July 11, 2002

By Woody Durham
Voice of the Tar Heels

The Educational Foundation meetings, and there were nearly 30 of them in the spring, ended in early June.

Now the summer sports camps, which attracted record attendance, are winding down on the UNC campus.

John Bunting, who's been at his cabin on Sebago Lake in Maine, returns soon to Chapel Hill. He will finalize preparations for his second season which begins August 31st in Kenan Stadium against Miami (Ohio).

The former All-ACC linebacker considered an offer this spring to open the season a week earlier at Nebraska, but he decided 13 regular season games were too many for collegiate players.

Meanwhile, Matt Doherty and his staff are attending various camps and tournaments in four states throughout the month. The Tar Heels, with one of the nation's top recruiting classes already enrolled in summer school, still need a bona fide big man, but will they also consider a wing guard and a playmaker?

Looking to his third season as head coach at the school he helped win a national championship in 1982, Doherty expects improvement over last year's woeful 8-20 record despite a roster which lists nine freshmen and sophomores among the first 11 players. But, overall the ACC will be a much younger league in 2003.

Had everybody bothered to look closely before the start of last season, they would have known it was going to be a difficult winter. Carolina lost five of its top seven players from the 26-7 squad in 2001. That was more than 60% of the team's scoring, and better than 50% of its rebounding.

And, the rest of the league was very deep in talent with 24 returning starters among the other eight teams. Obviously a young squad was going to have trouble trying to compete against that kind of experience.

Certainly the start of the season was a shock! The Tar Heels lost a lot of confidence in the early going, and they never showed the consistency, which they needed, to even give themselves a chance to be successful.

A schedule, which was designed to favor the team's youth, turned out to be one of the nation's toughest slates. At year's end it was rated second only to Arizona in degree of difficulty.

This year's schedule is not going to be any easier. There could be at least eight non-conference opponents who made the NCAA field last March. And, there were five ACC teams in that select group. However, this winter the other eight conference teams return only 17 starters, and 10 of those will be at Georgia Tech, Clemson and N.C. State.

So Carolina should post a better record this season, but it could be 2004, if everybody stays in place and remains healthy, before the basketball Tar Heels put another strong national contender on the floor.

The pre-season publications don't expect much out of the football Tar Heels, even though last year's 8-5 record was the most wins for a rookie head coach at Carolina in more than 60 years.

The Peach Bowl junket was the eighth post-season trip for UNC in the last 10 years, and the 16-10 victory over Auburn marked the fifth straight triumph in a bowl game. Only Miami (Florida) and LSU can match that streak

However, over the last 50 years, Jim Tatum and Dick Crum have been the only football coaches to have winning seasons during their second year in Chapel Hill. And, the pre-season pollsters, who have rated the Tar Heels seventh or eighth in the ACC, know John Bunting has a lot of defensive holes to fill.

There are three returning starters on defense, which makes Carolina and Maryland the only conference teams with less than six starters back on that side of the ball. That number includes Will Chapman, the junior tackle who was injured at Clemson and missed the last five games.

Bunting knows the strength of his defense is the secondary where Dexter Reid and Michael "Rabbit" Waddell return. He understands there is no depth at linebacker, but he claims, "I like what I saw in the spring with the interior of the defensive line."

The Tar Heels should be better on offense with eight returning starters. However, Clemson, Georgia Tech and N.C. State are the only ACC teams with less than six returning starters on offense.

Last fall, Carolina was predicted to finish no better than sixth in the league race, but eight wins in the last ten games lifted the Tar Heels to third. Even though many of the pollsters are still pessimistic, Carolina fans have heard the fiery leader say how much he likes the 2002 squad. Yes, the offense will be better, and while the defense may be undersized and inexperienced, it might also be the fastest unit the Tar Heels have ever put on the field.

Bunting's optimism along with the ACC's third toughest schedule, featuring six attractive home games, has prompted the sale of 28,000 season tickets with the games against Texas and N.C. State already listed as complete sellouts.

So if you haven't already started getting ready, now would be a good time. It won't be long before we're getting set to go!