Here's your chance to pick who you think will be in the 2002 UNC basketball starting lineup for most of the year. I realize that it may change over the course of the year -- just go with the top five players you think should be in that lineup.

You should be able to vote for up to five players. The top five results will be considered the ones that should be starters.

-JD

<small>[ April 02, 2002, 05:06 PM: Message edited by: JD Heel ]</small>

4 out of 4 believe that Jackie Manuel and Jawad Williams will be starting. That shows a lot of confidence in those two guys.

What interests me the most is that only 3 voted for May. Wait a second... there are only 19 votes cast! Fess up -- who only voted for four? And, I'm assuming you left off Sean May....

That leads me to another point: I actually think that we may be going with a small lineup at times during the year. Something along the lines of:

1 - Felton
2 - Boone/Scott
3 - Manuel/Scott
4 - McCants
5 - Jawad

Gosh, that would be really small and thin, though. Grant and Sanders are going to have to come up big off the bench to keep us from having to do that whenever May sits.

-JD

<small>[ April 02, 2002, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: JD Heel ]</small>

well in response to jd... i do not see boone playing any 2 and i also do not see scott playing any 3.... jmho

Felton will start by midseason at the latest, i have scott as the 2 and mccants as the 3 and of course jawad and may as 4 and 5 respectively... if manuel goes into those modes were he just disapears again, i just don't see him keeping a starting job over mccants... i am glad that it was difficult for me to decide though, we will have a better rotation next year, at every position, the post players will develop and we have up to 5 guys we can rotate in the post...(jawad sanders johnson 4 may grant 5)

well i hope all the players develop ahead of schedule and we kick some serious butt next year!

and why is noel on that list?? i thought he was redshirting???

Personally, I see Boone playing alongside Felton some this year. Boone was our best shooter at times this past season. The knock on him was that he wasn't a true point guard. Why not play him along with a true point guard?

I don't think it will be so much that Scott "plays the 3" rather than our having a three-guard lineup. I suppose we would already have a "three-guard lineup" if you consider McCants or Manuel a guard. I see them both as wing players who can play either position. With either of those two in the lineup, Scott is going to play the role of the two-guard.

However, I don't think it's out of the question for Doherty to have a lineup with Felton, Boone and Scott -- which I would think of as a "three-guard lineup. I think that could work easily on offense, and would require some sort of zone on defense. I don't expect to see that lineup a lot, though.

As far as Noel redshirting, I don't know much about that. Even if that has been announced (and I haven't heard anything about it), it could easily be changed. The way things have been going, we don't even know if players are transferring or not. I'm not going to believe much speculation on redshirts until the season comes around and we can get a better glimpse at the team.

-JD

So far, the votes show a starting lineup of:

1 - Felton
2 - Scott
3 - Manuel
4 - Jawad
5 - May

Jawad is the only unanimous choice.

-JD

How exactly did Coach Doherty get Admissions to reject Parker? Bribery?

On another note, I don't think Noel is redshirting, merely paying his own way the first year as a walk-on. He will be on scholarship the following year.

<small>[ April 05, 2002, 02:43 PM: Message edited by: The Bomber ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Doh kept us from getting Wilcox and Parker and that was one reason we stunk so bad last year. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">He didn't keep us from getting them. Parker got rejected by UNC admissions TWICE. Once his senior year in high school and then again after prep school. How could Doh keep us from getting Wilcox? The first recruiting class Doherty got to recruit at UNC was the 2001 class. Wilcox was in the class of 2002. This year's freshman were Matt's first class. Wilcox was a sophmore this year.

My bad, Wilcox was in the class of 2000.

Next year we will be the smallest and the quickest team in the league. We will struggle rebounding the ball, and we WILL HAVE to hit shots very consistently. I wouldn't be surprised to see Doherty run a more aggressive defense with our quick lineup, and hopefully we will press often and effectively.

On the starting lineup:
Obviously this is a very "up-in-the-air" topic. The lineup will most likely change throughout the season as the year progresses.

