The Marshall Plan

There is no doubt that Carolina's return back to prominence is due to the emergence of Kendall Marshall.  Since he took over at starting point guard, the Tar Heels have gone from potential NIT team to regular season ACC Champions.

Following the end of the season in 2010, the Wear twins, Travis and David, transferred back home and Ed Davis left for the NBA.  Then Will Graves left the program and Larry Drew was soon to follow.  Sometimes it is possible to have addition by subtraction.  What happened next, is that the team only got better.  North Carolina is back on the scene and should this team stay together, bigger things lie ahead.

Felton & Lawson lead Carolina to National Titles

In just this decade alone, North Carolina has had two great floor leaders in Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson.  Felton was part of a great recruiting class that included Rashad McCants, David Noel and Sean May.  The Tar Heels were coming off an 8-20 season and from the moment these guys set foot on campus, you knew that things were going to change for the better.

During his first two seasons, Felton seemed to take a little backseat to McCants.  However when Felton became more of a leader, the team looked unbeatable.  With Felton running the floor and May dominating the low post, North Carolina beat Duke in the season finale to claim the ACC regular season title; first time since 1993 that they had won it outright.  The Tar Heels had only posted 1 win against Duke in their 9 previous meetings, and this was the win that saw them regain a foothold in a rivalry series that was starting to tip heavily towards the hated Blue Devils.

Ty Lawson came in after Carolina was one season removed from the National Championship.  The one thing that amazed me about Lawson was his blinding speed.  That made the Tar Heels one of the most dangerous fast-break teams in the country.  He could take it to the basket himself, or pass it to an open player for an assist.

While Hansbrough was the player most teams would try to single out during games, Lawson took on a bigger role during his junior season.  His improving jump shot and leadership made him an all around threat, making him the player that teams would rather try and defend.  Not that teams had any success stopping him, but now it became a matter of "pick your poison".  If you focused on Lawson, Hansbrough had free reign and vice versa.  If you focused on both of them, you had to account for Danny Green and Wayne Ellington.  Therefore it really wasn't much of a surprise when Carolina breezed through the NCAA tournament on their way to another national championship.

Since Kendall Marshall became the starter, he has been hailed by players and coaches alike for his "team first" approach.  Suddenly, Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller and John Henson are starting to look a lot better by the day.  Henson is already a rebounding machine, but he's getting more points on offense, and Zeller is getting better looks at the basket if not easy layups.

While he is more of a "pass first" kind of guard, one can only wonder what happens when Marshall becomes more of a scoring threat.