CHAPEL HILL — Sophomore John Henson knows North Carolina is going to be thin in the frontcourt next season.
So he’s doing his part to make it a bit thicker.
Six eggs with cheese and grilled chicken for breakfast. A late-morning sandwich at Subway. A big lunch burrito at Chipotle. A protein shake for a mid-afternoon snack. Followed by a large Italian dinner at a local pizzeria.
Clarification and update at the end of this story
It appears as if North Carolina's players got a talkin' to about what is -- and is not -- acceptable on twitter.
At about 5 p.m., rising sophomores Dexter Strickland and John Henson, plus rising junior Larry Drew II, all posted variations of the same message on their individual twitter accounts: "well coach just talked to us about twitter and told us we offend some people n what not so this is a farewell to bein' myself... lata tweeps."
Despite his team's 32-point loss Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium, North Carolina forward John Henson will have reason to root for Duke a couple years from now.
Well, for the women's team, that is.
Henson's sister Amber, a junior at Tampa's Sickles High, verbally committed to the Blue Devils on Sunday night, according to The St. Petersburg Times.
Remember when North Carolina's frontcourt was going to be the strength of its team? With sophomore Ed Davis out for six weeks — essentially, the rest of the season — with a broken bone on his left wrist, the Tar Heels are going to be scrambling for big bodies when they play N.C. State on Saturday.
Reserve 7-footer Tyler Zeller, who has already been sidelined five weeks with a broken bone in his right foot, isn't due to return until the end of next week at the earliest. Reserve freshman forward Travis Wear is still out with a severely sprained ankle and will not play against the Wolfpack.
That leaves normal starter Deon Thompson at one slot in the post, David Wear or John Henson (who has recently moved from small forward to power forward) starting in the other slot, and Will Graves (usually the starting small forward) to fill in.
It's widely known -- love it or hate it -- that North Carolina coach Roy Williams prefers to let his team play through a run, rather than call a timeout and settle his players down, because he thinks it helps them in the long run to play through adversity.
So its another sign of how much the current Tar Heels -- now 2-6 in the ACC -- have faltered, that Williams called early timeouts in losses at Virginia Tech and Maryland.
CHARLESTON, S.C. — It was a quiet locker room after ninth-ranked North Carolina lost to College of Charleston 82-79 in overtime Monday night. Not so quiet on Twitter, though. Here's a sampling of UNC players' tweets in the hours after the Tar Heels blew an 11-point lead in the final four minutes of regulation:
Freshman John Henson (johnhenson31): Just made someone's college career relevant ... damn (note: since taken off his twitter page)
Sophomore Justin Watts (MyNameisJWatts): On the way back to chapel hill .. Going to sleep as soon as I get back
Sophomore Ed Davis (eddavis32): Just got back to chapel hill. In this business us got to have a quick memory forget fast and move on
Senior Marcus Ginyard (MGINYARD): Charleston police should have their hands full tonight
Walk-on Terrence Petree (tpetree): Say what u want. I believe in my 15 brothers....
• Summer Hoops Preview: The Picks
• Part II: Duke, Georgia Tech, Clemson
• Part III: Wake Forest, Maryland, Virginia
• Part IV: N.C. State, Virginia Tech, Miami
2008-09 record: 34-4 overall, 13-3 ACC (first)
Postseason: 6-0, beat Michigan State in national championship game
Projected starting lineup: PG Larry Drew II, SG Dexter Strickland, G/F Marcus Ginyard, F Ed Davis (left), F Deon Thompson
Plus
• Size. Here's a brutal reality check for the rest of the ACC — UNC lost the leading scorer in ACC history (Tyler Hansbrough), and will still have one of the best frontcourts in the country.
Scary thought: One of the most impressive players at the Nike Hoops Summit was Leslie McDonald, i.e. UNC's "other" recruit — the fifth member of the '09 recruiting class and only one that wasn't a McDonald's All-American.
McDonald, a shooting guard, was one of three ACC signees on Team USA, which lost to the World Team, 97-89. Raleigh's John Wall drew the headlines, with 11 assists and five steals, but there's plenty to read about McDonald, Duke's Mason Plumlee and UNC's John Henson in the NBADraft.net article.
What stood out in the annual root canal that is the McDonald's All-American Game, a talent showcase which looks more and more like a soccer game for 6-year-olds, where everyone gravitates towards the ball, rather than an actual basketball game:
John Henson (UNC): Skinny. Really skinny, makes 18-year-old Kevin Garnett look like Nigel Dixon.
The UNC recruit is listed at 6-10 and 200 pounds but those disproportionate vitals don't paint the proper picture. Basically, he needs to add some bulk. And while every NBA prospect has "long arms," Henson's are impossibly long.
John Henson, a University of North Carolina basketball commitment, has transferred to Tampa (Fla.) Sickles High.
Henson is a 6-foot-10, 200-pound senior who played at Round Rock, Texas last season.
His family has relocated in Tampa, according to recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons of All-Star Sports, and Henson will enroll at Sickles.
