Heel Tough Blog: 5 Questions UNC Basketball Must Answer in 2026-27

It’s been a long offseason, but basketball is on the precipice of being back. As official practices begin today, we begin to prepare for the beginning of the basketball season. We have weathered a coaching change, a tumultuous transfer portal cycle, and a football program that at times has looked to be crumbling from the inside out. But now, less than a month from now, we get to watch the pride of North Carolina athletics take the floor of Greensboro Coliseum (I will not call it the sponsored name, as I believe it is a disgrace to the history of that building), to watch the Tar Heels play men’s basketball against the USC Trojans in an exhibition game. And with the offseason that the Tar Heels have managed to have despite the chaos of courtrooms and coaching changes, it’s beyond reasonable to be excited about this upcoming season.

Having said all that, the season will not come without questions. Carolina, for the first time since Frank McGuire, has gone outside of the UNC family to hire a new head coach after the Hubert Davis era imploded down the stretch last season. They have turned to NBA champion and former coach of the Denver Nuggets Michael Malone, who has not coached at the college level since he was an assistant coach at Manhattan University in 2001. They hired Malone on the day the transfer portal opened, leading to some speculation over whether he would be able to form a top-tier roster in the timeframe he was given. Despite this, Malone was able to bring in multiple top transfers, as well as retain a couple of holdovers and recruits, to form what I believe can be a top-10 roster at full potential. It remains to be seen whether Malone has the pieces to contend in the ACC and nationally, or if this will be another middle-of-the-pack roster that finds itself on the bubble come March.

While there are likely more than 5 questions as pertain to this roster and how the season will go, I will take a look at the 5 that I feel are most important and that Michael Malone and this team will have to come up with answers to as the season goes on.

1. Can the Frontcourt be Serviceable?

   1. Carolina returns just one major contributing piece from last year’s roster, and I feel like it’s only fitting to mention him first as a part of my explanation to this question. The often-overlooked Jaren Stevenson returns for his second season in a Carolina uniform, a season which will be his senior year after his first two seasons were spent at Alabama. He comes off of a year where he averaged 8.1 points and 4.4 rebounds while shooting 47 percent from the floor and 29% from three. He is the guaranteed production, although the ceiling of that production is another unknown. Then come the newcomers, and here is where the question marks begin. Carolina missed out on several big names in the portal, so they turned to the overseas route. Sayon Kieta and Alexandros Samodurov both played in professional leagues in Europe. Both will be expected to produce at some point this year. Kieta is a tall, lanky 18-year-old freshman who, according to 247 Sports, would have been a five-star recruit had he gone the traditional high school route to college. He is raw, but Malone has praised his defensive ability as well as his potential. Samodurov is also tall and lanky but plays with a little bit more polish as a 22-year-old out of Greece. As always with international players, the concern is going to be how they handle the jump in physicality with the move to the American game. Neither of these two players is particularly bulky; Kieta is 7-0, 215, and Samodurov is 6-11, 225, but the hope is that with help from strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahrahan, both players will have gained at least a couple of pounds of muscle before the season starts. The beef in the frontcourt is still waiting to see if he will be eligible to play, as South Dakota transfer Cameron Fens stands 6-11, 250. Northwestern transfer Cade Bennerman could also factor into the frontcourt if Fens isn’t eligible. The talent is there in this frontcourt, but the proven production is not, and Carolina will have to find where that production is going to come from quickly if they are to reach their full potential.

2. Who are the Shooters?

   1. Malone did a good job bringing in dudes in the backcourt, as Terrence Brown, Matt Able, and Neoklis Avdalas all have All-ACC talent and potential. The issue is that only one of those guys is labeled as a “shooter”. Matt Able shot 35% from three at NC State last year and will likely be the number one three-point shooting option for Michael Malone, but behind him proven threepoint ability is slight. Terrence Brown was a 32 percent shooter at Utah last year, albeit on a struggling team that lacked offensive options. Neo Avdalas was a 31 percent shooter as a freshman at Virginia Tech. While improvement is certainly possible for both of those players, Carolina may be forced to look a little further down the roster to find that reliable “pure shooter” that every team needs to have. A quick look at the bench is only slightly encouraging. Of the backup guards, Jaydon Young, Isaiah Denis, Angelo Brizzi, and wings Kevin Thomas and Maximo Adams, only two have played minutes at a high level throughout their college careers, and only one, Young, has done so at the Power Five level. Young is one of the holdovers from last year’s roster, and it seemed like his primary job was to set a tone on defense last year, not necessarily shoot the ball. Aside from him, there is hope that one of the others can blossom into a reliable option, as Denis, Thomas, and Adams are all young and full of potential. But this is a team in need of shooters now, so one of the players will have to step up in a major way behind the three main backcourt members.

