CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — RJ Davis put aside pro basketball for another year to return to North Carolina, and knows what he wants out of his final college season.

“We want to be playing in the first week in April,” the UNC guard said.

That would be at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. That’s where the 2025 NCAA Final Four will be.

Davis has played in a Final Four, in 2022 when the Tar Heels made it to the final game in the New Orleans Superdome. But Kansas won the championship that April night.

The Heels were a No. 1 seed last season in the NCAA Tournament. Alabama won its Sweet 16 matchup with the Tar Heels in Los Angeles.

So Davis is back for a fifth season. The NBA — or whatever — can wait. While this year’s UNC team will have a new look — and won’t have Armando Bacot in the middle — Davis believes it can put up a banner.

“Our strength this year is going to be our ability to play uptempo and use our athletic abilities and be able to finish at the rim,” Davis said. “But overall, I think it’s the confidence of this team.

“I think we have the potential to do a lot of great things. The talent we have is through the roof.”

Here are five questions to be answered in the 2024-25 season:

Is RJ Davis the best player in college basketball?

First off, there are some folks in Durham who would say Davis might not be the best player in the Triangle. Something about freshman wunderkind Cooper Flagg, and how good the big man can be at Duke this season.

That remains to be seen once the games begin. Both have been named preseason first-team All-Americans. One difference: Davis was a consensus first-team pick after a season his coach called “historic” and Flagg’s selection is based on potential, obvious high-level skills and what might be.

Davis was named the ACC player of the year in 2023-24, finishing with 784 points, averaging an ACC-best 21.2 a game. That left him — listen up — 784 points behind former All-America Tyler Hansbrough, the Heels’ career leader with 2,872 points. Davis has the all-time mark within reach.

“I’m going to have to score,” Davis said. “I also know what’s going to be coming at me, that people will be targeting me. But Coach (Hubert) Davis always expresses, “Never run from it, run towards it.’ I’ve embraced it and am confident in doing that.”

Armando Bacot’s (finally) gone. Now what?

Bacot, UNC’s Father Time, averaged 14.5 points and 10.3 rebounds a game last season before finally exiting college basketball.

How to replace him? UNC’s Jalen Washington might have put it best: “You’ve just got to get to it. He ain’t gonna come back. Nobody else is going to come in and save us.”

Yes, it seemed at times like Bacot had a double-double in every game he played at UNC.

And, yes, it seemed he had been at UNC since the end of the Obama administration.

But with Bacot gone, someone has to go to the boards, and the Heels have two long, if leaner types in Washington and Jae’Lyn Withers, both battle tested in the ACC and experienced. But this will be a UNC team that will need to rebound by committee, as the coaches tend to say, and get help from such players as Vanderbilt transfer Ven-Allen Lubin and freshman James Brown.

Last season, Bacot had 380 rebounds and Harrison Ingram 327. Ingram, a transfer from Stanford, left for the NBA after one season in Chapel Hill. Washington and Withers combined for 228.

Washington, who has had knee issues, said he has added weight and now goes 235 pounds, and Withers is at 220. They’ll have to prove they can handle more minutes and the grind.

“Armando was one of one,” Hubert Davis said. “People will ask how do you replace Armando? You can’t replace a one of one. So this group is going to have to rebound. We’re going to have to dominate points in the paint maybe a bit differently than the way Armando did.

“We have the personnel to be able to do that. We can still live in the paint, live at the free throw line and attack the basket.”

For the record, Bacot played in 171 games and was in double figures in points and rebounds in 87.

Which newcomer could surprise?

There have been some comparisons of Cade Tyson to Brady Manek, albeit minus the headband and bushy beard. Tyson is one of those fresh-faced types who looks like growing a beard might be beyond him for a while.

But shoot the 3? Tyson has shown he can do that and could give the Heels the same kind of offensive spurts Manek did as a transfer from Oklahoma. In his one season in Chapel Hill, the 6-9 forward averaged 15 points a game and was a 40% 3-point shooter on a Final Four team.

Tyson, whose older brother Hunter played at Clemson before going to the NBA, was at Belmont the past two years in the Missouri Valley Conference. The 6-7 junior was a 46.5% shooter on 3s last season, and knocked down five or more in seven games while averaging 17.5 points.

Cormac Ryan transferred to UNC from Notre Dame and was supposed to be the guy to nail the big 3s last season. He was a 35.4% shooter from the arc. The Heels hope Tyson can be a more consistent threat.

“With his size, he can rebound, he can handle the ball, he can facilitate, can defend. We can use him at different spots,” Coach Davis said.

UNC has some talented freshmen aching to have an impact this season: Ian Jackson and Drake Powell the most enticing, and both five-star recruits. But Tyson could have the biggest impact as Jackson and Powell get a feel for the college game and how to handle the rigors of a long season.

Who can have a breakout season?

Seth Trimble’s 33 points in the 84-76 exhibition win over Memphis on Oct. 15 was a breakout in itself, coming from a player who’s career high at UNC has been 12 points.

With Davis out with a sore back, Trimble was the best player on the floor at the FedEx Forum in Memphis. He hit 11 of his 17 shots, going 3 for 5 on 3s, made all eight of his free throws and had three assists and two steals in 33 minutes. That’s a pretty tidy stat sheet.

Hubert Davis is expecting Trimble, who was briefly in the transfer portal after last season, to get more minutes and make the most of them in an expanded role for the 6-3 junior.

“He’s a joy to be around,” Davis said. “The progression he has made every year is exactly what you want to see as a coach and exactly what you want to see in a player.”

One player who was not surprised by Trimble’s 33-point performance at Memphis was the guy sitting on the bench, watching.

“I think he’s been phenomenal all of the offseason,” RJ Davis said. “And just his ability defensively … we saw glimpses of it last year but we know he can be one of, if not the best defenders in the country. Me and him have had our battles (in practice). I make him better and he makes me better.”

Can this UNC team be a national champion?

Hubert Davis was 20 minutes away from winning a national championship in his first year as head coach. The Tar Heels fell short against Kansas in the 2022 Final Four after dispatching Duke in the semifinals — ending the long, successful coaching career of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, who won five NCAA titles, and causing another Franklin Street frenzy.

The 2022-23 season was humbling, the Tar Heels ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll and then being left out of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. UNC’s answer to that was to go 29-8 last year, finish first in the ACC’s regular season, be a No. 1 seed in the NCAAs and reach the NCAA Sweet 16.

Again, there was a sour ending. The Heels had the lead late against Alabama but couldn’t hold it.

The Tar Heels, as Davis likes to say, have been tweaked to best fit its new personnel. There’s a strength-in-numbers feel to this UNC team, at least in preseason, where the Heels are ranked No. 9.

UNC opens the season Nov. 4 at home against Elon. Four days later, the Tar Heels face Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse, which should answer some questions.

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