These days in Chapel Hill, the topic of discussion is the upcoming basketball season and how well the freshmen will perform.

The thing is, the guys everyone wants to talk about can’t say anything.

Carolina freshmen can’t talk to the media until they have played their first regular season game in a Tar Heel uniform.

Until then, veteran Heels have to do all the talking.

"The guys we have now, the new freshmen, they’re willing to learn," said Will Johnson.

"I’ve said that before and I’m gonna say it again."

Johnson and other upper-classmen will keep on talking about the freshmen until these kids get to speak for themselves.

There’s so much hype around UNC’s freshman class that the upper-classmen are constantly answering questions about Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants, and Sean May.

"Yeah, we get a thousand questions about those three and all the rest of them," Jawad Williams said. "But its cool, somebody had to do it for us, so we return the favor."

Melvin Scott remembers sitting by idly as a freshman while other players talked about him.

"Yeah, it was getting boring," Scott said. "But I was just excited because I was like, 'Wait ‘til I get my chance, I’m gonna run my mouth all day." We don’t know how eager these guys are to run their mouths, but for now, their play is doing the talking.

These freshmen have loads of talent and can’t say a word. But I can’t hit a shot to save my life and I can do a story on them. How fair is that?

Whether it’s fair or not, freshmen can use this time as a learning experience.

"There’s really nothing you can do," Scott says. "The best thing is just to act as sponge,just absorb all this knowledge going around, just learn from the upper-classmen and things like that."

Although they are learning, the freshmen are also waiting for their chance to speak their minds.

"You’re kind of chomping at the bit as far as trying to talk or you want to express what you had to feel," Jonathan Holmes said.

"I see them biting their lips and things because they can’t wait to speak up to say something, to be heard," Scott said.

"Everyone wants to be heard in this world."

Unofficial freshman spokesman Melvin Scott says the freshmen are looking forward to Monday’s Penn State match-up so they can win…and then talk afterwards.