CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MCT) - North Carolina point guard Bobby Frasor says he will never feel 100 percent normal again. Not with a new anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Not after six months of sitting on the sidelines. Not with a deep, roughly four-inch vertical scar to remind him of it all.

But what he does feel this week is ecstatic. Healthy. Appreciative. Revved up. Because Monday, he was cleared to play again.

"What I've really missed is the team aspect of basketball - five-on-five, playing defense, making an assist, playing in games, telling the other team in pick-up games to just get off the court," the rising senior said Tuesday. "That will be the most fun for me."

Since Dec. 27, when he injured his knee while trying to grab a loose ball against Nevada, Frasor's fiercest competition has been the soreness and frustration of rehabilitation. While his top-ranked team was practicing, he was in the weight room, trying to strengthen his muscles. While it was racing up and down the court, he was just trying to run in a pool.

"He worked his butt off," strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian said.

Which is a good sign for UNC.

Although the Tar Heels advanced to the national semifinal game in April, they at times missed Frasor's shooting ability, on-court leadership and defense. With all five starters returning, and four new recruits in the mix, Frasor will likely be called upon to play some at back-up point guard and shooting guard for a team that will almost certainly be ranked preseason No. 1.

"The expectations, you know they're coming," he said. ". . . We're loaded on paper, and on paper, it looks like this team is going to win a national championship. . . . But you don't win games on paper."

Which is one of the reasons why he was happy when starting point guard Ty Lawson opted to return to school, rather than jump to the NBA - even though Lawson's departure might have meant more playing time.

After all, one of the hardest parts of tearing his ACL was sitting on the bench in a suit and tie, unable to help UNC try to win a national title.

Now, he gets a second chance.

"It was hard, because I was part of the team - but at the same time, not really part of the team," he said.

His family helped. His oldest sister, Alison, was in town the night of the injury, and was able to serve as both a driver and a shoulder for Bobby. A physical therapist, she also immediately started gathering research about doctors, rehab and supplements - all while consulting with Sahratian.

"She's at the vitamin shop the next day, and I have all these pills, and she wrote on the top of every bottle, 'One at breakfast, one at lunch, one at dinner,' 'Two at breakfast, two at dinner, one at lunch,"' Frasor said. "I had these pills that I had to take 10 between meals. Ten at one time."

Frasor said he knew he was getting better when Alison's early e-mails, often filled with inspirational quotes, morphed back into conversational notes asking, "How are you?"

Then two months ago, he was finally allowed to play Danneyball, a conditioning game similar to volleyball during which players must catch and throw a 10-pound medicine ball on outdoor sand courts - all in one motion. He and a friend from the lacrosse team beat All-American basketball player Tyler Hansbrough and teammate Marc Campbell in the championship game. "Tyler was mad - he wouldn't talk to me for a while," Frasor said, laughing.

And if they hadn't figured it out before, fans finally got an inkling that the reserve guard was on the road to recovery when pictures popped up on the Internet in May showing Frasor, then Hansbrough, jumping from the second-floor balcony of a campus fraternity house into an above-ground pool. Frasor said he was just being a typical college student and neither player got in trouble with head coach Roy Williams.

Although he did get a pointed early-morning text message from Sahratian: "I didn't put that in today's rehab program, did I?"

(Uh, no.)

Rehab has gone so well, though, that Frasor has returned to doing the same weight workouts as his teammates. Tuesday, he displayed the strength in his surgically repaired knee by hopping over short obstacles before jumping atop stacked, cushioned blocks that rose 42 inches.

When he returns to the court, Frasor said he won't wear a brace - and is willing to accept any role he earns on the packed, talented team. He looks forward to getting his timing back, and to playing as part of a team, again.

"I'm looking at it as: Next year's going to be my best year ever, so I can't wait to get back out there," he said.

Almost like normal.

(c) 2008, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.). Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.