It has been a fun offseason if you're a Duke fan. While Jon Scheyer raced ahead and landed the No. 1 high school class along with arguably the No. 1 player in the Transfer Portal in Wisconsin's John Blackwell, North Carolina, and new head coach Michael Malone have been left to pick at what's left. And they've even struggled to do that.
Nonetheless, the Tar Heels roster appears to be coming together ahead of Malone's first season in Chapel Hill. With the pending commitment of international big man Alexandros Samodurov, UNC fans are celebrating a "completed puzzle."
Which is technically true. But if you compare rosters to puzzles, then Duke's is a 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and UNC is one of the ones you find in a child's waiting room at the doctor's office that only has a few pieces, and most of them are broken, missing, or otherwise chewed up.
Samodurov is UNC's big answer to Duke landing Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, and their fans are celebrating as if he's the second coming of Nikola Jokic. He'll bring all four of his points per game over to the States with him. It's always nice to pack light on an international flight.
Our friends over at Keeping it Heel recently published a projected lineup, and boy oh boy is it sad
Duke's bench might be better than UNC's starting five
Here's what the KIH folks project as UNC's starting five for next season:
PG: Terrence Brown
SG: Matt Able
SF: Neoklis Avdalas
PF: Jarin Stevenson
C: Alexandros Samuodurov
Malone knows that you have to be able to shoot some threes, right?
Woof. Are we sure this is a tournament team? Also, are we sure that UNC's starters are even better than Duke's projected BENCH?!
PG: Cayden Boozer
SG: Deron Rippey Jr.
SF: Bryson Howard
PF: Drew Scharnowski
C: Joaquim Boutmje Boumtje
Serious question: Is there a single projected starter for North Carolina that Duke fans would take over the projected starting group for the Blue Devils? Brown is a good player, but are you taking him as a point guard over Boozer or Caleb Foster? Doubtful.
You certainly aren't taking Able, as talented as he is, over John Blackwell, who will likely be an ACC Player of the Year candidate, assuming he bypasses the NBA Draft.
You're definitely not taking Avdalas over Dame Sarr. Shoot, you probably aren't taking him over Bryson Howard or Sebastian Wilkins, either.
Cameron Williams clears Stevenson, and UNC's projected options at center come nowhere close to Patrick Ngongba II.
While Duke will once again be in the conversation among the best teams in college basketball, it certainly looks like UNC, even with the expanded NCAA Tournament field, will be living life on the bubble.
They'll celebrate when Samuodurov ultimately commits and call it a huge win, but he was far from the top of Malone's board this offseason. He's a consolation prize at best, and likely to be wildly overmatched against Ngongba and the top bigs in the ACC next season.
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