The North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program will look to learn from last season’s debacle where they missed the NCAA Tournament after being named the preseason No. 1 team in the AP poll.
Going into this year, there will be a lot of new faces on the roster as they lost eight players to the transfer portal while welcoming in five transfers. They do return starters Armando Bacot and R.J. Davis as well as sophomores Seth Trimble and Jalen Washington. UNC also has a two-man 2023 recruiting class with Zayden High and point guard Elliot Cadeau coming in.
Cadeau opted to reclassify from 2024 to 2023 as a five-star prospect and should make an impact right away with the program. As it stands right now, Cadeau is even earning some early draft praise.
In The Ringer’s first NBA mock draft for 2024, they have one UNC player as a lottery pick. And that’s Cadeau checking in at No. 7 overall among the prospects:
Cadeau is small in stature at 6-foot-1 and 165 pounds, but he could end up being the best shot creator in this draft class. He’s a gifted ball handler who displays poise in the pick-and-roll and excels in isolation, effortlessly crafting shots using myriad agile maneuvers. As a facilitator, he’s audacious, slinging pinpoint passes to any teammate, anywhere. Finding consistency as a perimeter shooter could propel him even higher up my rankings, and it’d open more driving lanes. As a smaller guard, he needs to confound defenders with off-beat finishes, but he’s also explosive and spices things up with an occasional surprise dunk. Though smaller players will always be targets on defense, Cadeau at least tries to make up for his lack of size by anticipating passes and standing his ground. With regular minutes for the Tar Heels, he could end up being one of the must-watch players in college basketball and then one of the top picks.
This isn’t the first time Cadeau has been labeled as a lottery pick and if he has a big season in Chapel Hill, he should hear his name called early on in the draft similar to Coby White a few years back.
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