UNC Basketball 2026-27 Preview: Sophomores

There are times when a preview of UNC’s sophomores would have entailed mostly, if not entirely, players that we’d seen some amount of as first-year players, hoping to establish themselves with bigger roles with a year of strength and conditioning and practice experience under their belts. Due to a combination of a coaching change and the era of player movement we find ourselves within, this is not one of those times. I’m not sure there’s any particular significance to the class status that the below-mentioned four players share, other than that they’re relatively, but not entirely, new to college basketball. The Ancient Greek roots of the word come to mind: sophos, for wisdom (like in “sophistry,” but minus the negative part), and moros, for foolishness (like in “moron”). A state of being that has begun to gain wisdom, but has not yet shed its youthful ignorance. Michael Malone has four players for whom this year represents various different stages of their basketball journeys, all collected under his umbrella. It’ll be his task, and theirs, to make them a little more basketball-smart and a little less basketball-dumb.

Isaiah Denis

The lone returning Tar Heel among the bunch, Denis didn’t play essentially any meaningful minutes last year for Hubert Davis, the apparent reason being, as I recall, that a preseason injury had put him behind the 8-ball as far as learning the defensive sets, schemes, and communication that Davis had needed from him. In his garbage time minutes, he immediately stood out for his motor, a good-looking jump shot, and for simply being at another level — maybe half a level — skill- and athleticism-wise from the end-of-bench guys who joined him. Michael Malone apparently got some looks at him in last year’s practices even before doing his evaluations as UNC’s coach, and was impressed enough to give him the opportunity to stay in Chapel Hill — and early returns are that he’s going to play a significantly bigger role for the Heels this year than he…

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Publish date : 2026-10-28 15:00:00

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