Lucas: Times Have Changed

By Adam Lucas

Walking into the Carolina basketball office on Thursday afternoon, no one was entirely sure what to expect.

The NCAA Tournament regional semifinals were set to begin that evening, and the Tar Heels weren't participating. They'd been entirely excluded from the tournament after a disappointing 20-13 season. In the last week, four different players have entered the transfer portal. Two other starters, Leaky Black and Pete Nance, have exhausted their eligibility.

It was March 23, around six months before the first practice, and there was absolutely no certainty of which players from around the country will make up the 2023-24 Tar Heels.

And yet, there was every member of the coaching staff, fielding phone calls and shuffling roster projections. You might have expected a quiet solitude in the office of a program not participating in the postseason. Instead, it felt like the hive of activity of a team on the clock as a draft progressed.

This is college basketball in the year 2023. Gone are the days when Tar Heel fans could count on watching a player develop over four years, taking the path that Hubert Davis himself took from marginally used reserve as a freshman to second-team All-ACC standout as a senior to decade-long NBA career.

There are significantly more options—both financially and in terms of immediate access to opportunities at other schools—available to players today than Dean Smith ever imagined. It's still college basketball. But the name is one of the only similarities to the sport you might have watched in the 1980s.

Kansas State played one of the most entertaining games of the NCAA Tournament last night against Michigan State. Of the Wildcats' top ten scorers this season, only two were in their top ten scorers last year, when they were 6-12 in the Big XII.

One of the departures from KSU's 2022 roster was leading scorer Nijel Pack, who went to Miami in a highly publicized transfer last summer. The Hurricanes are still alive in the NCAA Tournament with a roster that includes three of five starters who began their college careers somewhere other than Coral Gables. Two teams that competed with the 'Canes for the top spot in the ACC, NC State and Pitt, were a combined 20 games under .500 in the ACC last season, then underwent an extreme makeover in the offseason and participated in the NCAA Tournament this year.

In other words, the way we evaluate future hopes for any given college basketball team has changed. Preseason prognostications used to be based partially on the previous season. In the current era, the previous season is very often an irrelevant data point because the personnel is so different. It's possible to remake a team in weeks, not years.

College programs still do important recruiting work at summer AAU events and at high schools around the nation. But a college coaching staff now does equally important work in the weeks immediately after the end of the season, when physically mature, experienced players around the country begin looking for a new home.

That's where we are right now. Top college players with eligibility remaining are surveying the country to evaluate where they might have the best chance at success for the 2023-24 season. A national power that plays in a 21,750-seat arena and has playing time available is a very, very appealing option—hence the ringing telephone in the Smith Center office, with numerous players inquiring about roster spot availability.

The Tar Heels got even better news this week when Armando Bacot and RJ Davis both announced their return for next season. There are multiple reasons for those returns, of course. "I wanted to honor the commitment I made to my mom to earn a degree," said Davis. "And I also wanted to recommit to Carolina and be the leader I know I can be. Last season did not end the way I wanted."

Bacot has largely been the national poster child for name, image and likeness in college basketball and was the cover subject in a New York Times Magazine feature about the opportunities available to college athletes. Like Davis, though, he is well aware that those business prospects are zero without a winning team.

That's why the Tar Heel big man immediately went to Twitter this week to remind his peers that Carolina has openings. "We are going to go out and get the pieces to fit what we want to do," Bacot said.

"Change is not always a bad thing," RJ Davis said. "It builds character. I'm a winner, and I look forward to playing with a team that is willing to do whatever it takes to gel and win together.  Most importantly, we're going to bring Carolina Basketball back. I'm all in. I love this school, and I love to compete."

Has the game changed since Dean Smith? No—the game has changed even since Roy Williams. It was Williams who arrived in Chapel Hill in 2003 and said, "I'm here to build a program, not build a team." He had learned from Smith, the ultimate architect of a long-term program. Twenty years later, building a program is very much about building a team from year to year.

Here's the truth: great players always want to play with other great players in desirable destinations. Among others, Carolina now has two known college standouts coming back in Davis and Bacot. And Chapel Hill, with its incredible history, nation-leading attendance, and 2022 Final Four appearance, remains one of the most desirable locations in the sport.

That's why the phone is ringing. And why the story of the 2023-24 Tar Heels is just beginning.

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University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Armando Bacot

Leaky Black

RJ Davis

Pete Nance

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