Thoughts on the front court

Harrison Barnes: There is little to say that wouldn’t merely repackage what I already wrote last spring, what ESPN wrote last week, and what is commonly understood around the country. Barnes is the best player in the country on a team full of best players in the country, and as the first player of his caliber to return for his sophomore season since the NBA’s one-and-done rule, he might be the best player in college basketball in several years. He is an usually mature individual who made a very strange decision to return, seemingly because he wanted to win so badly, and he reportedly has an insane work ethic. Add to that his late-game play last season, which literally made the different between winning and losing in at least five ACC games. For all of these reasons, there is no question that were he to stay beyond this season (highly unlikely), he could approach Ford-Jordan-Hansbrough status in Carolina basketball lore. Two years, even with a national title, likely isn’t enough to achieve that level of reverence, but he is at least on his way to joining the next tier in a program full of college basketball luminaries.

Tyler Zeller: Thinking back to the summer of 2008 and watching the recruitment hype of Tyler Zeller as he prepared to arrive in Chapel Hill, it is obvious to conclude that we didn’t quite get what we expected. He isn’t as effective facing the basket, was a little soft on defense early in his career, and wasn’t able to contribute as a sophomore nearly as much as expected. But he arrived late last year as one of the premier post players in the country and enters this season as an All-America candidate, finally realizing his heralded recruiting status. He may actually be one of the more underrated players in the college basketball landscape, simply because there is nothing flashy about his game (except his ability as a seven-footer to run the floor) and because he quietly raised his game to Preseason Naismith Top 50 status after having been somewhat forgotten as a freshman and sophomore. College basketball fans respect his game, but they should remember that he was a top-ten recruit four years ago, and that he was finally playing like it in the NCAA tournament last season.

John Henson: I always liked about Danny Green that he couldn’t keep himself from smiling on the basketball court, especially after triggering a run with a three-pointer or making a key defensive block. For many players smiling just isn’t their style, but as a former player and on-court smiler myself, its fulfilling to see someone experiencing such joy at meaningful success in intense competition. Henson is on a level of his own in this category, and coupled with his relatively frequent poor shot selection and the colossal mistake he nearly made at the end of the Washington game last March, he presents a conflicting persona of extremely likable but excessively goofy. I have a hunch that we will see more of the likable side this year, as Henson is a year older and increasingly comfortable with his role as a shot-blocker and rebounder. He says that he wants to expand his offense (and after seeing him drain a couple of outside shots during Cobb court pickup games, he definitely has it), but he understands that in most games this year he won’t have to. He is a more mature basketball player than he gets credit for, and with his personality and ability to make plays no one else can (ending the Washington game by deflecting the in-bound pass), he is one of the more fun to watch players Carolina has had.

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2011
11/10
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Pro-expansion thoughts from a college basketball traditionalist

I’ve been meaning to post for a while on the recent addition of Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC and the looming possibility of further expansion as a part of a major college sports realignment.

I’m a traditionalist when it comes to many aspects of my life, and that certainly influences my perspective on college basketball. After the most recent expansion to add Virginia Tech, Miami, and Boston College, I was admittedly among those expressing remorse for losing the nine-team structure.

A more important facet of my traditionalism, however, is that I still cling fervently to the notion that the ACC should be home to America’s best basketball. As is well understood by now, this notion is unambiguously false: the conference will begin this season with UNC and Duke ranked in the top ten as usual, but with nobody else in the Top 25. There is great potential for several middle-tier ACC programs to recover and strengthen the conference, particularly N.C. State, Maryland and Virginia, with Florida St., Clemson and Virginia Tech also likely to continue their recent successes.

But as much as I am a traditionalist, I am also a realist, and the ACC that once had a third or fourth perennial powerhouse to go with UNC and Duke is now a fantasy. Moreover, the entire country is undertaking a massive conference realignment that threatened the long-term cohesion, and thus existence, of the ACC; sitting content, even if we did decide to let others surpass us with football riches, would have ignored the possibility of Clemson, Florida State, or someone else bolting.

