I don't know -ALL- of the details yet, but just heard today that UNC has announced that star guard P.J. Hairston will not be reinstated for this year. All indications are that Hairston will announce himself as a candidate for the 2014 NBA Draft and forego any college eligibility that he might have if or when he is reinstated.
This is a high (but probably deserving) price to pay for his hi-jinks off the court this past summer, which included driving a car affiliated with a known felon, speeding, driving without a license, and possession of marijuana and a handgun. One of these arrests was made on I-85 just outside of Salisbury, my hometown.
I was certainly impressed with P.J.'s play this past year. He was the leading Tar Heel scoring at about 15 points per game, and also was an amazing 3-point shooter, hitting around 40% from the arc. After being a backup on last year's squad, he was slated to be a starter this year, and thought to probably be the most talented player on the team.
Most of the talk regarding this situation with P.J. will most likely revolve around the team's loss, and how the Tar Heels will do without him as starter at shooting guard. All I can say about that is that the Tar Heels have done "adequately" without him, [not saying they wouldn't have been better with him] and it's a mute point at this point in time. In the grand scheme of things, my focus is that his life and poor decision-making is much more critical than any college basketball team, or any Final Four or national championship.
He did what he probably should have known better not to do, and now he is paying the price for it. This is another reoccurring sad story with athletes, but is really only a mirror image of our entire society. There were UNC students and fans waving signs and wearing shirts emblazoned with "Free P.J." This was a clear violation of NCAA rules, and deserving of the punishment that was given him. It is not only sad, but shameful, when people begin to believe that they and others can do as they please, without any consequences, and try to justify their actions where there is no real responsibility taken.
P.J. undoubtedly will be a millionaire within the next few months, as he will enter the NBA draft and become some team's first-round pick. The temptations of wealth will only tend to multiply the opportunities for mischief and mayhem. Perhaps he has learned a deep and meaningful life lesson from these consequences. Time will only tell. But my mind goes back to players like Charles Shackleford at N.C. State and Len Bias at Maryland. During the 1980's, these highly recruited and talented young players had a world of potential ahead of them, but allowed other temptations and distractions to lure them away. Shackleford was arrested for stealing electronic equipment from a fellow student's dorm room, and later for selling prescription drugs; Bias was hooked on cocaine, even as he was drafted by the Boston Celtics, and died from an overdose before he was able to even play a single game in the NBA.
Here's hoping the BEST for this young man. Hope that he learns that basketball is not an end-in-itself, but just one expression of a person's talents and personality. Hope that he will not succumb to peer pressure, and the lure of money's greed and vices, but be able to find a place of peace and individual security, apart from basketball and finances.
This year's Tar Heel is a hard one to figure out. As I said in the past post, there is a lot of talent on this team. Unlike last year's version, there is a lot more inside height and depth on the team. They have lost a couple of perimeter shooters, one to the NBA and another to hi-jinks and NCAA suspension. Another perimeter guard came back in Wednesday night's game against Texas, after also being in NCAA suspension.
Senior G Leslie McDonald came back to score 15 points in his 2013 debut. But that just wasn't enough. In fact, at times, McDonald looked very rusty [he had been allowed to practice with the team, even though he wasn't actually playing] at times, and missed a couple of key shots that perhaps should have not been taken. As usual, sophomore FJames Michael McAdoo and freshman G Marcus Paige performed admirably, although Paige missed the potential game winning shot with about three seconds on the clock.
UNC's "thorn in the flesh" this year is an unbelievable inability to successfully make free throws. In fact, [and this is EVEN MORE unbelievable for a team of Carolina's caliber] they are the 3rd worst free throw shooting team in the country at this time. They have missed 56 free throws in their three losses, and 145 total free throws this year. This is an AMAZING statistic. They would have easily won those games and been 10-0 thus far, instead of 7-3, and been perched atop the basketball polls as the #1 team in the country.
Fact is.. Carolina would've won the Texas game by double digits, had they been accurate from the free throw stripe.
This dreadful woe will eventually not only be their thorn, but their doom, if it goes without a solution. It seems that practice does not make perfect, as word has it that the Tar Heels have been shooting hundreds of free throws in practice, and have been making them at a decent rate. On-the-court in games has been a different story.
It appear almost ironic that even though the Tar Heels face a dilemma with terrible free throw shooting, it has only affected the outcomes of games with weaker opponents. In games against the top three preseason-rated teams [Kentucky, Michigan State & Louisville], Carolina went 71-110, which was still only 65%, but overall, they are shooting only 60% as a team, and often under 50%, especially in their losses.
This glaring weakness in UNC's game effectively just spots their opponents an average of about 25 to 30 points every time they walk out onto the court. This -of course- is not the way to notch victories in the "win" column.
I heard on the late sports news that Coach Roy Williams was having the team practice at 5am after the Texas loss. I'm confident and almost sure that it will involve shooting free throws. Will it help ? Not sure. We will see. What it may do is just make all of the players fatigued by game time. Perhaps Coach Roy needs to bring in some "free throw ringers" (like Rick Barry or Steve Kerr) to offer his Tar Heels a FREE free-throw shooting clinic. Both of these players shot around 90% from the free throw line.
Last time I checked, the definition of free was still FREE-- {although many retailers and other marketing gurus try to distort it}.. the reason a FREE THROW is considered FREE is because it's a relatively EASY shot, with NO DEFENDERS to impede the shooter. Maybe free throws are -TOO- free. Perhaps they need the referee to jump in their face as they are releasing their free throw shots.
Hey fellas- the basket hasn't moved.. [it's still sitting 15 feet from the foul line, & 10 feet high] .. it reminds me of the scene from the movie Hoosiers when the coach, played by Gene Hackman, took out a measuring tape at the fancy arena, scene of the state championship game, and had one of the players help him measure the distance from the foul line to the basket, and the rim to the floor, proving that this fancy gym was --essentially-- the same as their old home gym.
You see-- nothing about the game has changed.. so something else must be wrong. Let's work at getting this problem fixed, before it is too late.
I'll be perfectly honest with you.. I've been sorta carried away with my Panthers football blog this year, and their eight-game winning streak made it even worse. The fact that the Tar Heels lost a couple of games against weaker teams (Belmont & Alabama-Birmingham) didn't help matters much. But lately, the Tar Heels have emerged to show themselves worthy of my attention.
Wins against #1 Michigan State, then-#3 Louisville, and #11 (preseason #1) Kentucky have left no doubt that the Tar Heels, while occasionally not playing up to their potential, have a strongly talented team that is capable of reaching some lofty goals. Add in the mix of having two of their most talented and experienced players on the bench, and it can only get better once they are back in action.
I've been used to a very high level of play from Carolina's Tar Heels. I've also been exposed to seasons of less than sensational, even mediocre, performances. But all-in-all, they've always arose to the occasion. This season should prove to be one of those seasons where the Heels will show their potential more and more as the season progresses.
Tomorrow night, they go against Texas at home. In the coming weeks, we start the ACC regular season schedule, where they will go up against talented teams like Duke and Syracuse. We will be following the team throughout this season, and we hope you will join us and give us your input, especially if you are also devoted Tar Heels fans.
Thank You! =)
