By R.L. Bynum

CHAPEL HILL — With a more veteran team and many options on his overhauled North Carolina roster, will Coach Hubert Davis play a bigger rotation?

That answer may come later, but he didn’t offer one at men’s basketball media day, reiterating that he doesn’t have any philosophy on the rotation size he prefers.

“My philosophy is the same — prepare and practice and play really well, you’ll play,” said Davis, who had six players transfer, five of whom didn’t do enough to earn the coach’s trust enough to get consistent playing time off the bench.

In the NCAA championship game against Kansas in 2022, Davis continued to play a tight rotation and admitted that his players got tired in the second half. Last season, he mostly stuck to a seven-player rotation.

“I don’t have a philosophy of, ‘I have a five-man rotation; I only want to play eight guys,’ “ Davis said. “I don’t have a number. But if you prepare and you practice and you play well, you will play.”

This season, Davis has three fifth-year players in center Armando Bacot, and guards Cormac Ryan (a Notre Dame transfer) and Paxton Wojcik (a Brown transfer), two seniors in guard RJ Davis and Jae’Lyn Withers (a Louisville transfer) and two juniors in wing Harrison Ingram (a Stanford transfer) and center James Okonkwo (a West Virginia transfer).

When you consider that UNC also has another likely starter in freshman five-star guard Elliot Cadeau, along with sophomore guard Seth Trimble off the bench, it seems that Coach Davis has the potential depth to play lots of players.

With the same approach as during his first two seasons, there’s no way to predict how many players will get regular playing time. The third-year coach may not change his rotation size, depending on how many players earn significant playing time, but he is committed to one change.

“One of the things that I wanted to change — do a better job this year compared to last year — is just our tempo,” Davis said. “I want to play faster. Whether it’s a make or miss, I want us to go.”

Cadeau suggested that he doesn’t expect the rotation won’t be small.

“I think it’s gonna be a lot faster since we have a lot of depth on the bench,” Cadeau said. “Starting five? I think we’re gonna be playing a lot faster because we’re gonna have fresh bodies coming in and out and just a lot more ball movement. We’ve been playing defense together during these few practices, and we just been sharing the ball. And everybody on the team is so unselfish it’s been great.”

Having Cadeau in the lineup, with his ability to sling a long, accurate transition pass to start the fast break, should make that dynamic easier to change.

“No. 1, there needed to be a commitment to play this way,” Davis said. “No. 2, you got to be in shape. And I feel like we’ve checked both of those boxes. So in terms of a tempo standpoint, we’re gonna play faster.”

Playing well in transition is often predicated on rebounding well and creating havoc on the defensive end. UNC did the former last season with a defensive rebounding average (28.3) that was eighth in the country. The latter was lacking, though: the Tar Heels were 324th in the country in forced turnovers at 10.45 per game.

“From a defensive standpoint, I know one of the things that we had to improve on is to find a way to be able to generate steals and deflections and be able to get into the open court,” Davis said. “We’ve made some tweaks and pivots to be able to put us in positions to get those steals and deflections to allow us to get into the open court, and so that we can find more ways to score and be more disruptive on the defensive end.”

Carolina’s 5.4 steals per game were 292nd in the country.

In practice so far, Davis said that the team’s on-the-ball defense is better than last season, with big men able to defend on the perimeter and guards able to hold their own inside.

“We have that ability to be able to have that versatility on the defensive end,” Davis said. “It allows you to be more creative and do some different things out there.”

Davis suggested that Carolina will become less predictable on defense, able to change “pitches” and keep opponents guessing.

“Last year, it was a lot of man-to-man defense, but there weren’t any changes in terms of different types of looks,” Davis said. “And that’s something that we’ve talked about and I feel like we have the ability to do that because of the individual defense that we have from top to bottom.”

So fans who want to see a bigger rotation are going to have to wait for the season to play out to see if that happens. But you can safely assume there will be a faster tempo.

