UNC Basketball: What loss to Texas AM means for the future

Post presence

From the start, you could see that Texas A&M’s size in the post would be just too much for the Tar Heels in that Round of 32 matchup.

We said it at the beginning of the year that eventually the lack of a dominant post player would haunt the Tar Heels. All it would take is the wrong matchup in the NCAA Tournament and that’s exactly what happened.

After Tony Bradley Jr. left for the NBA, the Tar Heels brought in three post players in their 2017 recruiting class.

Garrison Brooks was considered the most-skilled player of the three with Brandon Huffman expected to play several key minutes. But in the end, it appears as if Sterling Manley will have the most potential of the three.

Manley played very well in the final few weeks of the season for the Tar Heels, giving some hope to the future.

With no legit post threat, Williams had to turn to a smaller lineup. For the final month or so of the season, Williams had a starting lineup of Berry, Kenny Williams, Cam Johnson, Pinson and Luke Maye.

It worked as best as it could until they ran into a bigger team with talented post players.

The hope for 2018-19 is that the three big men in that 2018 class can develop into players that Williams can use in the post. Both Manley and Brooks showed signs of being those guys for the future but Huffman will have to have a big offseason.

All three should be considered four-year players and will likely play a big role in the future success of the Tar Heels years from now.

But as far as next year goes, it needs to be a big year of development for them as the Tar Heels will enter with a similar situation as they did this season.