UNCG had no go to guy.  Heck, they did not have anyone average in double digits scoring.  Their leading scorer was a guy that played off the bench most of the year.  Sophomore Robert Bryant led the team in scoring but mainly by attrition.   Bryant is a terrific scorer who had 9 games where he scored more than 20 points but alas he had games where he barely played and thus ended up averaging just over 12 pts a game.  He has potential but is not big enough to really play the four which is where he was at way too often.  Still, he did lead a division one team in scoring.  Now, whether or not he comes back for a second season is anybody’s guess as in case you haven’t heard around Greensboro there is a new sheriff in town.  And this program actually got an invite to affiliate with a conference.  That’s right folks UNCG is joining the prestigious Southern Conference as its 11th member.  UNCG has brought in young Mike Dement to lead this program into the SoCon and beyond.  Obviously, the chance of this team competing with the likes of Chattanooga and Davidson are long but Dement will field a team and there are rumors he is bringing in some stud who might change the trajectory of this program for the foreseeable future.  How will they do?

Well, UNCG had no game up front.  Junior Bruce Shaw is coming back from missing a year and can score and board.  This 6’6 center gives the team some experience and toughness but is coming all the way back and up from D-3.  That is a huge leap.   Sophomores Hubert Mitchell, John Baker, Kelvin Huggins and Marvin Dawson will be in the competition for minutes as well but Dement will almost assuredly augment his front line with his own recruits.    

The perimeter players were not any better for UNCG.  Juniors Mark Bullock and Garry ‘Happy Days’ Marshall will get first shot but will have to fight to keep jobs.  Sophomores Esker Tatum and David Whiteside are decent players but are not real athletic. Ron Sheppard played a lot of guard and wing and can score and distribute.  Fellow sophomores Greg Myrcik and William ‘Thin Man’ Powell are the point guards for now. 

North Carolina-Greensboro may not have been the worst team in the country but they were on a short list.  The best thing going for this program that most of the players (and coach) are young.  This a is a relatively new program that was playing without a conference affiliation yet so the there is time.  That will all change this year as the SoCon, with all of their history, decided to invite these upstarts to their league.  The geography fits for sure but UNCG next to the great teams this league has produced seems almost sacrelig.  This is not your Dad’s SoCon but still Davidson, as small as a school as it is, it so far up the pantheon of good basketball programs as compared to UNCG it is almost laughable.  But that can all change in a game where only five people participate with a good recruiting class.  Both of these schools supposedly have incredible incoming players though like their programs they are on the opposite end of the spectru,  Davidson has a terrific two guard who can flat shoot from anywhere (and make em) while UNCG has a 6’6 bad ass hombre who plays like a middle linebacker.  Hopefully, this kid is the real deal as last season was just a building year on the way to bigger and better things for the fans of Greensboro.  It cannot get any worse.