It’s that time of year where a sports lover is glued to their televison.
We’re in the midst of professional and collegiate football season, plus the MLB Postseason. NHL action has already kicked off, while the NBA regular season starts next week.
There’s one more sport we’ll be adding to that mix early next month – college basketball, the one sport that can decrease work productivity for just a few weeks every March.
One college hoops teams several people will be following closely is UNC, who, last year, became the first Preseason Number One team to miss the NCAA Tournament. Carolina returned four-fifths of its starting lineup last year, but that veteran presence and talent never played up to its 2021-2022 level.
A reason the Tar Heels struggled was head coach Hubert Davis’ failure to properly utilize the bench. He had the likes of Jalen Washington, Puff Johnson, Dontrez Styles and D’Marco Dunn waiting for their turn, yet those four and additional bench guys rarely saw extended minutes on the court.
This led to a mass exodus of transfers, with seven Tar Heels, led by last year’s starting point guard Caleb Love, leaving Chapel Hill.
What UNC lost in the transfer portal, though, they quickly gained back in the form of two projected starters and three valuable bench pieces.
One of Carolina’s most valuable transfers they gained was former Notre Dame guard Cormac Ryan, who’s tallied over 1,000 points during his time in South Bend. At 6’5″, he’ll likely split time between the shooting guard and small forward spot.
There’s a chance Ryan could start at the 3, but we’ll have to wait until an official starting lineup is released. Let’s take a deeper dive into the type of player UNC gains in Ryan: