A former UNC basketball player offers a unique view of the program in new book

Jackson Watkins scored four points in his UNC basketball career.

That’s it. Four. All of them came late in blowouts, all of them pushed the Tar Heels to 100 points at home. And yet — or maybe because of it — Watkins, a former walk-on, has written a book about his time in Chapel Hill.

Told from the end of the bench, Dream On traces Watkins’ path through UNC’s JV program, onto the varsity roster and into the middle of one of the most memorable seasons in program history, including the 2022 Final Four run and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s two final losses to the Tar Heels.

So what better time for its release than the Sunday before the UNC-Duke game?

Those monumental rivalry games provided Watkins with lifelong memories, even if they proved hard to capture in words — especially the fated Final Four.

“It sort of felt like the world was going to end one way or another that Saturday night,” Watkins told the N&O. “Because, obviously, with a loss, you’d feel like you’d never recover. But with a win, you could sort of take the marbles when it came to the rivalry and retiring Coach K. And fortunately, the latter happened.”

Ahead of his book’s release on Feb. 1, Watkins sat down with the N&O. The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: Why write this book now?

Watkins: I think the idea of writing a book has been on my mind for a while, but obviously when you’re growing up, you don’t have that many experiences to write about. But once I graduated, and was looking back on my personal basketball journey, but also the Carolina basketball program’s evolution through those four years, I thought it was a compelling walk-on story. It wasn’t a spur of the moment, let me just publish this book. It took about two and a half years, pretty much since I graduated, to get the story complete and the book finally completed.

Q: How did the “Biscuit Boys” nickname start?

Watkins: I walked on my junior year. I mean, if it wasn’t obvious, usually we’re not coming off the bench and playing in many games. But in January of my junior year, before that Final Four run, the walk-ons got into the game against N.C. State with about a minute left and maybe 97 points on the scoreboard. With the Bojangles partnership, if we score 100 at home in a win, everybody in the state can get two biscuits for $1 the next day. So when we came in with 97 points, people wanted more. They wanted the biscuits.

We got in there, Duwe Farris, another walk-on, scored a layup to get to 99 and then we came back down on defense, and I stole the ball and was fouled. And suddenly, with 20 or 30 seconds left, I was going to the free throw line to shoot two free throws — not only for 100 but also for my first ever career points. And lastly, and probably most importantly, it was in front of Michael Jordan. He and the rest of the 1982 national championship team were in the building, given it was their 40-year anniversary.

On that first free throw, I bricked the hell out of it. But I swished the second one, got 100 and got biscuits.

Q: Your second biscuit basket — the three against The Citadel (December 2022) — what do you remember about that moment?

Watkins: It was one of the coolest moments of my basketball career. We had come into the year ranked preseason number one, and then we lose four straight early to go unranked. And this is directly after that. So vibes were pretty low compared to the Final Four vibes from months prior.

For me, it was definitely a highlight. But I think for the year too, it was sort of an uplifting one. Getting the chance to just get out there and hit a few buckets, I think we just wanted to make something happen. You don’t really get the biscuit phenomenon if you’re not a Carolina fan, but people really do go nuts for it. It was just an awesome moment for my career. And I think, after I hit that shot, I just screamed, because there was so much emotion

Q: What makes a great bench celebration?

Watkins: That’s a great question. I’d say there are two forms. There are some that are planned ahead of time. I think the Biscuit Boys, we had our set of planned celebrations. One of them was “the arsenal.” It was after a three pointer where we pull out our finger guns and shoot them, or a bazooka, with our three fingers up. So we were all shooting a different weapon with three fingers held up.

That’s an example of a pre-planned one. But then there are other moments. You know, basketball is a beautiful game. Sometimes you can’t anticipate what’s going to happen. So sometimes, if there’s a monster dunk or something, you’ll just end up doing the most wild things, like potentially running onto the court or trying to hold your teammates back, or just screaming at the top of your lungs, or reviving your teammate with imaginary CPR, because they fainted out of shock. As long as your heart is in it, I think you’re doing it right.

Q: Walk-ons spend a lot of time on the scout team. What did that role look like in preparing for big matchups like the Duke game?

Watkins: For Duke in particular, they were such a big and physical team that sometimes it was hard to replicate their size. But I think a huge emphasis — and this is both in preparation for Coach K’s final game at Cameron, but especially in the Final Four — was how fast they pushed the ball. They were such an aggressive team in transition.

When we were in practice the day before, we were told on a made basket, don’t even take the ball out of bounds. Get it out of the net and go to hopefully simulate that speed. Even if that cuts off a second, it’ll put more pressure on our guys, so hopefully they’re better prepared when it comes to the game.

Q: What stands out from Coach K’s final game at Cameron?

Watkins: That was an absurd experience to be a part of. When we went over there, obviously all the narrative was about Coach K and his last game at Cameron, but also that was one of the best Duke teams I think there’s ever been. They were number four in the country. They had four first-round draft picks. America, I think broadly, thought we were going to get blown out again. As we were driving over there on the bus, it was very much an us versus the world mentality.

The very first play, Caleb [Love] drove baseline, dish to Armando (Bacot) for a big slam. From that moment onwards, we knew that we had a fighting chance if we just continued to play really hard.

Q: What do you hope readers take away?

Watkins: I want people to be inspired reading this story. I grew up in Texas, and playing basketball at North Carolina was pretty much the first big dream that I ever had. And it definitely seemed far-fetched for most of my childhood, and even when I came to Carolina. But I think when you approach things with a lot of hard work, preparation, persistence and faith, some magical things can happen.

This story was originally published February 1, 2026 at 5:30 AM.