UNC Seeks More Lineup Options With Increased Roster Height

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — After spending a season sometimes running lineups with four guards at 6-foot-4 or shorter, Hubert Davis and his staff set out to avoid having to resort to those combinations again.

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Last year’s North Carolina team had two players listed at 6-foot-10 or taller. This year’s roster has six, including two 7-footers.

James Brown and Zayden High — both 6-foot-10 — return to UNC for their second seasons with the team. North Carolina signed freshman Caleb Wilson, who also stands 6-foot-10. Davis and his staff utilized the portal to add 6-foot-10 Jarin Stevenson from Alabama as well as 7-footers Henri Veesaar (Arizona) and Ivan Matlekovic (High Point).

Davis spoke on Tuesday about the targeted needs in the transfer portal, and he immediately identified roster height as the priority.

“I thought we needed to be bigger,” Davis said on Tuesday. “Positional size, we needed more size. I think the number one determining factor of an outcome of the game is rebounding. I thought defensively, we were okay rebounding percentage wise, but offensive rebounding was nowhere near where we needed to be. I wanted to become more versatile. We have different types of lineups, and I feel like with this roster, we’ve been able to identify both of those things.”

It took 27 games for North Carolina to find a complementary lineup, from point guard to center, that it could go on a nightly basis with Elliot Cadeau, RJ Davis, Drake Powell, Jae’Lyn Withers and Ven-Allen Lubin sharing the court to start the game. The Tar Heels went 8-2 with that group starting the game, incurring one extra Senior Night loss to Duke in which Ty Claude started in place of Lubin.

Before that, though, it took a while for UNC to work out the chemistry with its undersized roster. Powell played a lot of minutes at the ‘4’ and even started at that position when he first cracked the starting five. UNC spent four games starting four guards, with Ian Jackson and Seth Trimble joining Cadeau, Davis and Lubin.

The 2025-26 squad shouldn’t face that same issue, considering its personnel on paper. Wilson and Stevenson have the ability to play in either forward spot, and the bigs on the roster are natural fits to play center.

UNC also got bigger on the wings with the additions of Luka Bogavac and Jonathan Powell, who are both 6-foot-6. Jackson (6-foot-4) and Trimble (6-foot-3) played most of the wing minutes last year outside of the 6-foot-6 Drake Powell.

Before making its final lineup switch, North Carolina got out-rebounded 10 times in the first 27 games. UNC finished seventh in the ACC with 36.7 rebounds per game. The last time North Carolina didn’t finish top two in the conference in rebounding was the 2002-03 season, the season before Roy Williams took over as UNC’s head coach.

Davis said his hope with the bigger roster is to roll out a unit with more versatility on both ends of the court.

“In order to be good, you’ve got to defend and rebound and take care of basketball,” Davis said. “But being in a position to be elite defensively on both ends of the floor, I talked about defensive rebounding percentage, but a huge staple of Carolina Basketball, even before I was head coach, with Coach Williams, was offensive rebounding. That’s an area that’s a major emphasis for us. Having that positional height, having that height in the front court, just allows us to be able to do that and do the things that we want to do.”