UNC's Roster Isn't What It Once Was, but Team Still Looks Very Good

North Carolina basketball has played decently throughout the first two games of the year, but there's still some left to be desired. As of now, North Carolina sits at 2-0 and won't necessarily be tested until its fourth game of the year when it takes on a decent Georgia team. 

I don't want to say Georgia is an elite team by any means, since it hasn't been that impressive through the first two games of this season either, but it is still an SEC opponent North Carolina has to beat. 

Regardless, it's fair to say this North Carolina team might not be the same type of team we're used to seeing. I still love to believe that there's a boatload of talent on both sides of the basketball, but others don't. 

That includes one analyst who recently suggested that while the Tar Heels are going to be a decent team, this isn't the squad that our grandfathers are used to seeing.

“To use his basketball acumen — which was good enough to win an NBA championship with the Denver Nuggets in 2023 — to make UNC’s sum greater than its parts. Clearly, that process is going to take some time.

“The reality: This is not your grandparents’ North Carolina team. Only one starter (forward Jarin Stevenson) returns from last season, meaning Malone is essentially starting from scratch. And while he had resources to work with in the transfer portal — at least 20 million of them — he also had no idea who any of the available players were or how they fit his vision. So, he talent-grabbed to the best of his ability,” Brendan Marks wrote.

Head coach Michael Malone had a lot of questions answered during the offseason, especially in his first season taking over for Hubert Davis. It wasn't ever going to be an easy job for Malone to dominate in the portal considering how late he was hired, but considering how much time he had, I think he did a great job.

What makes things even more promising is the fact that he has a very good chance to do this over the next couple of years at a much higher level than he did this season, and this team is already decent. 

Time is going to tell how good North Carolina can be, but with Malone as its head coach, we have to feel like the Tar Heels are in just as good a spot as any team in the country to be one of the best in college basketball.

In this transfer portal and NIL era, there's a chance we'll never see rosters like we did in the past. That's the reality for about 99.9% of college basketball programs.