Before he was diagnosed with one in his right shin last month, Tyler Hansbrough and three of his North Carolina teammates caused their own "stress reaction" across the college basketball landscape last spring.
These guys, again?
Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green decided to pass on potential NBA riches and return for one more run at the national title that eluded the Tar Heels last year.
That decision established UNC as prohibitive national title favorite. Closer to home in the ACC, it set the bar a little higher for everyone else.
"People around the league know that we are going to have to go out and play harder,"
Wake Forest guard Harvey Hale said. "People are going to fight even more because they've been heralded so much."
The Tar Heels return the top six scorers from last year's Final Four team, led by the 6-foot-9 Hansbrough, the national Player of the Year who is expected to miss the first two games while resting his sore shin.
UNC also added three highly regarded freshmen and gets point guard Bobby Frasor back from a knee injury that caused him to miss the final 27 games last year.
"All they're going to do is add to us,"
Ellington said. "They're going to help us."
Still, the news hasn't been all rosy out of Chapel Hill. Hansbrough's timetable for return is officially listed as "indefinite."
He has been out of practice since Oct. 31 and is scheduled to be evaluated again at the end of this week. Without proper rest, a stress reaction can lead to a stress fracture.
The Tar Heels had already lost senior Marcus Ginyard to a similar injury. Ginyard had surgery on his left foot in early October and is expected to be out until December. That means North Carolina shouldn't be at full strength until January: just in time for conference play.
Can anyone catch the Tar Heels? Duke is given the best shot since the Blue Devils also return most of last year's team and have added size and depth that could prevent another March meltdown. Wake Forest, Miami and Virginia Tech look like programs on the rise.
"We don't expect to beat anybody by 30 or 40,"
Green said. "In the ACC, you're not going to win many games by 30 or 40, or even 20."
Thirty-five of 96 conference games were decided by three points or fewer last season, a higher percentage than any other conference. No one expects anything different this year, even with a loaded North Carolina setting the standard.
"We know that North Carolina is a really good team. They deserve it,"
Hale said. "They have two or three of the best players in the country, and they have everybody coming back and they have a really good recruiting class coming in."
"Play hard every game, every possession. If you can do that and match their intensity, that's when you have a chance of beating them."