Date	Month/day	Score	Opponent/event (current ranks)	Record
	October
27	Friday	W, 117–53	vs. St. Augustine’s	Exhibition
	November
6	Monday	W, 86–70	vs. Radford	1–0
12	Sunday	W, 90–68	vs. Lehigh	2–0
17	Friday	W, 77–52	vs. UC Riverside	3–0
			Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas
22	Wednesday	W, 91–69	Northern Iowa	4–0
23	Thursday	L, 83–81, OT	Villanova	4–1
24	Friday	W, 87–72	Arkansas	5–1
			ACC/SEC Men’s Challenge
29	Wednesday	W, 100–92	vs. No. 6 Tennessee	6–1
	December
2	Saturday	W, 78–70	vs. Florida State	7–1, 1–0 ACC
			Jimmy V Classic in New York
5	Tuesday	L, 87–67	No. `1` Connecticut	7–2
			CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta
16	Saturday	L, 87–83	No. 12 Kentucky	7–3
			Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte
20	Wednesday	W, 81–69	Oklahoma	8–3
			—————————
29	Friday	W, 105–60	vs. Charleston Southern	9–3
	January
2	Tuesday	W, 70–57	at Pittsburgh	10–3, 2–0 ACC
6	Saturday	W, 65–55	at Clemson	11–3, 3–0 ACC
10	Wednesday	W, 67–54	at N.C. State	12–3, 4–0 ACC
13	Saturday	W, 103–67	vs. Syracuse	13–3, 5–0 ACC
17	Wednesday	W, 86–70	vs. Louisville	14–3, 6–0 ACC
20	Saturday	W, 76–66	vs. Boston College	15–3, 7–0 ACC
22	Monday	W, 85–64	vs. Wake Forest	16–3, 8–0 ACC
27	Saturday	W, 75–68	at Florida State	17–3, 9–0 ACC
30	Tuesday	L, 74–73	at Georgia Tech	17–4, 9–1 ACC
	February
3	Saturday	W, 93–84	vs. No. 13 Duke	18–4, 10–1 ACC
6	Tuesday	L, 80–76	vs. Clemson	18–5, 10–2 ACC
10	Saturday	W, 75–72	at Miami	19–5, 11–2 ACC
13	Tuesday	L, 86–79	at Syracuse	19–6, 11–3 ACC
17	Saturday	W, 96–81	vs. Virginia Tech	20–6, 12–3 ACC
24	Saturday	W, 54–44	at Virginia	21–6, 13–3 ACC
26	Monday	W, 75–71	vs. Miami	22–6, 14–3 ACC
	March
2	Saturday	W, 79–70	vs. N.C. State	23–6, 15–3 ACC
5	Tuesday	W, 84–51	vs. Notre Dame	24–6, 16–3 ACC
9	Saturday	W, 84–79	at No. 13 Duke	25–6, 17–3 ACC
			ACC tournament Washington
14	Thursday	W, 92–67	Quarterfinals: Florida State	26–6
15	Friday	W, 72–65	Semifinals: Pittsburgh	27–6
16	Saturday	L, 84–76	Final: N.C. State	27–7
			NCAA tournament
21	Thursday	W, 90–62	First round in Charlotte: Wagner	28–7
23	Saturday	W, 85–69	Second round in Charlotte: Michigan State	29–7
28	Thursday	L, 89–87	Sweet 16 in Los Angeles: No. 19 Alabama	29–8

Key events, dates

Saturday at 11:59 p.m. ET — Deadline for players to submit their names to the NBA draft
Wednesday — Transfer portal closes
May 11–12 — NBA G League Elite Camp in Chicago
May 12–19 — NBA Combine in Chicago
May 17–19 — Evaluation for high school players at NCAA-certified events (EYBL in Indianapolis is one of those)

UNC schedule so far

Nov. 8 — at Kansas (final AP rank No. 20; final NET ranking No. 19)
Nov. 22 — at Hawaii (final NET ranking No. 172)
Nov. 25–27 — Maui Invitational — Auburn (final AP rank No. 18; final NET ranking No. 5), Colorado (unranked; No. 25), Connecticut (No. 1; No. 2), Dayton (No. 24; No. 23), Iowa State (No. 8; No. 6), Memphis (unranked; No. 75), Michigan State (unranked; No. 24)
Dec. 14 — vs. La Salle (final NET ranking No. 195)
Likely in late November — Opponent TBA in ACC/SEC Challenge
December — vs. UCLA (final NET ranking No. 107) in CBS Sports Classic (date, location TBA)
December — vs. Florida (final NET ranking No. 29) in Jumpman Invitational at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center (date TBA)
— Games home and away against Duke, N.C. State and Pittsburgh
— Home games vs. Boston College, California, Georgia Tech, Miami, SMU, Stanford and Virginia
— Road games vs. Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest
Note: 2024 NCAA tournament teams are in bold.

Potential 2024-25 UNC roster

No.	Class	Player	Pos.	Hgt	Wgt
—	Freshman	James Brown (4 star)	5	6–8	225
—	Freshman	Ian Jackson (5 star)	2	6–4	180
—	Freshman	Drake Powell (5 star)	2	6–5	185
2	Soph.	Elliot Cadeau	PG	6–1	180
1	Soph.	Zayden High	4	6–9	225
13	Junior	Jalen Washington	5	6–10	230
0	Junior	Seth Trimble	2	6–3	195
5	Graduate	RJ Davis	PG	6–0	180
		Eligible for fifth season
24	Graduate	Jae’Lyn Withers	4	6–9	215
		Walk-ons eligible for 5th season
14	Graduate	Creighton Lebo	PG	6–1	180
22	Graduate	Rob Landry	2	6–4	190