions to make were essentially the same.
“I’m not sure. I’m not really thinking about that right now. I just want to be with my teammates,” said junior big man Jalen Washington.
“The season just ended like 10 minutes ago. I don’t know,” said sophomore point guard Elliot Cadeau.
And so on.
What is known is that Carolina finished the season with a 23-14 record. Only six other UNC teams have lost more games in a season in the program’s fabled history. The Tar Heels trailed by at least 14 points in 12 different games, they played 11 Quad 1 games against teams that made the NCAA Tournament and led for just a total of 30:26 of 445 game minutes.
This was one of Carolina’s worst rebounding teams of the last 60 years finishing at just plus-2.9 in rebounding margin, and this was UNC’s worst offensive rebounding team in nearly 30 years.
UNC struggled defensively, didn’t have a rim protector, did not handle a variety of things well on that end of the floor, and its lack of size and beef inside routinely adversely impacted its games.
So, North Carolina fans can expect plenty of activity from the program over the next few weeks. Some will likely go and a few, at least, will come on board. The craziness begins Monday.
