2024-2025 General MBB Preseason Discussion (2024)

We have existing threads for what Duke is up to, but this is a thread for every other men's college basketball team, from now until opening night in early November.

There's a lot of nationwide preseason stuff to eventually share, but for now, let's start with some strange news out of Chapel Hill:

Zayden High is no longer enrolled at North Carolina, the school announced Tuesday evening.

Because High is not enrolled, he will not be eligible to play his sophom*ore basketball season for the Tar Heels, who won the ACC regular-season championship and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

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High is a 6-9 forward who might have provided some depth to UNC's piecemeal frontcourt. Isaac Schade of Locked on Tar Heels went live with this in the below video, and I think he's still talking:

His take is that High will re-enroll in the spring, but redshirt for the whole season, and return in 2025-2026. Make of that what you will.

This hurts a little less with their late addition of Tyzhaun Claude, the GT transfer.

I have a pretty good idea of what to expect on our perimeter battle with UNC. I have no idea what to expect inside. What is Hubert basketball without Armando Bacot?

brevity said:

We have existing threads for what Duke is up to, but this is a thread for every other men's college basketball team, from now until opening night in early November.

There's a lot of nationwide preseason stuff to eventually share, but for now, let's start with some strange news out of Chapel Hill:

UNC basketball’s Zayden High will not play for Tar Heels in 2024-25 season

UNC made an announcement about sophom*ore basketball player Zayden High on Tuesday evening. Here's what we know.

www.fayobserver.com

High is a 6-9 forward who might have provided some depth to UNC's piecemeal frontcourt. Isaac Schade of Locked on Tar Heels went live with this in the below video, and I think he's still talking:

His take is that High will re-enroll in the spring, but redshirt for the whole season, and return in 2025-2026. Make of that what you will.

Click to expand...

It'll be interesting if any actual details come out about this, but I doubt it... so all we can do is think about how this impacts Carolina on the court. With that in mind, it's worth recognizing that High likely would have had a non-trivial role on this year's UNC squad, even if it was to provide depth. Lest we forget, High was a Top 100 level guy in the 2023 class, and was listed at 6'9'' and 225 lbs by UNC on last year's roster. Believe it or not, that would've made him the third biggest guy in this year's UNC group, behind only Jalen Washington and freshman James Brown who is unlikely to be expected to make an early impact.

I think it's very likely High would've been expected to be ahead of the new transfer, Tyzhaun Claude, in the rotation: Claude only stands 6'7'' and only managed 17 mpg at Georgia Tech (although his 5.2 rebounds per game in that limited run is potentially intriguing). This means that UNC is down to three guys who could roughly be classified as "bigs" that are expected to play significant minutes this year: Washington, Ven-Allen Lubin (the transfer from Vanderbilt) and Jae'Lyn Withers. This could place even more pressure on Cade Tyson to play significant minutes at the 4, which while potentially explosive from an offensive standpoint would leave UNC very exploitable on the defensive end.

hallcity said:

The new scoreboard doesn't look quite as humongous as I expected.View attachment 17887

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Just wait until it unfolds to its full 94 feet.

UrinalCake said:

So their starting frontcourt will likely be Jalen Washington and Jaelyn Withers, with Lubin coming off the bench and maybe Cade Tyson and Drake Powell playing some minutes at the 4. That has to be terrifying for their fans, and not in a good way.

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Disagree, it is always good for their fans to be terrified.

hallcity said:

The new scoreboard doesn't look quite as humongous as I expected.View attachment 17887

Click to expand...

There do not appear to be any changes to the support beams above the new scoreboard. Or if there are they did a good job matching the paint. That could mean that the new scoreboard is no heavier than the previous one, or that both are well within the load capacity of the two cross-beams and the three main beams they attach to. I imagine the new scoreboard could actually be lighter with newer more compact components, even though it is bigger.

Know your enemy. It took a long time -- maybe because of the Zayden High issue, whatever that is -- but UNC finally has an official 2024-2025 roster.

Last year of eligibility

RJ Davis (6-0 guard): 21.2 pts, 3.6 reb, 3.5 ast in 34.8 mpg last season
Jae'Lyn Withers (6-9 forward): 4.2 pts, 3.6 reb in 12.4 mpg
Tyzhaun Claude (6-7 forward): 4.8 pts, 5.2 reb in 17.4 mpg for Georgia Tech

Two years of eligibility

Seth Trimble (6-3 guard): 5.2 pts, 2.1 reb in 17.1 mpg
Jalen Washington (6-10 forward): 3.9 pts, 2.6 reb in 8.3 mpg
Ven-Allen Lubin (6-8 forward): 12.3 pts, 6.3 reb in 28.2 mpg for Vanderbilt
Cade Tyson (6-7 wing): 16.2 pts, 5.9 reb, 1.6 ast in 31.6 mpg for Belmont

Three years of eligibility

Elliot Cadeau (6-1 guard): 7.3 pts, 2.2 reb, 4.1 ast in 23.8 mpg

Four years of eligibility

James Brown (6-10 forward): RSCI #93
Ian Jackson (6-4 guard): RSCI #6
Drake Powell (6-6 wing): RSCI #11

Non-scholarship athletes

Elijah Davis (6-3 senior guard): 2.6 pts, 1.2 reb in 7.3 mpg for Division III Lynchburg
Russell Hawkins (6-1 sophom*ore guard): walk-on
John Holbrook (6-8 freshman forward): walk-on

According to Jon Rothstein, UNC returns 56 percent of their scoring from last year (I calculated 52 percent then, and now it's 51 percent with High gone), still 3rd in the ACC.