SI says #4, ESPN says #5 – We’ll See

Gary Parrish unveiled his Post-Deadline-To-Withdraw-From-The-NBA-Draft Top 25 (and one) and he has the Heels listed at #4.  I mean they lost four starters from a championship team, and a former POY, so obviously they’re still in the Top 5.

Andy Katz also dropped his rankings post-withdraw deadline and has the Heels at #5, claiming that it still might be too high.

This is how Roy Williams does things these days.  A lot of people are comparing this team to the 2006 team or to last year’s Kansas team, but in a lot of ways I think this team will be better. With Ginyard and Thompson anchoring a group of freshmen and sophomores that is ranked so high, I think over half could end up as NBA first round picks.

People are touting Ed Davis as the reason North Carolina won’t have too many more L’s, but most forget that Tyler Zeller actually beat him out for the starter position at the beginning of the season when Hansbrough was out with an injury. Zeller never really returned to form, and I’m sure he will use this year as a springboard to show why he wasn’t worried about losing a year of elligibility and coming back for the NCAA Tournament.

With both rankings, Kansas, Michigan State seem to be obvious Top 5 choices based on incoming talent, returning talent, coaching situations, and last year’s performance (with Kentucky being a unqiue case everyone seems to be jumping to inane conclusions about).  And with the field wide open, schools like Texas, Villanova, and Purdue will obviously creep into discussions, but despite UNC’s personnel losses it has to be listed up there as a national title competitor yet again. If nothing else, this is a Roy Williams coached team, wearing light blue.

And Duke being ranked in the Top 10 in both lists? Come on.