Unlike last season, when the experienced North Carolina Tar Heels were looking at a national championship or bust, the 2012-2013 team wil be looking to contend for the ACC championship with perennial power Duke and newly powerful N.C. State.

The Tar Heels lost four players who went in the first round of the NBA draft – Tyler Zeller, Harrison Barnes, John Henson and, maybe most devastatingly, Kendall Marshall. Marshall left after his sophomore year and after his wrist injury certainly cost the Tar Heels a Final Four visit and perhaps a national title.

Marshall’s field generalship will be missed. A lot of the burden of the success or failure of this current team will fall on his replacement, freshman Marcus Paige, who is highly regarded but thin and unproven. Paige is excellent ball handler and can shoot (although he didn’t show it much in the preseason). Marshall was known for being able to see the floor well and make the difficult pass seem easy. Whether Paige can distribute the ball anywhere close to what Marshall did is a big question mark.

The guy he’ll probably be looking for most is James Michael McAdoo, just a sophomore but looked to as the top inside scoring threat for the Heels. He only scored in double figures six times last season and only average six points a game but he came on at the end of the season and looks to take over the role held by Zeller last season. Despite his relative inexperience, McAdoo is one of six ACC players on the preseason nominee list for the 2013 John Wooden Award, which is presented to the National Player of the Year.

The only senior on the team is guard Dexter Strickland, who missed the last half of the season a year ago with a torn ACL.

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