Tyler Zeller and John Henson have already said they would be back. Harrison Barnes remains up in the air. A stellar freshman and the only freshman pre-season All-American, Barnes could be poised to go to the NBA.
On the other hand, Barnes has reportedly enrolled in summer school. Perhaps this means nothing in the scheme of things. He does not even need to show up, and it would be something he could do after registration if he were to return.
But it still seems better than even money that he will return if the decision were up to him alone.
Part of the reasoning here is the thinking of his mother after Barnes' loss to Kentucky. According to his mother, speaking of her son's loss when in high school in Iowa:
“That hurt for three months,” his mom, Shirley Barnes, said on Tuesday. “And that was the last time he lost. He has goals and I think he wants to fulfill those goals.”
Another reason is that he took the loss in the NCAA tournament very hard indeed. It seems inevitable that Barnes will want to do more in college.
The problem here is Roy Williams. He will assess his NBA contacts and provide Barnes his own thinking after Barnes tells him what he wants to do. Frankly, this process is dangerous for UNC fans. For Williams above all is honest to the point of pain for his team. If he thinks Barnes should go, he will tell him. For me, Williams will be 50-50 to advise Barnes to go, although the looming NBA player negotiations could provide an interesting wrinkle on this issue, as would the insurance available to Barnes against injury.
Next Year's UNC Tar Heels Team
Next year, if all five of last year's starters return, expectations will be sky high for the Tar Heels. And they should be. Even without Barnes.
Already with what some say is one of the best recruiting classes for next year, youth and experience would blend very well. Some say there will be enough to return to the Blue and White teams since they will be ten deep.
There is some question about this. All you have to do is see how long it took Barnes to mature. And the fact that despite their run, point guard remains a chancy position with no one ready to fill in for Kendall Marshall next year, and with Marshall perhaps a step too slow.
Yet, despite the fact that other teams also had great recruiting classes, none may be as deep and better at filling the gaps on the previous team as the Tar Heels. After this season, playing basically six in the NCAA tournament, this is likely to place the Tar Heels near No. 1 in the country.
With Barnes, it is practically a lock that the Tar Heels will start No. 1 in the polls.
Will UNC Tar Heels Finally Be The "UCLA of the East?"
When "Lefty" Driesell met the media when he was announced as the new Maryland coach he proclaimed that he would build the "UCLA of the East." Of course, it did not come to pass, although he did have some success as Maryland's head basketball coach.
With far more talent at any given school these days, no team has approached the onslaught of the 1960s and 1970s UCLA teams of the John Wooden era. By now, over thirty years later, the days of UCLA dominance are long gone and while there may be entire conferences with great talent, there is much less disproportion in the number of talented players across the board.
Just witness the two teams in the Final Four this year. VCU who? And while Butler was good, it was no miracle that they reached the 2010 and 2011 championship game. Their talent was much more on a par with every other college basketball team. Not overwhelming or overwhelmed. Pretty even.
We certainly have more college basketball teams with talent, more talent in the game, and less likelihood that any team will secure dominance like UCLA maintained during an eleven year run in the 1960s and 1970s. And we have freshmen leaving every year, making those teams weaker and less able to compete.
Yet, as rumors are starting to flow about Harrison Barnes' return to UNC as the deadline approaches for college underclassmen to announce for the 2011 NBA draft, thinking about UNC this way begins to appear realistic.
Roy Williams will never achieve the goal of getting every piece of the puzzle. And he would never want to refer to UNC as the "UCLA of the East."
But if there is a "UCLA of the East" these days, it looks more and more like the Tar Heels could make it close.
What Will UNC Have To Do to Overtake UCLA's Moniker in Six or Fewer Years?
It is, of course, insulting to the Tar Heels to talk of them with any use of UCLA. But for those of us who think in these terms, remembering or reading about Wooden's teams and their talent, if Barnes joins Zeller and Henson, this team will be one of UNC's greatest of all time.
Even if it becomes UNC's GOAT, one successful team does not come close to making UNC the team that people think of when they say "UCLA of the East," or for that matter replace the letters "UCLA" with "UNC."
To do this, UNC must accomplish more than any recent college basketball team, but not the entirety of the Wooden era, which probably will never be duplicated again and occurred in a very different time.
And to do that, they probably must start keeping their athletes in school.
The first achievement required for UNC is to go undefeated or awfully close next season. This could happen.
While almost impossible in college sports of any kind, and especially these days in college basketball, if UNC comes within a game or two, it could be the start of greatness.
The second is to win the NCAA tournament. With its second college basketball championship in four years, they would be starting to make a bid for the moniker "UNC of the [fill in the blank]."
Winning both the 2012 and 2013 NCAA championship titles begins to compare favorably in this era with Wooden's UCLA teams.
Winning two of the four championships after 2013 would seal the title, and from then on if compared fairly in terms of the tournament's larger size and greater overall basketball talent, fans will begin to consider their teams the "UNC of the Midwest", or whatever other geographic region they may choose.
That is a ton of very wistful thinking even for any UNC Tar Heel fan. Very wistful indeed.
Yet it could happen if Williams stays on as coach and continues to recruit as well as he has. Six out of 10 NCAA championships. Absurd, even with unbelievable talent.
But perhaps only the NBA draft can prevent it. And perhaps, if Barnes thinks in these terms, we might see the start of another dominant basketball dynasty.
We will see.
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