North Carolina basketball: 5 questions the UNC Tar Heels must answer in 2020
North Carolina basketball has questions for 2020-21 to bounce back from a down year.
With three National Championships since Roy Williams took over on the sidelines, there haven’t been many times when North Carolina basketball hasn’t definitively been one of the best teams in the country. The 2019-20 season, however, was one of those times. A 14-19 campaign was the first losing season in Williams’ coaching career and now he’s left to pick up the pieces.
Following a year in which they wouldn’t have made it to the NCAA Tournament even if it had been held, the Tar Heels are in prime position to really bounce back and rise to the top of the ACC once again. While that may be the case, Williams’ team isn’t going to just waltz into that position. They need to find their identity and establish it.
With that in mind, North Carolina basketball has plenty of questions that they must answer for the 2020-21 season if they’re really going to bounce back. These are five of those critical questions.
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5. UNC basketball questions: Can Love find more success than Anthony?
When Cole Anthony arrived in Chapel Hill last season, the hype was truly out of control. And that hype only grew when the freshman guard had 34 points in his college basketball debut. Unfortunately, the year ultimately got derailed for the soon-to-be NBA lottery pick due to an injury and generally inconsistent play, particularly with his efficiency as a scorer.
Now that Anthony is heading for the pro ranks, Williams and the Tar Heels will be turning the keys to the offense over to another freshman. This time around, it’ll be top-20 recruit Caleb Love that steps into that role. But with how vital the point guard position is to the Roy Williams offense, Love’s arrival means more than most freshmen would.
There is some reason for trepidation given the similarities between Love and Anthony. One of Anthony’s biggest shortcomings was his lack of consistent playmaking, meaning that he never found the balance between score-first and pass-first. Love has a scorer’s mentality but will need to strike that balance better than his predecessor.
Make no mistake, the newcomer is loaded with talent and could be a potential star for the Tar Heels and on a national level. However, the faithful in Chapel Hill are just hoping that he can transition to Williams’ offense much better than Anthony was able to during his one season at UNC.