Experience

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Here's our roster, assuming Bacot returns, listed in order of total minutes played at the college level.

Player	Class	Total Minutes	MPG Last Season
Brady Manek	superSR	3275	25.1
Leaky Black	SR	1987	27.6
Armando Bacot	JR	1440	22.7
Caleb Love	SO	802	27.7
RJ Davis	SO	646	22.3
Kerwin Walton	SO	608	21.0
Justin McKoy	JR	318	11.3
Anthony Harris	rsSO	236	11.0
Puff Johnson	SO	58	4.1
Dontrez Styles	FR	0	0
D'Marco Dunn	FR	0	0

 

[DSouthr]

I don't think many will disagree, the 27.6mins a game Leaky got last season at the wing 3 isn't likely to be repeated next season, just to much of a liability on the offensive end and frankly, we have a LOT of guys that can not just handle the position but become serious threats to score. In my mind he would be fortunate to be the 3rd option at the wing, maybe 4th. His best bet would be to bulk up this off season, I do not expect that, and look to develop in to more of a small 4 but even with that he would seem to trail Manck, McKoy, and maybe even Styles.

Now looking at the roster (at least as it stands right now) I want to talk a little Puff Johnson. I get it, he got very little PT last season and as a wing3, he was at a position that many would expect PT was available to be had. I think many, maybe even most (not including me) were disappointed with his first season. I said prior to last season, that as high as I was/am on his future with us, I was not looking for a lot of PT for him as a freshman, was thinking he would have played a little more than he did so lets be sure we understand why. Just as practice began he had to go in to covid protocal, missing what, his first 2 weeks of practice in his very first college season? So right off the bat he was behind (as was Kessler), hard way to start off. Early season, he got a few minutes, of course he was lost at times but freshmen do get lost at times, Kessler was lost at times as well early in.

Now I had offered one of my reasons I did not expect Puff to produce a lot as a freshman, kid dramatically needs a lot of work with S/C team, really needs to add strength, gets pushed around way to much. But the other problem that hit him as a high ankle sprain that just did what many of those do, wouldn't heal, wasn't going to be able to heal till the off season with rest. You have a Jr, that Roy loved in Leaky ahead of him for the position and all this other stuff to deal thru, no wonder is left as to why he didn't get much time.

BUT, KEEP THIS IN MIND FOLKS, this kid has a ton of talent, you will in time see him as a fantastic shooting threat, much like his brother, slow start to college but when he develops he becomes special. Cam didn't start in college as big time producer either, keep in mind his first couple seasons in college were at Pitt and let's just say he was not considered the type of player while at Pitt he became at UNC. He had a lingering hip issue that was only corrected prior to his last season for us and we see how that turned out. Puff does not have that hip issue, Puff's tiume line should be a bit less than Cam's was. Don't write the kid off, he is much more than he has to show and Tar Heel fans will love what they see!

 

[dadika13]

Good things usually happen when we return 4 starters...even better when that 5th player is a guy with all that experience at a P5 school like Manek.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

If you add up all last year's MPG numbers, you get 172.8 minutes.

In other words, if everybody plays the same number of minutes as they did last year, we have 27.2 minutes to fill.

That won't be hard.

Kerwin finished the season averaging 25.4 mpg, and that will probably continue or increase.

You can bet Justin McKoy didn't come here to play only 11 mpg. Even if he doesn't earn a starter role, he should get a lot of minutes backing up SF and PF.

If Ant Harris finally gets to play a full, healthy season, a lot of us expect he will earn more minutes.

If Bacot returns, I imagine one of the things he'll want to prove is that he has the stamina to play longer minutes on a regular basis. Last season, he only played over 30 minutes once. Sure, we had lots of front line guys, so he didn't have to. But it's probably something he wants to demonstrate.

If Puff is 100%, I'm sure he won't want to yield the remaining minutes to the freshmen.

OTOH, as @DSouthr points out, Leaky may play fewer minutes next season unless his shooting improves.

 

[Tom79]

Jrs and Srs on a roster sure give a team an advantage. Ask Few cause he had experience on the NCAA winner.
I hope for us Leaky and Puff both have good seasons.

 

[arshadali8888]

Being disappointment with Puff's freshman year, I will have to strongly disagree with you. The Covid-19 and year of injuries mattered greatly against him. Expectations were too high , not only for our team this year, but all teams, due to the stresses of the pandemic. This is basically a scratch year. No one has ever experienced what was experienced through Covid- 19.

I believe that a healthy Puff Johnson provides us with a far greater scoring threat than Leaky. When Leaky is in the game, if we need points, it's like we are playing 4 against 5. If we need a perimeter defender, then Leaky is the guy at that time. The potential scoring threat from Puff would make opposing defenders stay home on their men to avoid surrendering the three point threat from Puff.

I believe that Puff will be a wild card, along with Walton, an experienced and improved Love and Davis, along with the new threat from Manek. I failed to mention that if Bacot returns, he then becomes free to now score against lone and sometimes undersized defenders because the paint is less clogged because of the outside scoring threats and improved spacing.

 

[kc2525]

Good things usually happen when we return 4 starters...even better when that 5th player is a guy with all that experience at a P5 school like Manek.

That’s a good way of looking at it. Gives me more of an optimistic outlook.

 

[ChiShankCity]

It’ll all depend on Caleb’s efficiency offensively next year. Hopefully a year of experience helps him be better at shot selection, thus improving his efficiency. Hopefully a year helps him reduce bad turnovers.

Next season is going to be in his hands. He’s the team’s most dynamic player, playmaker and is the only one who has shown the ability to create offense off the bounce.

If he shows exponential improvement, we may have a thing with this team. If it’s steady improvement that comes with experience, I still think his poor efficiency will lead to a very inconsistent season.