Top of the Hill -or- Run of the Mill

  

An Apology to Tar Heel Fans
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    I'd like to make a quick apology to all UNC fans, and especially to any of you that are following this blog.   I don't think that it's caught on quite yet, but I plan to continue this as long as the Carolina Tar Heels continue to have a basketball team.   However, the last couple of months, I've been preoccupied by the Carolina Panthers and their phenomenal NFL season... winning 11 of their last 12 regular season games, the NFC South division title, and going to the playoffs for the first time in five years.  Unfortunately, that's as far as it goes, as the Panthers lost in their divisional playoff game at home to the San Francisco 49ers, 27-10.  

   But now that the Panthers season is out of the way, now I can devote myself more to covering the Tar Heels basketball season.  I also want to say that admittedly, my sports coverage is limited in covering the Panthers (NFL) and the Tar Heels (college basketball), but these are my favorite teams, and as of now, I'm not getting paid to do this, so maybe someday I will expand to cover more sports teams and events.  For now, you get these two.  Hopefully I will learn to cover these teams well.   I know that I enjoy doing it.

The Mystery of the Tar Heels
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   NOW.. about those Tar Heels.. this season is a real conundrum.. I remain a bit confused as to who the Tar Heels actually are..  are they a good team, or a great team.. or just a mediocre team that had a couple of good nights along the way?   I've yet to really come to a hard and fast conclusion yet.   I saw a couple of their good games, against Michigan State and Kentucky;  they also beat Louisville.   Any team doing this has got to be great, right?  These were three teams in the Preseason Top Five.   Michigan State has still only lost one game, and that game was with the Tar Heels.

   However, the mystery lies, not in the victories so much as in the losses.  They have lost to Belmont, UAB, and Wake Forest, plus three other teams.   Texas was the only really strong team that beat them.   The others were just average teams, having average seasons, with the possible exception of beating UNC.   Now, the Tar Heels are only 11-6 (maybe 11-7 after tonight).  Compare to the championship teams of the past.   The 1982 team went 32-2.   The 2009 team went 34-4.  That's just six losses in two years.  And now, the 2013-14 Tar Heels have lost six out of their first sixteen games.  I believe there were two other similarly mediocre years, one was when Matt Doherty was coach, and the Heels went 8-20.  But let's face it, Tar Heel coaches, fans, and even the players have not been used to this kind of mediocrity.  Their calling card is excellence.  Their expectation is wins and titles.  But this year, it seems that everything is turned upside down. {see picture}

The Magical Mystery Tour
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   And so, the reality is : that's just not where we're at this season.  We're in the middle of a Magical Mystery Tour.   A psychological and physical exam.   None of this will be readily understandable until we get to tournament time, and we see whether or not the Tar Heels make the cut, and not just that, but whether or not they have what it takes to make any kind of a run toward the Final Four, or any kind of a tournament title.

   Free throw shooting was an issue.   Rebounding has been an issue.   The Tar Heels only have two or three (at most) three-point shooters.   They have lost their best player, P.J. Hairston, now playing in the NBA "D" league.   So it's not just one thing.   Probably the biggest problem is just the players being able to play together, and have any kind of a consistency to their game.  They seem to be "on" one game, and "off" the next.  

  This cannot be any better documented than tonight.  They lost their first three ACC conference games to Wake Forest, Miami, and Syracuse.   The Syracuse loss was probably expected. (They were also underdogs to Louisville, Kentucky & Michigan State)  Then they looked incredibly good against Boston College, winning by double figures.   Now, they are playing Virginia tonight.  Granted, Virginia is a good team.  They have a winning record.  But the Tar Heels should be good enough to beat them.  They are losing, and losing badly.

   Folks-- the Tar Heels are not in the Top 10 national polls.  They are not EVEN in the Top 10 in the ACC.  That's right : presently, UNC is in 11th place in the ACC basketball standings with a 1-4 league record.  Will they rise above this mediocrity and make a late-season run?  Who knows?

Blue about Carolina Blue
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   I have to be honest.  This is the first time in a long time when I really do not look forward to watching a UNC Tar Heels basketball game.  I would not even think of going to a live game.  It's just too much of a downer for me.  I don't know about you, but as a diehard loyal Tar Heels fan, it doesn't give me any satisfaction to go watch another team play and beat our guys in Carolina blue.

   Maybe things will change soon.  I hope so.  We may eventually regret bringing all of these Big East teams to the ACC.   The elite of the ACC used to be UNC and Duke.   Now it's Syracuse and Pitt.  If not them, then Miami.   There seems to be a slow metamorphosis happening.  We need a resurgence.  It may take new players.  But I'm hoping the ones presently on the court will soon "wake up" and play up to their individual and team potentials.  I believe the potential is there- dormant but there.

   Stay with me.  Let's ride out this mystery tour and see if the sleeping giant finally does wake up... before it's too late.