I cannot speak to the precise intent of John Swofford and the ACC in selecting Pitt and Syracuse for expansion, but in my view, adding those two fits what should be our goal for realignment. In order to ensure our long-term existence, we need to be at 14 or 16 teams; in order to preserve our identity, we should be looking for East coast schools that play powerhouse basketball and above average but still mediocre football.

The decision was mocked by some arguing that it does not noticeably bolster ACC football. ACC fans, other than those at maybe Florida State and Virginia Tech, don’t care too much about that. While expansion in general has to occur for football-related reasons, the particular programs we select should be calculated for basketball reasons. Given the necessity and opportunity of expansion, it makes sense for the conference to move on from old-ACC nostalgia to pursue its place as the unquestioned home of America’s best basketball programs.

For all of the above reasons, Pitt and Syracuse are perfect additions: they play a little football, enough to contribute to a solid conference; more importantly, they are top ten basketball programs that play deep into March.** Let’s be honest: the ACC tournament recently has been home to some of the nation’s most boring Semifinal Saturdays. The 2013 tournament could occupy the nation’s attention with match-ups featuring UNC, Duke, Pitt and Syracuse.

It is a new-look ACC embracing reality to return to its old, well-established form, which means that ACC purists can get on board.

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2011
11/02
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ESPN’s new program-specific blog: the choice of UNC over the other powerhouse programs

As I mentioned in the Halloween post, ESPN.com has created a new college basketball blog focused solely on UNC, hiring Robbi Pickeral away from the Raleigh News & Observer to write about the Heels for a national audience. As I have no knowledge whatsoever of ESPN’s internal decision-making process here, what I write in this post is purely speculative. But their choice of Carolina as the first program for which to focus a school-specific blog seems to speak volumes about our status as the premier college basketball program in America.

No matter the circumstances that led to the hiring of Pickeral, ultimately the decision cannot help but represent a choice of UNC over the other schools on the short list options. As a write this post, though, I noticed that ESPN has created two program-specific blogs for college football: Notre Dame and Stanford. The Notre Dame selection was no doubt due to their status as a football independent without a conference-specific blog to cover them. Stanford’s is more odd, and discredits my attempt to find meaning in UNC’s selection. I’ll write it off as an anomaly; ESPN could have chosen a major SEC school and did not, so there must be some extenuating circumstances I don’t know about. The choice of UNC, however, is not hard to figure.

Probably the most significant factor in choosing Carolina for this blog was the timing of 2011. Beyond fitting the criteria for consideration, we are the unanimous preseason #1 team preparing for what may be one of our greatest seasons in team history, and we are perhaps at the pinnacle even of our own storied history, looking for our third national title in eight seasons. Had it been another year, the choice could have been Kentucky, Kansas, Duke or UCLA.

Then again, it at least could have been Kentucky or Duke this season, but it wasn’t. Moreover, a huge part of our current place in college basketball is directly tied to our accomplishments not only in 2005 and 2009, but in the stretch running from 2005 to now. Even prior to Roy’s arrival, we were arguably the program with the highest level of consistent success since 1950, with arguably the largest, most loyal and deep-rooted fan base. Only Kentucky could rival us on the first claim; just Duke could on the second, and only then provided you omit the ‘deep-rooted’ criterion from the question. Kentucky likely wasn’t chosen because their fan base isn’t large enough; Duke didn’t get the nod because their program has vastly underperformed in both hype and post-season success over the period coinciding with UNC’s peak, excepting their 2010 title. Duke should enviously accept their inferior stature represented, in part, by this blog.

In the last couple of years, ESPN created separate websites to house content focused on five major U.S. cities with deep and diverse sports histories: New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago. While the UNC blog is a much smaller venture, it makes similar acknowledgements about a particular sports fan base: the brand has enough national appeal to warrant a spot on a national website, and there are enough people in a given region of the country to comprise regular, sustainable traffic to the site.

