In a bit of a surprising move, rising junior guard, D’Marco Dunn has entered his name into the transfer portal and will transfer out of the UNC program. This might be surprising because today was the deadline for players to enter their names into the portal if they wanted to play elsewhere. It appeared with the roster still in flux today that Dunn would have a chance to carve out a significant role on the team next season, but that will instead happen elsewhere. There have been rumors that 2024 commit, Elliot Cadeau will reclassify, along with the potential of UNC landing 2024 Jarin Stevenson, and him reclassifying, but then again those are just rumors. Hubert Davis did address his backcourt early in the transfer portal cycle, bringing in experienced guards Paxson Wojcik from Brown, and Cormac Ryan from Notre Dame, as it was believed that Davis, was transitioning the program to playing with a three-guard lineup.
Dunn now joins a long list of transfers to exit the program since the season came to an end, as Caleb Love, Dontrez Stylez, Puff Johnson, Tyler Nickel, Justin McKoy and Will Shaver have all exited the program, after an underwhelming 2022-23 season. Dunn becomes the last player from the first recruiting class to enter the program after Hubert Davis was hired to transfer, joining the aforementioned Styles and Shaver.
On the surface, Dunn transferring isn’t a major blow, as he appeared in 50 career games, averaging 1.9 points, on 28% shooting from the field, and 28% shooting from behind the arc. A broken hand took him away from a few weeks this past season after it looked like he was coming into his own, and upon returning from injury, his minutes picked up where they left off, as he played over 10 minutes per contest. Even if Dunn wasn’t going to start as a junior, being a guy that has played in Hubert Davis’s system for three years would’ve been valuable to a bench that is in desperate need of production, after producing less this past year, than they did the year before, when the team made the run to the national championship game. Having that type of experience while playing with a sophomore in Seth Trimble, or a reclassified Elliot Cadeau, would’ve been immeasurable, and would’ve allowed him to carve out a consistent role in the rotation.
Dunn’s exit probably won’t raise questions about the direction of the program, like when Styles or Johnson entered, but seeing an entire recruiting class exit the program via the portal, is a tough pill for Hubert Davis to swallow. Even though those kids were recruited to play for Roy Williams, they stayed committed to the first-time head coach, and they have now left for other opportunities.
This now gives Carolina three roster spots open for next season, and with the deadline being today for players to enter the portal, it will allow the staff to identify exactly what players they want to recruit moving forward. The expectation is for the 2024 commit to reclassify, as he continues to shine on the AAU circuit, but that still gives Davis a lot of different options to fill out the roster for next season.
After the type of season Carolina had last year, it was inevitable that the program would undergo a rebuild, to get back to the top of the college basketball world. And in today’s college basketball, that usually means seeing a mass exit of players, and D’Marco Dunn becomes the last.