Ultimate guide to the Charlotte 49ers basketball season. Everything you’d want to know

Charlotte 49ers men’s basketball coach Ron Sanchez wants his players to avoid becoming fixated on the types of scheduling disruptions that have affected the team before it even opened the season.

“We can’t control what’s going on around the country,” Sanchez says. “We can’t worry about when a game might get canceled, if anything’s going to happen with the season.”

Sanchez made those remarks days before he learned that the 49ers’ scheduled season-opening game at 12th-ranked Tennessee had become another victim of COVID-19.

Charlotte was among four teams set to play in the Volunteer Thanksgiving Classic, but that event was cancelled due to multiple COVID-positive tests in the Tennessee basketball program. Also scrubbed was the 49ers’ game scheduled for Thanksgiving night in Knoxville, against VCU.

Instead, the 49ers season opens Friday against East Carolina in a Halton Arena without fans.

Sanchez says he and his team won’t fret about the schedule changes or the missing fans.

“We are getting to play and coach the game we love — basketball,” says Sanchez, who coached the 49ers to a 16-13 record last season — Charlotte’s first winning record in men’s basketball since the 2014-15 campaign.

“For us, it’s embracing it and enjoying the opportunity we have that day.”

His sentiments are echoed by guard Jahmir Young, who won Conference USA Freshman of the Year honors last season.

He says having a game canceled “is tough.”

“But it’s like coach says — we are happy to be back on the court, doing what we enjoy so much,” he adds.

Young says the 49ers are approaching this season as a chance to finish what didn’t get finished last year. Charlotte had landed the No. 4 seed in the Conference USA tournament and had hopes of landing a postseason tournament berth.

But C-USA and most other college conferences pulled the plug on their tournaments — at the last minute, in some cases — when COVID-19 cases started spiking in March. And there were no postseason tournaments; no NCAA, no NIT and no pay-to-plays.

“We had a lot of confidence, a lot of momentum,” says Young, who averaged 12.5 points and 5.8 rebounds a game as a freshman. “We felt like we could have done something special. So now, we want to pick up where we left off.”

The 49ers will have to do that with a lot of new faces. Two of their big men graduated, and four other players transferred out of the program. Young and fellow guard Jordan Shepherd (14 points, 4.1 assists per game) are the key returning pieces. Both were picked on the preseason all-conference team.

Several highly regarded recruits and transfers, such as guard Jhery Matos (from Dayton), will be expected to support the backcourt.

“We know we have two really good guards,” Sanchez says. “Their shared experience, in nearly 30 games, is something we can count on. We will build from that.”

Charlotte 49ers season outlook

Young and Shepherd probably are the best backcourt in the conference. With their solid play, and the strong defense emphasized by Sanchez, the 49ers likely will be competitive in nearly every game.

To be better than “competitive,” Charlotte will need strong seasons from players like 6-foot-8 forward Luka Vasic or highly recruited guard Caleb Byrd.

We’ll know a lot about the 49ers in their first two weeks of conference basketball. Charlotte, picked sixth in the C-USA preseason poll, hosts conference favorite Western Kentucky on Jan. 1 and 2, then travels Jan. 8 and 9 to third pick Marshall. The weekend after that, the 49ers host fourth pick UAB.

With the cancellation of the two-day event in Tennessee, the 49ers have lost much of the oomph from their nonconference schedule. Their biggest remaining test is the Dec. 15 Hornets’ Nest Trophy game at Davidson.

Starters lost from 2019-20

Drew Edwards (forward, graduated); Malik Martin (guard, transferred to Rhode Island); Amidou Bamba (center, graduated and is playing professionally in Spain). Also, sixth man Cooper Robb (guard, transferred to Eastern Kentucky).

Charlotte 49ers projected starters

Jordan Shepherd

▪ 2019-20 stats: 14.0 points, 4.1 assists per game.

▪ A 6-4 senior guard from Asheville, Shepherd spent his first two seasons at Oklahoma. Last season, he scored in double figures 22 times and had four 20-plus-point games. He was a third-team all-conference pick.

Jahmir Young

▪ 2019-20 stats: 12.5 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists per game.

▪ Young was a key to the 49ers’ defense in his freshman year, averaging 1.5 steals. In addition to being conference Freshman of the Year, he also earned third-team all-conference honors. He is a 6-2 sophomore.

Milos Supica

▪ 2019-20 stats: 5.5 points, 3.8 rebounds.

▪ Supica, a 6-9 senior forward, is moving from a reserve role to starter. He scored in double figures six times and had 10 or more rebounds five times. He played in all 29 games.

Brice Williams

▪ 2019-20 stats: 2.3 points, 1.5 rebounds.

▪ Williams, a 6-7 sophomore guard, is the son of all-time 49ers’ scoring leader Henry Williams and a Hopewell High graduate. He played in 27 games last season and scored in double figures three times.

Jhery Matos

▪ 2019-20 stats: 2.2 points, 1.7 rebounds (at Dayton)

▪ Matos, a 6-5 graduate senior, saw action in 32 games last season with the nationally ranked Flyers. In his sophomore season, he was a third-team junior college all-America selection after averaging 17.7 points a game at Monroe (N.Y.) College.

Depth situation

Three key players will be 6-8 junior forward Luka Vasic; 6-1 freshman guard Caleb Byrd; and 6-7 freshman guard-forward Caleb Stone-Carrawell. Vasic has shown flashes but has suffered knee injuries the past two seasons. Byrd was a three-star recruit out of Georgia. Stone-Carrawell was a high school standout at Cox Mill High in Cabarrus County.

Steve Lyttle on Twitter: @slyttle

Charlotte 49ers basketball roster

No.	Name	Pos.	Height	Weight	Year
0	Caleb Stone-Carrawell	G	6-7	215	Fr.
1	Jahmir Young	G	6-2	185	So.
2	Caleb Byrd	G	6-1	160	Fr.
3	Brice Williams	G	6-7	215	Soph
5	Milos Supica	F	6-9	240	Sr.
10	Marvin Cannon	G	6-5	170	Sr.
12	Jackson Threadgill	G	6-6	180	Fr.
13	Jordan Shepherd	G	6-4	190	Sr.
14	Regin Larson	G	6-6	185	So.
15	Aly Khalifa	F	6-10	255	Fr.
25	Jared Garcia	F	6-8	245	Fr.
30	Jhery Matos	G	6-5	195	Sr.
31	Anzac Rissetto	F	6-10	255	So.
35	Luka Vasic	G	6-8	190	Jr.

▪ Head coach: Ron Sanches, third season (24-34)

Charlotte 49ers 2020-21 basketball schedule

Nov. 27 — Eastern Carolina, 3 p.m.

Nov. 30 — Belmont Abbey, 6 p.m.

Dec. 4 — Georgia State

Dec. 7 — S.C. State

Dec, 11 — Appalachian State

Dec. 15 — at Davidson

Dec. 19 — N.C. A&T

Dec. 22 — at George Washington

Jan. 1 and 2 — Western Kentucky

Jan. 8 and 9 — at Marshall

Jan. 15 and 16 — UAB

Jan. 22 and 23 — Florida Atlantic

Jan. 29 and 30 — Florida International

Feb. 5 and 6 — at Middle Tennessee

Feb. 10 — Old Dominion