One cannot help but notice that the Southeast is the only region of the country not represented in those five major U.S. cities; neither Atlanta or the Charlotte-Raleigh combination provides enough of a cross-sport fan base to support one. But college basketball alone does control the region’s attention just as, for example, the Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots and Bruins all do in Boston. By itself, it couldn’t sustain a website, but it can sustain a blog. Our region should treat its creation as a badge of honor that college basketball in our state is one of the closest sports institutions in America to equaling the prominence of professional sports in our biggest, most rooted sports towns.

2011
11/01
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#ACCCostumes: Halloween on Twitter

I’m new to Twitter this Halloween, so I have no idea if the #ACCCostumes hash-tag was around last year or not, but its advent reveals yet another enriching, though still ultimately insignificant, benefit of the social media site (for those still skeptical of its merits). Multiple times in my childhood my Halloween costume involved dressing as a Carolina athlete (occasionally with some sort of scary mask to complement), and not being very clever myself, tonight’s ongoing parade of suggestions would have greatly enhanced my ideas. Some of the best provided below, since I have a hunch that several of my most frequent readers here are family members who have not yet succumbed to the temptations of Twitter.

@DocHeelfire Kid dressed as Larry Drew will leave neighborhood early. Other kids in his group will get 10X more candy after he leaves #ACCcostumes

It is not unreasonable to think that somewhere tonight Larry Drew himself read this Tweet, and I for one hope sincerely that he did.

@Barnesbot Kid dressed as Greg Little is on his 5th costume of the night. N&O is requesting info on who owns the first 4. #ACCcostumes

@tarheelfanblog I would go out as Duke basketball but I don’t want to be emotionally fatigued 2/3 of the way down the street. #ACCCostumes

@thedevilwolf Reminder kids, don’t eat uncovered candy. So don’t accept any from the UNC secondary. #ACCCostumes

This represents the lone valuable contribution from this Duke guy; it is both funny and obviously true. Glaring problem is that Duke barely plays football, and it’s extremely disingenuous to suggest that he cares about the success of their program relative to ours.

His other contributions were worse:

@thedevilwolf UNC won’t give out candy, but they’ll assure you it’s been eaten by a third party legal team and it was delicious. #ACCCostumes

This doesn’t make sense. And again, burn us on basketball. His only attempt of the night:

@thedevilwolf If your kid is dressed as a UNC basketball player, I’m handing them a UCLA jersey to wear next year.

Because we’re really hurting from those losses… among other tweets from this guy were one expressing clear envy of a new, first of its kind ESPN blog focused solely on UNC basketball, and another congratulating a person dressed as Barnes for winning a costume contest. Nobody came as Hansbrough?

And the best of the rest:

@DerekMedlin Going dressed as NC State’s offense…I won’t get much candy early on, but I’ll clean up once all the other kids stop trying. #ACCCostumes

@ACCSports I’m painting myself with aluminum colored paint and going as Byrd Stadium on game day. #ACCCostumes

Several of these would have been useful as a kid…

2011
10/31
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On the NBA and this winter’s Grand Experiment

After hearing the most recent comments from Commissioner David Stern, it appears that the American sports scene will conduct the Grand Experiment that most North Carolinians have already sarcastically worked out in their head at one point or another: is, in fact, the winter sports scene better when its not being clogged by the NBA?

The league is heading headlong toward an extended lockout, with Stern announcing today that his “gut” feeling is that there will be no games played through Christmas. My “gut” feeling is that I am not the only person in the ACC corridor snidely rooting on the labor stoppage to last indefinitely.

This is not because I have no dog in the fight – personally I find the notion of unionized millionaires “laboring” themselves to play a sport professionally completely ludicrous, and as with the NFL lockout, I am generally inclined to blame the players and side with the owners.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the persistent masochism of Stern, the owners, and the players together. Over the past decade the NBA entrenched itself in its lost ground as the least popular mainstream sport in America, professional or college, other than hockey. It is, for those who care to realize it, the only league that is barely credible as a sports product: the players do not play hard, the regular season is meaningless and dull, and there are no lasting divisional rivalries of significance. It lacks every component of what makes other sports leagues great, and it painfully emphasizes individual personalities over team identity, fan loyalty, and quality play.

