College basketball preview 11 North caroliNa tar heels Stocked with NBA-caliber talent at every position, it’s national championship or bust in Chapel Hill hen the media anointed top- Harrison Barnes ranked recruit Harrison Barnes He would have been a top five pick after his a first-team All-America last freshman season; as a preseason, North Carolina sophomore, he should be coach Roy Williams took issue the player of the year. with the choice—an objection he repeated when the tightly wound forward was less than transcendent early in the season. “It was problematic to overload a youngster based on repu- tation,” Williams says. “He hadn’t done anything yet.” projected CoaCh Roy Williams (9th season) WBut now? Williams is fine with anyone who wants to brand 2010–11 reCord 29–8 aCC 14–2 (1st) Barnes the Wooden Award favorite. Barnes began to realize his starting five nCaa tournament Elite Eight potential during a torrid late-season stretch in which he led the pos. player height class key stats Tar Heels to an ACC regular-season title and averaged 21.0 points PG Kendall Marshall 6' 4" Soph. 6.2 ppg 6.2 apg in four NCAA tournament games. And don’t expect a sophomore SG Dexter Strickland 6' 3" Jr. 7.5 ppg 1.2 spg slump. Williams proudly says that during his 23-year head coach- SF Harrison Barnes 6' 8" Soph. 15.7 ppg 42.3 FG% ing tenure, only Tyler Hansbrough, a notoriously maniacal worker, PF John Henson 6' 11" Jr. 10.1 rpg 3.2 bpg has had the same unrelenting desire to be great. C Tyler Zeller 7' 0" Sr. 15.7 ppg 54.7 FG% While Barnes’s freshman season was about acclimation, this one will be about fine-tuning his skills. Williams, who has NBA-level key reserve talent at every position, hasn’t asked Barnes to dominate games; F James Michael McAdoo* 6' 9" Fr. 21.6 ppg 8.1 rpg rather, using language typically uttered by basketball eggheads, he Returning starter *High school stats wants Barnes to be more efficient. “Harrison’s offensive efficiency can be so much better,” Williams says. “It’s about taking fewer fast fact marginal shots and making more of the good ones.” While Barnes would have been a top five pick had he entered the NBA draft last PerCentage of available offensive rebounds June, his offensive rating of 1.06 points per possession wasn’t on grabbed by the Tar Heels in ACC games last par with that of fellow Wooden Award candidates Jared Sullinger of season, best in the league. They controlled the Ohio State (1.20 ppp) and Jordan Taylor of Wisconsin (1.27). (Center defensive glass, too, finishing third with 69.9%. Tyler Zeller, now a senior, was the top Tar Heel last season, at 1.20.) 37.1 When Barnes reviewed film of UNC’s 76–69 Elite Eight loss to Kentucky, he lamented that he took too many threes in the final minutes instead of driving and forcing his way to the line. “Those the lowdown plays,” he says, “are the little things I need to work on.” His two Best Case Harrison Barnes Worst Case Stressed out by favorite players, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, are great closers, stakes his claim as the best player high expectations, the Tar Heels and Barnes says, “I have no fear in [decisive] moments, because I in the nation, leading (but not finish last in the conference in Al Tielem know I can deal with either outcome.” He stayed in Chapel Hill to carrying) a loaded team to the three-point shooting and get upset school’s sixth NCAA title. early in the Big Dance. achieve one outcome, though: closing out his college career with A a national championship. —Luke Winn ns 70 | SportS IlluSt r at eD | november 14, 2011 SportS IlluStrated 00/00/2000 layoutname.l/o leFt PAGe 70/1 oF 2 Version: 14 11/06/2011 08:25PM Katherine pradt a.d./ext: long name Here/x0000 Statushere: 00/00/2000 00:00pm long name Here revise comments: changed this and that ±local read± ±Conference± ±art approval± ±HOLD:updates/Checks ±HOLD:art.