Keeping It Heel
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UNC Basketball hosts St. Augustine’s in exhibition play

By Nick Delahanty

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - OCTOBER 13: Cormac Ryan #3 of the North Carolina Tar Heels moves the ball during Live Action with Carolina Basketball at the Dean E. Smith Center on October 13, 2023 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - OCTOBER 13: Cormac Ryan #3 of the North Carolina Tar Heels moves the ball during Live Action with Carolina Basketball at the Dean E. Smith Center on October 13, 2023 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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The UNC basketball program will play its second exhibition game as they host St. Augustine’s in its final preseason tune-up.

Finally.

After being teased with information from the UNC basketball program’s “secret scrimmage,” we now get our first look at this year’s team on Friday night as they host St. Augustine’s in exhibition play.

This one won’t count in the standings, but it serves as a reminder that we are so close to the start of the 2023-2024 college basketball season.

What could we expect from the Tar Heels’ final preseason tune-up? We discuss it all here.

Keys to the Exhibition

Not only are exhibition games a great opportunity for the players to prepare for the upcoming season, but they also serve as a chance to experiment a bit.

Hubert Davis will likely be mixing and matching throughout the contest, as he’ll look for some hints as to what the right recipe might be for this year’s UNC basketball team.

The keys are simple: get the work in and keep everyone healthy.

No need to play anyone for 35+ minutes in this one. Expect the Tar Heels to go deep into the bench, as multiple players will have the opportunity to show they belong in the team’s rotation once the real games get underway.

Something to Watch For

The newcomers!

There are plenty of them, and other than the team’s ‘Live Action’ scrimmage, we haven’t seen the majority of this roster in a UNC basketball jersey yet.

That changes this evening.

Of course, we’re interested in seeing how the multiple transfers fare in their unofficial Dean Smith Center debuts, but we’ll also see freshmen Elliot Cadeau and Zayden High for the first time against another opponent as well. We’ll see how both highly-touted freshmen fit in, as this scrimmage might give us a glimpse of how we can expect them to be utilized at least early on this season.

Projected Starters

RJ Davis
Paxson Wojcik
Cormac Ryan
Harrison Ingram
Armando Bacot

Next. Bacot and Cadeau earn Preseason All-ACC honors. dark

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