UNC basketball’s looming dominance clear with returning talent

A slew of returning talent could mean a dominant season is in store for UNC basketball.

One of the big shocks from the 2022 NCAA Tournament was North Carolina’s run to the national championship game. UNC flirted with the bubble for most of the year before getting hot in March, blowing a second-half lead before falling to the Kansas Jayhawks with a title on the line.

It was unclear if that loss would impact the Tar Heels’ ability to retain talent, a big reason why it was tough to forecast whether or not they would be a Top 10 team entering the 2022-23 season.  The offseason has gone very well for UNC, however, and Hubert Davis’ team is in position to potentially steamroll college basketball starting in November.

UNC basketball is bringing back a ton of stars

Now that the deadline to withdraw from the NBA Draft has passed and the transfer portal movement is all but done, most rosters in college basketball are set. The Field of 68 recently ranked its Top 25 returning players for next season and the Tar Heels placed three on the list, headlined by big man Armando Bacot at No. 3.

The other UNC players to make the cut were R.J. Davis and Caleb Love, which is good since they were three of North Carolina’s best players during the NCAA Tournament. The lone loss of note for the Tar Heels is forward Brady Manek, who exhausted his eligibility after the tournament, but Davis does have a pair of top recruits joining the program in guard Seth Trimble and center Jalen Washington.

That kind of incoming talent could make North Carolina the top team in the preseason polls, a spot that has belonged to Gonzaga in each of the past two years. The Bulldogs remain a threat to that mantle, as do Arkansas and Houston after strong offseasons, but the road to a championship could run through Chapel Hill this season.

Nothing is a guarantee, however, as many felt that UCLA would be a Final Four contender after their huge NCAA Tournament run in the Indianapolis bubble in 2021. The Bruins underachieved last season and were bounced in the Sweet 16, offering a cautionary tale that Davis will be preaching to his team that is entering the campaign with sky-high expectations.