I predict that Felton will earn starting point guard honors, but Boone showed SIGNIFICANT improvement this year, and cannot be counted out by any means. Boone will see his time, but I hope to see Felton get 32-35 min. a game, because IMO Felton will run our quick, slashing team more effectively than Boone will be able to.

Scott is a very promising player. His 3pt shot really began to look good towards the end of the season, and I think we will get much more from his as he plays the SG position that he is accustomed to playing. McCants obviously should be a great player, but like all of the freshmen it may take time for him to adjust to the college game. I expect to see both play significant time, but they will be key. Manual is a great defensive player, but needs to improve his jumpshot and his handles. I think Doherty likes Manual's game much more than we think, and if Manual continues to improve his offensive skills he will be a significant contributer too, mostly playing the 3. Our SGS wills be KEY; BECAUSE THEY MUST HIT SHOTS IN ORDER FOR US TO WIN GAMES NEXT YEAR.

Down low, we will have Jawad Williams and Sean May. Jawad is a great player, and hopefully the staff will work on his post moves and rebounding. May is a big body that we need. He may not have the body of a center, but he will most likely be the biggest player on the court for us for most of the games. Hopefully Grant and Sanders will continue to improve and learn, and maybe by the end of the season they can give us some quality minutes of rebounding. defense, and maybe some scoring.

IMO, the only player that will certainly be starting is Jawad.

Right now, the starting lineup stands at:

1 - Felton
2 - McCants
3 - Manuel
4 - Williams
5 - May

This is my lineup too. Still, Jawad is the only unanimous choice.

-JD

We will have better rebounding simply from the fact that we won't be losing 5+ rebounds a game from quick Kris lang hook shots.

We didn't have shot-blocking this year. I actually think that statistic will go up too.

We'll see. Once again, let's wait until we see this team play before we doom the entire season and Matt Doherty as coach.

-JD

I'm sorry, but I don't buy the Lang-good-rebounder bit. He caused more lost rebounds with that hook shot than he could ever hope to retrieve for us. We kissed many a game away early trying to go down to Lang for that hook shot, with 4 other guys out of rebounding position. Some of the blame for that offensive setup can be placed on Doh, but then again -- we used it throughout Lang's career. He hit a lot more of those shots his first three years, and we also had Haywood down there to bang down low.

I think Capel will be a much bigger loss on the boards. I saw him boxing out and fighting for rebounds more than anyone else on the team this year. But, I was impressed with what I saw from May (and McCants and Felton, for that matter) in the McD game. May ripped a ton of boards away from guys taller than him. I wouldn't count him out as a factor down low.

I also think you can expect to see a stronger, more physical Jawad Williams next year. If his comments at the end of the season are any indication, he is going to work hard on his game (and bulking up) over the summer.

Trust me, rebounding will be better (it can't be any worse).

-JD

i guess with boone leaving(supposedly), holmes is are #2 pg! sweet, i actually think he will surprise some people

Holmes is like the Australian speed skater that won gold this past Olympics. His strategy: stay behind everyone else and wait for them all to drop like flies. Then, jump in and make your move!

-JD

There are plenty of coaches who argue that quickness gets as many rebounds as size in today's game. The three pointer leads to quite a few long rebounds and often the quicker player gets those. Some coaches don't even teach boxing out in the traditional sense. They teach their players to run in front of their man enough to slow them down and then go after the ball. I know that standing under the basket, size can be an advantage, but note how many times a team in a zone has the rebound stolen and a ball put back in because one of the opposing players was quick enough to sneak in and get the ball.

As someone mentioned previously, one of the things you can do to negate size is to press constantly and try not to let the opponent set up their offense. A layup off of a steal counts too.

All that being said, I'd rather have a tall, quick team than a short, quick team.

It's not a sign that we have "sunk low" that dook and Maryland have won back to back championships. That's a sign of how good our competition is. They would have won no matter how good we were.

I'll give you the rest, though....

-JD