The Two-Man Game – October 22, 2026

The first practice of the season where all 15 players were in uniform and healthy happened on Wednesday, October 21—just 11 days before tipoff. For UNC head coach Steve Smiley, that moment was almost disorienting. "It was like shocking," he said on the Two-Man Game podcast. "This has been the vision, right?" After a preseason marred by nagging injuries, absences, and uncertainty over star guard Langston Reynolds' eligibility, the Bears finally have a full deck. But the calendar leaves almost no time to sort out what that deck actually looks like.

Langston Reynolds gets his day in court—and wins

The biggest development of the week came Tuesday, October 20, when a California judge ruled in favor of the players in the state-level lawsuit that includes Reynolds and roughly 100 other high-profile Division I athletes. Reynolds, who averaged 12 points per game in the Big Ten and ranks tenth all-time in assists at Minnesota, joined the lawsuit months ago as part of the class of 2022's fight for a fifth year of eligibility. The judge initially granted a temporary restraining order allowing those players to compete while the case was pending, then heard arguments in early October. When the ruling came down on the 20th, it went the players' way: no restrictions on their ability to play the 2026 season.