It’s easy to get lost in the offseason. At times, it can feel as though your team’s roster construction is happening in a vacuum, especially when it advances to the stage of pursuing international talent, as UNC has in the past weeks.
However, it’s important to zoom out from the minutiae of those recruiting battles and roster-building machinations to gain a proper perspective of how well the offseason is actually going. For UNC, that practice has provided a bit of a sobering reality about Michael Malone’s first offseason at the helm.
With the NCAA Tournament’s expansion to 76 teams confirmed, Andy Katz released his first-ever 76-team bracketology. Tar Heels won’t like where they ended up.
Full seed list from @TheAndyKatz ✍️ pic.twitter.com/fN4jvq9w83
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) May 8, 2026
Katz slotted UNC in as a No. 9 seed, avoiding the expanded play-in portion of the bracket, but still a disappointing 33rd overall, one spot behind Texas A&M, and one spot ahead of Providence, which also made a head coaching change this offseason, hiring Bryan Hodgson away from USF.
Andy Katz pegs UNC as 33rd team in his field of 76 prediction
Malone has undoubtedly made some strong moves this offseason, and it’s evident that he has a clear vision for how he wants to build his roster with positional size and playmaking 1-4. However, with Henri Veesaar leaving for the NBA, Malone hasn’t done much to bring in a replacement at center, though he’s signed Sayon Keita from FC Barcelona, and even his proven veteran pickups come with question marks.
Can Terrence Brown shoot it well enough? Can Neoklis Avdalas? Will Matt Able provide more than just spot-up shooting? How will Jarin Stevenson hold up at the four with Keita weighing just 215 pounds at the five spot?
There are questions about depth, questions about high-end talent, and questions about Malone, who has never been a college basketball head coach. Right now, at least, there aren’t a whole lot of answers either, and with the portal mostly dried up and international recruiting slowing, there aren’t many moves left for UNC to make.
In a vacuum, UNC has gotten good things accomplished this offseason. It has established an identity, laid the groundwork overseas for future recruiting, and held onto an elite recruit in Maximo Adams. All of that is important, and the roster Malone has built is good, but has any of that gotten UNC closer to winning a national championship than it was with Hubert Davis? Not meaningfully.
The ink isn’t dry on this offseason, and even once it is, we won’t have definitive answers about how it went until January at the earliest. But right now, it’s hard to take too much issue with Katz’s assessment.
Add us as a preferred source on Google