So far this season you would have to say that the North Carolina Tar Heels have been a disappointment through nine games. North Carolina came into the season as the number one ranked team with a talented, yet experienced group of players, but it has already lost two games. One of the games was to Northern Iowa without Marcus Paige but the other was to Texas with Paige. Moving forward things won't get much easier for the Tar Heels as they are set to be without starting forward Kennedy Meeks for at least two weeks, according to C.L. Brown of ESPN.
Meeks is dealing with a bone bruise on his left knee that will likely keep him out for UNC's next four games at the very least. The "at least" part of the announcement is the biggest part, because if Meeks were to be out only two weeks he would only miss those four games, but the Tar Heels start ACC play on December 30th against Clemson and that is just outside of two weeks so his status for that game will likely be in doubt.
Fortunately for Meeks and UNC the schedule isn't too daunting during this timetable and if he were to miss the first couple of ACC games they could probably withstand it as home games against Clemson and Georgia Tech are first up in the ACC. Meeks though, will miss Saturday's game against a very good UCLA team that has already beat Kentucky this year so his absence may have some sort of ramifications on North Carolina.
Meeks has started all nine games for North Carolina so far this season and the junior is having the best year of his career so far as he is averaging 12.3 points and 7.4 rebounds per game while making a career high 60 percent of his field goals. Meeks is in the best physical shape of his career as he has lost around sixty pounds since stepping on campus as a freshman and is playing his best basketball so the timing of this injury is unfortunate for him.
The Tar Heels next game is on Wednesday night against Tulane and that is likely when we will find out how head coach Roy Williams will replace Meeks for the short-term but he has options. Williams can decide to move Isaiah Hicks into the starting lineup and go smaller or he can decide to start seldom used senior forward Joel James but either way it will hurt their depth.
