UNC Basketball: Biggest Question for Each Tar Heels Starter in 2015

North Carolina has been one of the deeper teams in the conference this season. Coach Roy Williams has used at least 11 players in every game this season.

With Theo Pinson and Joel Berry looking to break out, the bench is a spot to keep an eye on moving forward.

However, the starting lineup is where a team finds success or failure. All five starters are over 21 minutes per game, and they are who will make or break this season for Carolina.

Here is the biggest question facing each starting man, which, if answered, could mean UNC is primed for a long tournament run.

Marcus Paige

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Can he play more efficiently?

Thus far, 2014-15 has not been the season Marcus Paige was hoping to have. He certainly has not been bad, but he is playing and shooting pretty inefficiently at this point.

Paige leads the team in field-goal attempts and (obviously) three-point attempts. He leads by a healthy margin in each. He is also getting to the foul line at a pace that puts him just shy of the team lead, which is an improvement from last season.

However, the percentages are all off:

• 36.8 percent from the floor
• 79.2 percent from the line
• 35.7 percent from three

Paige is leading the team in scoring—mostly because he is taking the largest chunk of the shots.

With good options inside and young guys clamoring for larger pieces of the pie, Paige needs to start playing more efficiently to best serve this roster.

J.P. Tokoto

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Can he play under control while still playing like himself?

J.P. Tokoto leads the Tar Heels in assists and steals. He is making a couple of nice passes every game, as well as running and leaping all over the court like the athlete he is.

Tokoto also leads UNC in another category by a very healthy margin: turnovers.

Through 15 games, he has turned over the ball 38 times while no teammate has even reached 30. To go along with his occasional poor decision-making, Tokoto is shooting a low 43 percent on two-point attempts.

The three is never going to be there for him, but this season, he seems to be hoisting a number of bad twos as well. Last year, he was over 53 percent on two-point shots. The year before, in limited minutes, he was even better than that.

You want to put up with the bad because he is still useful and needed on the court. It would be nice to see Tokoto rein in his aggressiveness in certain situations and take fewer shots trying to create in the half court.

Justin Jackson

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Can he find his shot from distance?

This is obvious since the rest of Justin Jackson's game seems legit for the most part. He is not a great rebounder for his size or position, and he plays too passively.

But the biggest gripe against him at the moment is his outside shot, something that was supposed to be a strength entering the season.

At 7-of-34 from three, it has been anything but.

Just as the passive play should go away as he becomes more comfortable in the offense and in college basketball in general, so too might his shot return. The point is, he shouldn't stop shooting, especially since UNC needs someone to be a threat from distance.

Instead, he needs to shoot himself out of this slump.

Brice Johnson

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Can he play smarter on the defensive end?

The talent is there. Brice Johnson is quick on the ground and quick to leap. He is a good enough athlete to be a great defender. The mind isn't always there with his body, though.

Poor defensive decision-making isn't always as evident—since there is no statistic calculated from mistakes—but the one thing tallying against Johnson are his fouls.

He isn't alone getting into foul trouble on this team. His fouls always appear the most egregious, though, in that they could have been easily avoided.

Unfortunately, the fouls also might be effecting his production on the offensive end.

In an admittedly small sample size, Johnson has only topped 12 points in a game four times this season. In all four games, he committed two or fewer fouls.

His bad fouling affects his attitude, and he shows it even through the television screen. The emotion is good. UNC needs more of that. It just needs to come from a different source.

Kennedy Meeks

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Can he keep up this pace?

One of the better things Roy Williams has done this season is keep Kennedy Meeks' minutes in check—even while he plays like the best Tar Heel on the roster.

It is a long season, and Meeks needs to keep this pace up through the rigors of rivalry games and into postseason action.

In 15 contests, he has already notched six double-doubles. He's already attempted 128 field goals and 61 free throws. All of last season he took just 188 shots from the field and 87 free throws.

North Carolina needs Meeks to continue to pull down double-doubles and draw fouls in March. The Tar Heels need another 20-plus games from him at this level.

Only time will tell whether the slimmed-down big has it in him.