 

Roy Williams on Free Throws

"I'm tired of talking about free throws.  You have to be tough enough to step up and make the daggone thing-- or go play soccer."

--- Coach Roy Williams 

Backward & Forward

MJ in the Clutch / 1982

   This Carolina basketball season is probably one of the more unique and different ones that I have experienced.  I’ve seen frustration before, usually at the end of a season, when a player gets injured or a game ends in a disappointing loss.  I can think of 1977’s injury to Phil Ford, and eventual Four Corners debacle in the Championship game with Marquette.  Or more recently, 2011’s injury to Kendall Marshall, that more than likely cost UNC a Final Four appearance.   We even had more positive turns of fate, like in 1982, when Michael Jordan hit a championship game-winning jump shot, and then Georgetown’s Freddie Brown sealed it by throwing away a pass;  and then in 1993, with the infamous time out call by Michigan’s Chris Webber that secured an NCAA title for Carolina.

   But this season is a little different, in that some of the many circumstances that have impacted this Tar Heels season happened BEFORE the season started.   Of course, I am referring to the incidences with UNC star players P.J. Hairston and Leslie McDonald.   After both players were suspended from being in the starting lineup at the season’s beginning, McDonald has returned, but lost the first nine games of the season, and Hairston will not be reinstated, missing the entire season.  Chances are that P.J. will never again don a Carolina uniform again.  While these are not the only factors in how Carolina’s season has gone, it has had a tremendously negative effect on it. 

   I must say that even though the Tar Heels play has been erratic and unpredictable at times, they have had their highlights, looking like a Final Four team in beating Michigan State, Kentucky, and Louisville in convincing fashion.  But then at other times, they have looked like immature schoolboys, throwing passes where there are no teammates to catch them, and missing free throw after free throw.  If they had made at least 10% more of their free throws, the Tar Heels would be undefeated and probably ranked as the #1 team in the polls.  Instead, they are a modestly respectable 9-3, and ranked 19 th, picked by many to be third in the ACC behind Syracuse and Duke.

  After losing to a good unranked Texas team on Dec. 18, the Tar Heels have reeled off three straight wins.  The first two featured Tar Heels "Version 1"- the erratic, often frustrated group, beating Davidson 97-85 (in OT) and Northern Kentucky, a team they should have beaten by 30 or 40 points, by 75-60.  Then on New Year's Eve, Carolina unveiled their other team, "Version 2"- the sharp, energetic group that earlier knocked off the three Top Ten teams, and they whipped up on UNC-Wilmington, 84-51, with a dominating second half performance, outscoring UNC-W 53-28.  

   Many programs would be bragging on their team if they were 9-3 and boasted such early wins over top teams. But this program is a storied one with great expectations each and every year, and the teams that have not achieved and overachieved can be counted on one hand.  Carolina fans are used to teams, not with just 20 wins and an NCAA tournament berth, but ones with 30+ wins, conference championships, and Final Four berths. Take a quick peek in the rafters of the Dean Dome. This year’s team, while certainly perking our interest at times, has raised more questions than eyebrows.  One wonders if UNC will raise more banter than banners this year.

   UNC Coach Roy Williams was quoted this week as saying, when asked if he was pleased with his team's performance, "No coach is ever going to say that they're satisfied with where they stand unless you're 13-0 and beating everybody by a million."

    Sure, basketball is a sport that is based on a ball that bounces up and down, but teams that bounce that way are not usually the best or most elite.  Three great wins against Top Five opponents.  Three mediocre losses against unranked teams.  It leaves us wondering : just which Tar Heels team will show up next ?

   UNC has now reached their ACC conference schedule, and will play Wake Forest next.  This should be a fairly easy win.  Will it be?   We’ll see.. depends on whether UNC is “on” or “off.”  With #2 ranked Syracuse looming on the horizon, we will soon get a better picture of what kind of Tar Heel team will be showing up on the court come tournament time. Here's a quick look at Carolina's upcoming schedule :

• Sun Jan 5 / UNC @ Wake Forest
• Wed Jan 8 / Miami
• Sat Jan 11 / at Syracuse

   With P.J. gone and Leslie still shaking off the rust, who will pick up the slack?   So far, point guard turned shooting guard Marcus Paige seems to be the only real consistently productive player on the roster. James Michael McAdoo looked like a star during spots the last two years, but hasn’t really stepped up.  J.P. Tokoto, Brice Johnson, Kennedy Meeks & Nate Britt have shone at times, but been lackluster at others.  And of course, as I said before, Leslie McDonald has the shooting touch from the 3-point arc, but hasn’t found his midseason form, and isn’t near the leader we had hoped he would become so far. 

   The Tar Heels need to look deep within and lift themselves up to a higher and more consistent level of play.  If not, then UNC may fall into the middle of the pack and become lost in the shuffle.