The North Carolina men’s basketball team has been hyped since it was announced in April that all five starters would be returning to Chapel Hill for the 2011-12 season.
But Friday at the Dean Smith Center, the newest Tar Heel squad will take the court for the first time together.
At Late Night with Roy 2011, fans will get the opportunity to see the North Carolina men’s and women’s basketball teams practice for the first time this season.
The event —which kicks off at 5 p.m. with a UNC volleyball match against Virginia — will feature the men’s and women’s players in skits and acts of entertainment, in addition to intrasquad scrimmages.
“(It’s) just to show at the end of the day, we’re still human beings. We’re still people who like having a good time,” sophomore guard Kendall Marshall said.
“That’s the biggest thing we want people to get out of this, is to realize we’re not Carolina basketball players. That’s not the only thing we are. We’re student-athletes. We have classes every day with (students). We eat at the same places they eat, and we like to have fun like them, too.”
But unlike the average North Carolina student, the members of the UNC men’s basketball team have the weight of a preseason No. 1-ranking on their shoulders.
North Carolina — the only team that ended the 2010-11 season in the top 10 of the coaches’ poll to return all five starters — will start this year’s campaign Nov. 11 with a game against Michigan State on an aircraft carrier in San Diego, Calif.
The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama will be in attendance at the game on the USS Carl Vinson.
