Scouting the Wildcats
Davidson returns four players who started at least 12 games last year and three other letterwinners from a team that finished 18-11 in 2004-05, tying the school record for wins in a season.
The top returner is junior point guard Tia Washington, who averaged 8.2 points and 3.6 assists last season. Sophomore Danielle Hemerka was named to the Southern Conference All-Freshman team after averaging 7.9 points and a team-high 6.0 rebounds per game. Also back are senior Janell Crayton, who started 12 games and averaged 6.5 points per game, and junior Jessica Mitchell, who started 14 games and averaged 7.3 points.
The Wildcats are coached by Annette Watts, the 2005 Southern Conference Coach of the Year. She is in her fifth season with the program.

UNC vs. Davidson
North Carolina leads the series with Davidson 2-0 after a pair of games 28 seasons apart.
In 1974-75, UNC's first season as a varsity program, the Tar Heels won 80-31 at Davidson on Feb. 15, 1975. The Wildcats' 31 points in that game stood as a school record for fewest points scored by an opponent until last season, when Winthrop was held to 29.
The teams' second and most-recent meeting came three seasons ago, when Carolina opened the 2002-03 campaign with a 68-46 win over Davidson at Carmichael Auditorium. The game was the UNC debut for La'Tangela Atkinson and Jessica Sell, now seniors. Both saw action against the Wildcats, with Atkinson scoring 13 points and grabbing five rebounds in 25 minutes of play and Sell adding three points and four rebounds in 16 minutes.

Closing in on 1,000
Two players on the 2005-06 squad head into the season poised to reach the 1,000-career-points milestone. Senior La'Tangela Atkinson is 82 points away and junior Camille Little needs 157 points.
Should each player reach the mark, they would become the 25th and 26th players in school history to score 1,000 points. Junior Ivory Latta was the 24th - she scored her 1,000th in the 2005 regional semifinal game at Arizona State.

Rundown on the 2005-06 squad
The 2005-06 UNC team includes four starters from last year's squad, which won the program's sixth Atlantic Coast Conference Championship and advanced to the NCAA Elite Eight, finishing 30-4. The Tar Heels lost four seniors from that team - 2005 Defensive Player of the Year Nikita Bell, team captain Leah Metcalf and reserves Kenya McBee and Tiffany Tucker - but added five freshmen to go with eight returning letterwinners and a redshirt sophomore transfer.
Two of the returning starters, sophomore Erlana Larkins and junior Ivory Latta, are preseason candidates for the Wade Trophy and the Wooden Award, both given to the national player of the year. UNC is one of just a handful of elite programs with more than one player on the preseason lists. The other two returning starters, senior La'Tangela Atkinson and Camille Little, both are former ACC Rookies of the Year.
Veteran head coach Sylvia Hatchell is in her 20th year in Chapel Hill and ranks fourth among active Division I coaches in career wins (684 heading into the season).