By R.L. Bynum
I’ll never forget driving on Lejeune Boulevard in Jacksonville, N.C., in the spring of 1984 when I heard a report on the radio that nearly led me to drive off the road. It was so stunning.
The radio reporter broke the news to me that Michael Jordan was going to forgo his senior season at North Carolina to enter the NBA draft. As a rookie sports writer at the Jacksonville Daily News making a paltry wage, I couldn’t imagine the riches ahead for Jordan.
Even though James Worthy made the same decision two years earlier, few expected another player to leave early so soon afterward.
In those days, there was a comforting and predictable progression from year to year for reporters covering programs and the fans who passionately followed them. We watched the freshmen as they learned the college game. We enjoyed following their progression from season to season, hoping they could become a big factor by the time they were upperclassmen.
For players such as Jordan? He quickly seized the spotlight, hitting the game-winning shot in the 1982 NCAA championship against Georgetown in his freshman year. But you never thought, perhaps naively, about the possibility that he’d leave before playing four seasons in Chapel Hill.
Then the unthinkable news broke on that spring day in 1984.
Even years later, four-year stars were common. Christian Laettner hung around to win national championships at Duke during his junior and senior seasons in 1991 and 1992.
Sure, the Carolina men’s program had one of the earliest “one-and-dones” when Bob (known as Robert when he played at UNC) McAdoo helped the Tar Heels make the 1972 Final Four as a junior college transfer. He entered the NBA draft under the “hardship” clause, leaving after one season on his way to a Hall of Fame NBA career. But that was an anomaly.
Flash forward to 2023, and the state of college basketball would be unrecognizable to fans from the 1980s or 1990s who suddenly emerged from a time machine.
The only certainty is uncertainty. That is becoming clear repeatedly.
You can’t even assume that a player who had been committed to UNC for 20 months and was only four months from making his debut as a Tar Heel would actually play for Carolina.
Simeon Wilcher decided to go elsewhere a week after another point guard, Elliot Cadeau, reclassified so that he could join UNC this season. It’s another example of why today’s college rosters are just as transient as pro rosters, with little continuity.
In the old days, assessing roster turnover from season to season amounted to listing graduating seniors and incoming freshmen. For the latter, fans knew they would get to know them over four years.
Carolina’s current situation this season is drastic and, hopefully, rare. Dealing with nine departures (seven via transfer) and six newcomers is jarring. It’s unfathomable that only four Tar Heels will return from last season.
Many of the departures weren’t surprising given the amount of playing time players such as D’Marco Dunn, Dontrez Styles, Tyler Nickel, Justin McKoy and Puff Johnson got last season because Coach Hubert Davis used a short bench.
Then there was 2022 Final Four hero Caleb Love, a frequent target for fan criticism last season, also moving on.
The surprises weren’t just in the men’s program.
Kennedy Todd-Williams was one of the fan favorites for the Carolina women’s program. Like Styles, another player from eastern North Carolina, UNC was always a dream school for “Toddy.”
When UNC’s Destiny Adams transferred to Rutgers, it seemed like a logical move to play closer to her New Jersey home. But for Todd-Williams, a player I enjoyed covering and talking to over the last three seasons, her move to Ole Miss was difficult for Carolina fans to comprehend.
In the women’s game, players rarely leave early for the WNBA, so rosters are usually stable from year to year. Sure, Carolina was stunned when star guard Diamond DeShields left for Tennessee in 2014 after her freshman season. A year later, Stephanie Mavunga left for Ohio State after two seasons. But that kind of movement used to be rare.
Both had to sit out a season after they transferred but went on to WNBA careers.
The dynamic now is dramatically different since players can transfer once without sitting out a season. With the possibility that some players might think that either their playing-time and/or the NIL opportunities will be better at another school, this game of musical chairs isn’t slowing down any time soon.
Luckily for Carolina’s men’s and women’s programs, the transfer portal can also be productive: Davis welcomed four transfers (including a former five-star recruit), and Coach Courtney Banghart brought in three, including two former five-star recruits.
It’s time to get used to looking at college rosters from year to year and not assuming that a group will be around the following season, particularly for men’s programs.
The road will continue to be rough for fans (and coaches). Let’s just hope that the shock from the news doesn’t lead them to run off those roads.
Photo via goheels.com
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