Looking back at the mixed bag of Cole Anthony's season for North Carolina basketball

It's rare for a college basketball player to reach all of the highs and sink to all of the lows that point guard Cole Anthony saw in his first year with the North Carolina men's basketball team.

Arriving in Chapel Hill as the No. 2 recruit in the class of 2019, according to ESPN, Anthony lived up to all of the hype in his first game of the season when he scored 34 points in front of a home crowd to lead UNC to a 76-65 win over Notre Dame.

He scored at least 20 points in each of his first three games for the Tar Heels and nearly notched the third triple-double in program history when he finished with nine points, eight assists and 10 rebounds against Elon in November.

It seemed like Anthony would be a leader capable of shouldering the burden of carrying North Carolina throughout the season and possibly during the NCAA Tournament. 

Until it didn't.

For every 20-point performance, there was a game where Anthony had a one-to-one ratio of assists to turnovers. For every 11-13 or 14-14 night at the free throw line, there was an outing where he shot in the neighborhood of 5-22 or 7-24 from the field.

The bottom line is nobody knew what they were in for when Anthony stepped on the court. And then the injury happened.

A partially torn meniscus in his right knee that required surgery sidelined the first-year phenom for almost two months. Speculation about whether Anthony would sit out the remainder of the season to save his body for the NBA ensued until he shut down any rumors via Twitter.

UNC went 4-7 without its starting point guard to put its record for the season at 10-10, and with the emergence of Garrison Brooks as an All-ACC caliber player alongside Anthony, the pressure was piled onto the point guard to return and help the Tar Heels to a successful postseason.

And in just his third game back from injury, it actually looked like Anthony may have been capable of doing just that.

The Tar Heels hosted Duke in one of the most dramatic iterations of the storied rivalry, a 98-96 overtime win for the Blue Devils that required a massive comeback and two improbable buzzer-beaters. Guarded by one of the premier defenders in the nation in Tre Jones, Anthony stilled managed to compile 24 points and 11 rebounds in 43 minutes of action.

With Anthony back and firing on all cylinders, it seemed like North Carolina could hang with any program in the country. But despite the point guard scoring 15-plus points per game until the team's second game against the Blue Devils, the Tar Heels dropped four of their seven contests ahead of the rematch, several of them in nail-biting fashion.

By the time UNC faced off against Duke in Durham, the season had clearly taken its toll on Anthony. Jones limited him to just nine points on 4-14 shooting in the Blue Devils' win, and Anthony went on to combine for 15 points and 10 turnovers in North Carolina's two ACC Tournament games before the season came crashing down.

Anthony's first, and possibly only, year in Chapel Hill was a mixed bag. He was capable of sending the Smith Center into a frenzy by hitting a pair of clutch free throws in the dying seconds of overtime against Duke, and he was capable of making North Carolina fans curse their TVs when he turned the ball over for the seventh time in one game against Wake Forest.

Needless to say, the peaks and valleys of Anthony's 2019-20 season will forever be imprinted in the brains of UNC fans.

@McMastersJ

@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com