A taste, a glorious taste, of Carolina Basketball! On Tuesday night, Hubert Davis’ Tar Heels traveled to Memphis for a televised exhibition against the Tigers, the type for which we have usually only had a few highlight videos and some hush-hush insider takeaways. Here, though, we saw what was in effect a preseason game, that looked at least regular-season quality in intensity and fan attendance, and which gave us a valuable first look at this UNC team against a pretty tough opponent, which they won 84-76. Without a traditional recap, since it was just a preseason game after all, here are some takeaways, for whatever preseason takeaways are worth. I’m not even going to do the internet-friendly thing and number them; this is really just going to be whatever the written version of yapping is. But oh, how good it feels to yap about Carolina basketball again.
The returning backcourt’s improvement appears to be real
The talk of the summer around the program has been the development of Elliot Cadeau and Seth Trimble from last year to now. Nearly every recruit that has visited Chapel Hill has said something about how impressed they were by Trimble in practice, and even for Hubert Davis’ exuberant standards, the amount of stress he’s put on Cadeau’s improvement as a floor general, leader, and shooter was hard to dismiss as pure offseason fluff. It’s a small sample size between the Blue/White scrimmage and this exhibition, all that talk appears to have been founded. Trimble was the story of the game, taking advantage of starting in R.J. Davis’ stead with an offensive explosion of 33 points on 11/17 shooting, including 3/5 from deep and 8/8 from the free-throw line. The points came from everywhere: catch-and-shoot triples, blow-by drives, finishing in fast-break situations, crafty moves in the midrange — Trimble looked through and through like a consummate bucket-getter. He also spelled Cadeau for spot minutes as a ballhandler, though he wasn’t quite as comfortable there. And, of course, his typically excellent on-ball defense was still very much a thing.
Cadeau was forced to play heavy minutes due to being the only real ballhandler on the team with Davis out, and he commanded his team masterfully. He was a wizard in pick-and-roll, assisting on 6 of UNC’s first 10 baskets and finishing with 13 assists to go with 11 points, 4 steals, and 4 rebounds. Maybe most exciting was his 2/3 mark from downtown, including a sidestep into a pull-up jumper that initially looked like it was going to be the kind of look he was offered often last year and either couldn’t hit or turned down due to lack of confidence. It wasn’t all rosy for the point guard, as he had a couple of brutal decisions down the stretch that led to turnovers (ended with 4 for the game) and missed several shots inside the arc on which he should have connected, but the shooting and ownership of his team really stood out. He also showed real improvement on the defensive end, showing off that feisty nature that manifested at times last year combined with an increased understanding of positioning and ability to play at the speed of the game. Beyond his four steals, he drew at least two charges and got rebounds over taller Memphis forwards, just playing like a pest. UNC Basketball is at its best with at least one scrapper, and with Harrison Ingram gone, Cadeau looks ready to at least partly fill that role. Between the two of them looking like this and R.J. Davis, to say nothing of Ian Jackson and Drake Powell’s potential, UNC might just have the best and deepest backcourt in the country.
Carolina needs more from the 4 spot
With Davis out, UNC rolled out a starting lineup of Cadeau, Trimble, Cade Tyson, Jae’Lyn Withers, and Jalen Washington. Tyson, a 6’7 junior transfer from Belmont, was brought in to bring some kind of combination of what UNC has seen from Brady Manek, Cormac Ryan, and Harrison Ingram in past years — he was one of the best shooters in the country last year, but he’s also built reasonably heavily and has talked about his desire to rebound well enough to average a double-double this year, presumably meaning that he expects to play a lot at the four. Withers, of course, we’re more familiar with, as he played valuable minutes as a sixth/seventh man down the stretch last season.
As the two players taking the majority of the minutes at power forward, neither had the best of showings. Tyson looked overly sped up on offense and defense, looking like the jump in level from the Missouri Valley to power conference basketball was too much. It could have been first-game jitters; he’s played well against good teams before, but especially given UNC’s recent track record with transfers moving up a level, it warrants some concern. Tyson connected on just 1/6 of his three-point attempts and outside of a couple of nice baseline drives attacking closeouts, didn’t really appear to offer offensive value outside of the shooting potential — and some sloppy turnovers only made that concern worse. He did make good on that rebounding promise, leading his team with 9 boards. Withers, meanwhile, continued to make the bad decisions and wrongheaded plays that frustrated UNC fans at times last year. He had a few good moments and did bring down 8 rebounds, but he had at least two others ripped away from him by guards, had a couple of bad turnovers, and shot just 2/7 from the floor on all pretty easy looks. With how much Davis wants to spread the floor from that position, I’m not sure Ven-Allen Lubin, Tyzhaun Claude, or James Brown are going to be doing much from there, and Washington is needed under the rim to stop opposing bigs from swallowing rebounds — which leaves basically just freshman Drake Powell behind Withers and Tyson at the four, and I’m not sure he’s physically ready yet to bang around at that position, at this level. As it is, the position looked like a serious weakness for Carolina and things are going to have to get better and fast.
The freshmen wings are going to be uneven at first
Early-season action is always a good reminder that even the 95th percentile of freshmen don’t come to college basketball ready to explode from Day 1, especially when they’re not entering systems catered to them. But expectations for blue-chip recruits are always going to be high, and it was no different from Ian Jackson and Drake Powell, the pair of five-star wing recruits who were among Hubert Davis’ first big recruiting wins as a head coach. Both of them looked a little, or a lot, overzealous on the offensive end, playing faster than they were processing, which led to losing their footing, the ball, or simply bad misses from the floor. Where they showed some promise, though, was on the defensive end. Powell had been billed as a high-level defender for years now, and absolutely showed that off with his ball pressure, high IQ on switches, and one nasty blocked shot. Jackson, though, was almost as impressive. He got bullied on screens a couple of times, but more often than not was able to get skinny over them and stay in pursuit of his man and apply heat to ballhandlers, ending up with two steals in his 17 minutes. If it takes time for the offense to come around, their early defensive acumen will still help this team be better.
Jalen Washington is ready for more minutes
The story of Jalen Washington throughout his career has been that he’s been hyper-efficient in limited playing time with questions about how well his positives would hold up with increased minutes. Would he be able to scale his skilled offensive game and excellent rim protection into a starters’ role, or would questions about his defensive strength, mobility, and rebounding limit him? It was those questions that fueled a lot of UNC fans’ wish for a starter-quality big man in the portal this offseason. After that didn’t really happen, it was going to be on Washington to make his case, and in his 25 minutes as a starter, he did just that. His offensive game continued to be unreasonably efficient, with 17 points on 6/7 shooting (2/2 from three) and, after getting baptized on the game’s first possession, played excellent team and individual post defense. He had two steals and a blocked shot and held up against a pretty physical Memphis frontline, and gathered six rebounds but more importantly boxed out to make rebounds available for his teammates — I’m not sure rebounding’s ever going to be a strength for him. The combination of him and Cadeau on pick-and-roll looks like it’s going to be very fruitful for both of them, given Washington’s array of skills on offense and ability to score from all levels — and his movement looked a lot more fluid as well, showcased by his catching an alley-oop in halfcourt offense for UNC’s first points of the game. His expected primary backup, Ven-Allen Lubin, had some good moments, showing off great touch around the rim, some nifty moves to get to the basket as a roller, and some toughness, but was shaky overall, and it was pretty clear that, just as the UNC post was Armando Bacot’s before, it’s ready to be Washington’s now.
