The Real Season

For any Tarheel fan, the real season in Tarheel country is basketball season. Even during Mack Brown's best seasons in Chapel Hill, everyone was still looking forward to basketball season. That is definitely the case this season especially with the NCAA mess and suspension festival that has become UNC football.
The Tarheel basketball team played an exhbition game last night against Barton College and it went about as expected at least as far as the score goes, 108-67. What I look for in games like this is overall performance, turnovers, defense, taking advantage of fastbreak opportunities, and how well they run their halfcourt offense.
In this particular game I was more interested in the play of the highly tauted freshman class. The stat line didn't look so good. Preseason All-American Harrison Barnes (the first freshman ever named to the pre-season All-American team) had a shaky debut. 7 points on 2 of 9 shooting but 6 turnovers, Reggie Bullock had 10 points on 4 of 10 shooting, and point guard Kendall Marshall had only 1 point but led the team with 9 assists. From what I have read, he is more in the mold of a "classic" Carolina point guard. He is not much of an offensive threat yet but he is a good passer and from all accounts, can run a team.
The biggest weakness for the 'Heels this year is going to be depth on the inside. They do not have a true center even listed on the roster and at 7'1", Tyler Zeller is listed as a Power Forward. He had 25 points and 14 rebounds last night and against a much smaller team, that is the kind of monster game that you would expect him to have. I am most curious to see how much John Henson (10 and 11 last night) has developed his game in between his freshman and sophomore seasons. Last season I thought he was a Small Forward trapped in a 6'10" body. I thought he was more effective at the end of the season playing on the inside as compared to the perimeter at the beginning of the season. He can definitely be a shot blocking force on the inside. I really don't know anything about Alabama transfer John Knox outside of the fact he is the other big body in the middle. All it is going to take is one turned ankle or a knee injury or a jammed finger on someone in the middle and it completely changes the dynamics of the team and the fortunes of the season.
The "x-factor" on this seasons team may be Junior Justin Watts, whose playing time has been sporadic in his first two seasons. He is the heir apparent to William Graves playing time whose college basketball career came to a sudden end after being kicked off the team. I wonder if Graves hung out with members of the football team.