3. What will the ACC Rotation Look Like?

   1. A glance at this roster shows 16 scholarship players, two of which are former walk-ons and one legacy player in Malloy Smith who doesn’t figure to have a shot at minutes this year. That leaves potential for 12 players fighting for minutes head-to-head (13 with Fens, but for the sake of this article I will assume that he will be ineligible to play). We all remember the days when Roy Williams would play 9 or 10 guys all season leading up to March Madness, but Michael Malone doesn’t seem like that type of coach. In the NBA, there were times in the playoffs where he was criticized for only playing with 6 or 7 guys. It feels like that’s a little on the extreme side here, but it’s reasonable to assume the primary rotation will be trimmed to 8 by ACC play. So, who are those 8? The starting backcourt looks all but guaranteed to be Terrence Brown, Matt Able, and Neo Avdalas, while Jarin Stevenson also seems to be all but guaranteed a starting spot at the beginning of the year at the 4. The 5 spot is yet to be determined, but I believe that Sayon Kieta will ultimately start and secure the job relatively quickly once the season gets underway. That leaves three rotation spots left open if we are assuming an 8-man rotation. 5-star freshman Maximo Adams and Alex Samodurov seem like locks to see minutes as well, but that eighth player could be a rotation player throughout the entire season, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see Malone use a 9th or even a 10th man if things aren’t going well. Between Isaiah Denis, Angelo Brizzi, and Jaydon Young in the backcourt, Kevin Thomas on the wing, and Cade Bennerman in the frontcourt, Malone will have plenty of options to turn to if things with the top seven aren’t going well.

4. What Will the Identity of This Team Be?

   1. One of the things that made Roy Williams, Dean Smith, and Frank McGuire such good coaches is that you knew exactly how they wanted to play and what the identities of their teams were. While this era of basketball is different with the constant roster turnover, it’s still important for teams to establish an identity early and stick to it. One thing that is a staple of Michael Malone is his defense; his Nuggets teams were regularly near the top of the NBA rankings in points allowed. He has also said in multiple interviews that he wants his team to play fast, and that you “can’t play fast if you’re grabbing the ball out of the net.” While I’m sure Roy Williams begs to differ, his point is obvious: he wants to turn defense into early offense in the primary and secondary breaks. Luckily, he has the personnel to do just that. Terrence Brown immediately stands out as someone who will benefit from being out in transition with his speed and athleticism. He, along with Matt Able, both seem to be guys who will be comfortable in transition, making plays for this team. Beyond that, you look at guys like Stevenson and Kieta as rim runners that will be getting dunks out ahead of the pack and trailing down the lane. On the defensive end, Stevenson stands out as potentially the best all-around defender on the squad, but the size and length of this roster should help them get stops.

5. How Good Are the Freshmen?

   1. One of the unknowns in my mind is just how good guys like Maximo Adams and Kevin Thomas (and we might as well throw Kieta in there), will be. There’s been some buzz from fans that want Adams to start at the beginning of the season, and while I am high on him, I just don’t see a path to him being in the starting lineup over Jarin Stevenson. Kevin Thomas was a late add by Michael Malone, but after watching clips of him being posted on social media, he feels like a guy that could factor into the rotation and give this team a lob threat, defensive option, and maybe even some shooting off the bench. And then there’s Kieta. A seven-footer with lottery buzz, he could be the guy that develops the most throughout this year. As much as we as fans want him to be good immediately, he feels like a guy that we will have to show patience with, especially early in the year.

This is a team that will be fun to watch, but if the Heels want to compete in the ACC, Michael Malone and staff will have to find answers to the questions. Can Kieta and Samodurov lock down the five spot? Will Able or someone else emerge as a consistent three-point shooter? What is the rotation going to look like? What is the identity of this team? And how good will the freshmen be? Ultimately, this feels like a team that can compete for accolades in both the ACC and nationally, but I will be watching to see how the Heels answer these questions as the season plays out.

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