Michael Malone is putting the first pieces of his North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball roster together for the 2026-27 season, and the list already includes a mix of high school recruits and transfers. The newest names were still being added when the roster update was published Tuesday, but the early group shows how Carolina plans to build in Malone’s first season at the helm.
Four-star forward Cameron Adams headlines the class. The 6-foot-7 Sierra Canyon School product is ranked No. 21 in ’s class of 2026, signed with UNC in November and averaged more than 20 points and 11 rebounds per game in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League last summer. analyst Adam Finkelstein described Adams as “a true mismatch problem who can play multiple positions and score at different levels,” a fitting label for a player whose production stretched beyond one spot on the floor.
The class also includes K.J. Smith, whose family ties to Carolina run deep. His father, Kenny Smith, was an All-American point guard for Dean Smith in the 1980s, and K.J. Smith later played for Roy Williams from 2016 to 2021 before arriving from Mater Dei High School in California. As a senior there, he averaged 8.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game.
Malone’s staff also dipped into the transfer portal for immediate help. Neoklis Avdalas, a 6-foot-9 guard listed that way at Virginia Tech, arrives after a season in which he averaged 12.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game. His 4.6 assists ranked eighth in the ACC, and he showed his ceiling in November with a 33-point, five-rebound, six-assist performance in an overtime win against Providence. Avdalas has also played professionally in Greece and comes in as a rising sophomore.
Terrence Brown gives Carolina another scoring option after averaging 19.9 points and 3.8 assists per game at Utah in 2025-26. He took 15.4 shots per game, the most of any Utah player, after earlier averaging better than 20 points per game as a sophomore at Fairleigh Dickinson. Brown, now a rising senior, has raised his three-point percentage in every collegiate season.
Then there is Matt Able, whose move from NC State to UNC is the kind of switch that turns heads in the Triangle. A direct transfer from NC State to Carolina had not happened since World War II, and Able made the jump after a freshman year in which he did not start a game but still averaged 8.8 points and shot 35.5 percent on three-pointers in 21.8 minutes per game off the bench. He scored 19 points and grabbed six rebounds in 31 minutes against UNC and enters as a rising sophomore.
Malone’s early roster work shows a clear split between future and now: young recruits with upside, and transfers who have already produced at high-level college programs. The remaining question is how quickly the staff can finish the list before the 2026-27 season begins, and whether the finished roster will have enough size, shooting and shot creation to match the expectations that come with Carolina.