UNC Basketball: Jeremiah Francis leaving Tar Heels
The UNC basketball program will bid farewell to Jeremiah Francis, as the reserve point guard prepares to enter NCAA transfer portal.
Roy Williams and the North Carolina basketball program will bid farewell to reserve point guard Jeremiah Francis. The soon-to-be sophomore Francis announced on Thursday that he intends to enter the NCAA transfer portal.
Francis was a question mark entering the 2019-20 season thanks to multiple knee injuries that he sustained during his high school career at Pickerington Central. After missing the season’s first eight games, however, he proved to be a valuable asset for the Tar Heels, particularly when injuries to a myriad of players began to mount.
Francis averaged just 13.6 minutes per game as a freshman, but played a significant role off the UNC bench in the absence of fellow rookie point guard Cole Anthony. During an eight-game stretch from mid-December to late January, Francis logged nearly 23 minutes per contest, and the Tar Heels saw greatly increased production from him as a result.
In consecutive games against Gonzaga, UCLA and Yale, Francis scored 11, 12 and 10 points, respectively, while averaging four assists per game. He recorded at least three assists in five games, and helped pace the Tar Heels when they needed him most.
For the season, Francis averaged 3.3 points, 1.6 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game in 16 appearances. He struggled to shoot the basketball, hitting just 22.7 percent of his shots from the floor, and 20 percent from beyond the arc. Despite his shooting woes, though, Francis was good at running the point for Williams, and facilitating the UNC offense.
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