In a pivotal year for North Carolina, someone has to emerge as a pivotal player

The unusual dynamics surrounding this North Carolina basketball season have been thoroughly hashed over by now.

A coach under fire after a trend of historic underperformance despite also orchestrating some of the great moments in program history. A roster rebuilt, unusually for the Tar Heels, through the transfer portal with the assistance of a new general manager. The slow slippage from decades of prominence atop the ACC, ceding territory to Duke, falling behind and back to the chasing pack.

For almost 70 years, with a few cardinal exceptions, North Carolina has been a constant in college basketball, the light-bluest of the blue bloods, but there is no longer that confidence. The Tar Heels snuck into the preseason top 25 the same way they snuck into the NCAA tournament a year ago: By the skin of their heels.

So much about the future direction of the program hangs in the balance this season — Does Hubert Davis lock down his job or will the university look outside the family for a fresh start? Is this new model of player acquisition compatible with the precepts upon which the program was built? — it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger, more pressing, more immediate question facing this team.

Does it have the star power to take a great leap forward?

That’s another constant across the eras in Chapel Hill. From R.J. Davis to Armando Bacot, from Joel Berry to Brice Johnson, from Tyler Hansbrough to Ty Lawson, from Raymond Felton to Rashad McCants, from Antawn Jamison to Vince Carter, from Michael Jordan to James Worthy and all the way back to Lennie Rosenbluth, skipping over too many other names to count, North Carolina has always been about stars.

It was the ability of Dean Smith and Roy Williams to meld that talent into a team concept that distinguished both of their careers, but they always knew how to identify, recruit and utilize the kind of raw talent that wins ACC titles, goes to Final Fours and, eventually for both, wins national championships.

Not every team has to have the same amount, to the same degree, but it has been consistent even in the down times at North Carolina. The 2022 team that made Davis’ bones with the late run and two historic wins over Duke, coming within a half of a national title, had Davis and Bacot and Caleb Love, players who unquestionably moved the needle even if they didn’t have the same NBA prospects as some of their predecessors.

But who is it on this team? Seth Trimble, a veteran leader who to this point has done just about everything but score? Caleb Wilson, the wiry freshman forward who certainly has the potential but may not be ready to carry that load yet? Jonathan Powell, who averaged single digits at West Virginia last year? Kyan Evans, more of a pure point guard at Colorado State? Henri Veesaar, a defensive specialist at Arizona? Luka Bogavac, the Montenegrin mystery man?

In some ways, that’s deliberate: Davis went into the offseason with defined goals for how he wanted to reshape the roster. Now it’s a question of how those parts fit together.

“I thought we needed to be bigger, positional size, we needed more size,” Davis said. “I think the No. 1 determining factor of the outcome of a game is rebounding. I thought defensively we were okay, rebounding-percentage wise, but offensive rebounding was nothing near where we needed to be. And I wanted to become more versatile and have different types of lineups, and I feel like with this roster, we’ve been able to identify both of those things.”

Still, someone’s going to have to score for this team. Someone’s going to have to want the ball in their hands when the clock ticks down. Trimble has evolved into the emotional leader, but someone is going to have to lead by example as well. Wilson probably has the best shot, but it’s a lot to ask of a freshman, mentally and physically. No one else has proven they can do it.

There’s a lot to like about the depth, size and diversity of skills on this roster, certainly enough to expect this to be one of the four teams chasing Duke at the top of the ACC. But there’s also a lot hanging on someone emerging to be the guy the way Davis was, or Bacot was, or Love was, or even Brady Manek was, to cite only recent history.

This season will have more to say about what the North Carolina program looks like over the next several seasons than any in a long time. It’s just a question of which players take control — or don’t — and dictate that future.

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This story was originally published October 31, 2025 at 10:00 AM with the headline "In a pivotal year for North Carolina, someone has to emerge as a pivotal player."

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.