North Carolina started work on replacing guard Dexter Strickland at practice Monday, and Reggie Bullock is the most likely candidate to take the job.
UNC practiced infrequently over the weekend, with coach Roy Williams letting players rest before Thursday's home game against N.C. State, but Williams said that his initial thoughts are that Bullock, a 6-foot-7 sophomore, and P.J. Hairston, a 6-5 freshman from Greensboro, will most likely share all responsibilities.
"We haven't even talked about it very much, but (Sunday) in practice we put Reggie in there," Williams said on the ACC coaches' teleconference. "I would assume that's the way it would stay unless something weird happens in practice.
"Reggie's gotten better defensively. He's really started giving us a lift rebounding the basketball on the offensive board and the defensive board. I think he deserves it and knows more about what's going on than P.J. does, for example, but there's 25 to 30 minutes a game there that somebody's going to have to pick up."
Little consideration was given to taking Leslie McDonald, a 6-5 junior, out of his redshirt year. McDonald is far along in his recovery from a summer knee injury and is practicing, but Williams met with him Sunday and told him that the situation should not affect his plans to sit out and recover.
Strickland, a 6-3 junior, was injured Thursday in an 82-68 victory at Virginia Tech. He tore the anterior-cruciate ligament in his right knee and will need season-ending surgery. He averaged 7.5 points.
Bullock is fourth on the team in scoring (8.4 ppg) and leads the team with 34 3-pointers. He averaged 18.8 minutes in UNC's first 19 games, playing in all of them as a reserve.
Bullock and Hairston, also a 3-point shooter, will add scoring to the lineup, but neither is as strong a defender as Strickland.
"They realize the thing ahead of them was Dexter's ability to play on the defensive end of the floor," Williams said. "They've been trying very hard to see if they can match his defensive capability.
"They do shoot the ball better. They are bigger. But they haven't been able to do that enough to get him out of the starting lineup. Now one of them's really going to really step forward and be a defender for us."
What UNC will miss most, Williams said, is the three to five minutes each half that Strickland played point guard and allowed Kendall Marshall to rest. Williams called Strickland's absence at point guard "harmful" and a "big-time loss."
Stilman White, a freshman point guard, could be asked to back up Marshall. He has played in 15 games, often with the outcome decided, and has averaged 4.3 minutes. He has 12 assists and 13 points.
"It remains to be seen, but we're going to try and give Stilman some time there," Williams said. "We'll try to do a little more work on the passing game not having a true point guard and see how that works out.
"We'll try to see what John Henson (who is 6-11) and Tyler Zeller (7-0) look like out there. You never can tell. We've got to find some way to get Kendall a little bit of break during each half."
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