Mike DeCourcy

CHAPEL HILL, N.C - North Carolina shooting guard Marcus Ginyard has been a part of one NCAA championship team and another that reached the Final Four. He ought to have a pretty good idea what such a team looks like, so it seemed reasonable to ask if the 2009-10 Tar Heels appear to be capable of either or both.

"I think it's definitely a team that could find themselves in Indianapolis, playing for a chance to win another national championship," Ginyard said. "There's a lot of things that have to happen between now and April 5, but this team can do those things."

Read his words again.

He knows the place.

He knows the time.

That says a lot, doesn't it?

So much about these Heels will be different from their predecessors it seems unreasonable to consider this a title defense. It's almost like the Steelers trying to keep the Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh.

Carolina lost Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Bobby Frasor. That's 73 percent of the Heels' championship-season point production. This is the second time in the past five years Carolina won a championship under Roy Williams and then saw most of its best players depart, many with eligibility remaining.

This time, however, the UNC roster is in the kind of shape that provokes optimism. In the Sporting News College Basketball yearbook, the Tar Heels are picked to finish No. 4. And that is not a bold pick. It is close to the consensus.

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A lot has to work just right, though, for Carolina to find itself touching down in Indy in early April.

Point guard
Even the most pessimistic Carolina player had to know an NCAA title was inevitable about 10 minutes into the championship game against Michigan State. By the time it became official, there'd been plenty of time to celebrate. Which is one reason Larry Drew allowed his thoughts to drift forward.

"As soon as the buzzer went off in Detroit, I kind of took it upon myself [that] it was going to be my job and I would have to try and lead this team back to where we were," Drew said. "It's something I'd been thinking about for a while."

Drew is a former McDonald's All-America with a year of backup experience. He is different, though. The McDonald's game is supposed to contain the absolute best of the preps, but most scouting services rated him between 50th and 70th in the 2008 class.

Williams, though, provided a strong endorsement merely by offering a scholarship. "I think he's a quarterback. I think he's a PG," Williams said. "I think he can make plays and make people better."

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A summer's worth of training and skill work left Drew with a body that looks like it belongs in a UNC uniform. He is longer than Lawson or Raymond Felton, though not nearly as fast. He must make better decisions after penetrating and play on the run without committing an excess of turnovers. If there is a strength to his game, Drew said, it is passing skill.

"I have the ability to get the ball up and down the court," Drew said. "More so, my way would be distributing the ball with the pass – push-aheads, drive-and-kicks. Either way it goes, we're still going to be a fast-paced team."