Unc basketball | UNC Basketball Preview Part 2

UNC Basketball Preview Part 2 - UNC finished the season ranked eighth and one step shy of the Final Four. Although Henson's perimeter defense is surprisingly strong. Big men generally adapt faster that guards, and McAdoo already has good rebounding skills and the speed Roy Williams likes in big men. Perimeter shooting has been the weak spot in Carolina's offense since the 2009 team left for the pros after their championship season, and Hairston is the great incoming hope for reversing that trend.

It remains to be seen how that performance translates once he faces tougher opposition, and how his own defensive skills match up, but he's likely to get the most playing time of any of the freshmen, due to having to compete for playing time against primarily Reggie Bullock and Dexter Strickland.

Recruited as a shooting guard, he was press-ganged into being the backup point guard to Larry Drew, where did a decent job, but wasn't really comfortable. Then, of course, Drew quit the team and Strickland found himself back in the backup point guard role.

The difference last season was that he kept the starting job as shooting guard, while still handling point guard duties whenever Marshall was out of the game. The other interesting thing about Strickland's game is that for a shooting guard, he doesn't take many shots from behind the arc. UNC will have one or two excellent three-point shooter coming off the bench in Hairston and Bullock while the starter at shooting guard rarely attempts a three.

The thinking basically goes that Marcus Ginyard's injury in 2009 was critical to UNC's championship run, because it allowed Danny Green to enter the starting lineup, a switch Williams would have never made on his own, because despite Green's better shooting, Ginyard was the better defender and Williams is pretty hierarchal about these sort of decisions.

Note that it arose after the 2009 team had mostly moved on, and UNC was losing with a hobbled Ginyard as the Heels' best perimeter shooting option at the time.