UNC Basketball: Tar Heels should be reaching out to Florida junior transfer

Should Roy Williams and the UNC basketball program reach out to Florida transfer Noah Locke? The junior guard has hit better than 40 percent of his threes over the past three seasons.

The North Carolina Tar Heels struggled mightily from a back court perspective throughout the 2020-21 college basketball season. Not only did the UNC guards turn the ball over at a high rate and have difficulty facilitating the team’s offense, but they also lacked consistency from three-point range.

As a team, North Carolina ranked among the bottom quarter of the nation in three-point shooting. — 263rd out of 340 Division I programs. That number would have been much worse had it not been for the sensational shooting of unheralded freshman guard Kerwin Walton. Walton, who began the season as a reserve on Roy Williams’ bench, got his first collegiate start against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on December 30, and stayed in the starting lineup for the remainder of the season.

As the season drew on, however, opposing teams began to key on the sharpshooting Walton, making It more difficult for him to find and make shots. Simply put, Walton needs help on the perimeter. And for the Tar Heels’ offense to function at an optimal level, they’ve got to be able to spread the floor and give their front court players room to work. The only way that happens is by the Tar Heels hitting three-point shots, or at least making defenders respect them on the perimeter.

The UNC coaching staff could work with their guards and hope for next season to turn out better, or they could go out and look for a knock-down three-point shooter in the ever-popular and continuously growing NCAA transfer portal. Or maybe they could do a combination of both.

Maybe Caleb Love and R.J. Davis become much more efficient shooters from beyond the arc next season, and they form a deadly offensive trio with Walton. And maybe they won’t even need another three-point threat at that juncture. But then again, when was the last time that a team couldn’t use just one more terrific long-range shooter in a sport that’s becoming more and more driven by the ability to hit shots from beyond the arc?

That’s why the UNC coaching staff should be targeting Florida Gators junior transfer Noah Locke. Not only does the 6-foot-3, 203-pound guard have great size for his position, but he’s also an excellent shooter. During his three seasons in Gainesville, Locke connected on 40.3 percent of his three-point attempts, and no worse than 37.9 percent in any one season — and that was his freshman campaign in 2018-19. Since then, he’s averaged 10.6 points per game in each of the last two seasons, while shooting 43.2 and 40.4 percent from beyond the arc, respectively.

https://twitter.com/NoahLocke/status/1375227125712756741

Most UNC fans would agree that the Tar Heels could use a shooter like that, though the team is yet to reach out to the talented Baltimore native. Programs that have reached out include Arkansas, Auburn, Connecticut, Louisville, Maryland, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Tennessee and UCLA, among others. More schools are likely to contact Locke before a decision has been made, so it’s safe to say that he will basically be choosing from a who’s who list of college basketball’s top programs.

To my knowledge, the Tar Heels are not among the programs to have reached out to Locke, though they certainly should be. Whether that’s because they wanted to get through their player meetings first, or they’re simply not interested, I do not know. But the addition of Locke on the current UNC roster would make a world of difference.

I don’t look for Locke’s search for a new school to last long, so North Carolina will need to reach out and show interest sooner than later if they want to have a shot at acquiring his services. We’ll continue to follow Locke’s journey through the NCAA transfer portal, particularly as it relates to the Tar Heels.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for that, and all the latest on the UNC basketball program.