To explore this problem further, picture the basic contours of NBA rivalry: individual players who hate each other; players hated by opposing fans; players returning to their previous hometowns who are now hated there. These elements are present in other sports, but only in the NBA do they predominate because of the NBA’s obsession with the dramatic interactions of its prima donna players.

In the NFL, Major League Baseball, and college sports, rivalry hatred is institutionalized after decades of frequent clashes between often great and at least geographically tied teams. It is historical and lasting, and more importantly, tied to the success of teams in terms of wins and losses; this contrasts starkly with the fluid and haphazard nature of NBA rivalries rooted in the drama of the league’s big personalities. It is a different sort of sports fan, one whose interest in sports feeds on these individual personae, that will lament the absence of professional basketball. Yet due to the dominance of our state’s premiere college basketball programs and the cultural rivalries it created, most of our fans are of the former breed, and have long been deadened to the toil of intently following the NBA.

Now, in the ultimate embarrassment, the NBA was out-done even in its struggles. This summer’s NFL lockout was a front-page national news story, the suspense and subsequent resolution of which may have even fed the beast of its nationwide transcendent popularity; the NBA lockout, by contrast, can’t gain traction, even with mildly interesting subplots such as players going overseas and players holding street ball exhibitions.

Not too many sports fans seem to care (a recent ESPN poll showed that only 25 percent are bothered), and it leaves more room for regular season college basketball. To return to the experiment, the winter sports scene is already adequately filled with professional and college football; by the time those sports reach their conclusions, college basketball is entering February on its way to a March postseason. As ESPN’s Eamonn Brennan points out, it is settled that college basketball owns March as one of the biggest sporting institutions in America; it is its regular season, especially early on, that needs showcasing, and without the unnecessary impediment of the NBA, this winter could be college basketball’s big moment.

Thankfully, it coincides with the most competitive, loaded college basketball season in several years, and Carolina is the unquestionable preseason #1. If there was any question, our program is about to further cement its status as one of the driving forces of the American sports world.

2011
10/15
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The most anticipated seasons in (my) North Carolina basketball history

The tipping point that inspired me to break my off-season hiatus came this week when the blog Rush the Court (of which I am not a reader, credit Twitter for the referral) published their season preview for UNC and called this season “the most anticipated season in North Carolina basketball history.” It was not a subtle remark made mid-sentence either, but a bold statement appearing as the first line of the story.

It is remarks like these that remind me why I would not have enjoyed a career in sports journalism. Designed purely to serve as a hype-generating, cleverly dramatic opener, the statement is at least unnecessary. Worse, though, is that it is unequivocally and colossally untrue. It takes a blindly superficial attempt at hype (so often typical of sports media) and a shockingly short memory to make such a ridiculous statement in the fall of 2012, only three years removed from the 2009 basketball season.

Granted, the author of the post claims that this season tops 2009. He is wildly incorrect, and that he even attempts the claim shows that his historical perspective of Carolina basketball is seriously lacking. In truth, for a program accustomed to preseason #1 rankings – and to being unfairly loaded with talent – 2012 is closer to the norm than it is to the historically anomalous 2009 season, which even for Carolina presented an unprecedented challenge of hype.

Only in 2009 did four players, rather than three, spurn the NBA, three of whom declared before withdrawing and all of whom were rising juniors or seniors. Far more importantly, since admittedly Harrison Barnes’ decision to return is the most bizarre of the lot, only in 2009 had the Heels been a #1 seed with essentially the same team two years running. In both tournaments we fell short in dramatic losses, but progressed to the Final Four in 2008, one round farther than in 2007. Only in 2009 did we return one of the greatest players in conference history and one of the most beloved among Carolina fans, and only in 2009 were all of our core players juniors and seniors that we had been watching perform at a historically high level for two full seasons, becoming highly invested them in ways that we haven’t yet, purely as a function of time, with Barnes and his teammates.

In his autobiography, Roy Williams speaks of persistent sleepless nights leading up to the 2009 season. If after 2012, it is Ohio State or Kentucky cutting down the nets, Carolina will have failed, no doubt, but people will understand. In 2009, that was certainly not the case; it would have been incomprehensible for anyone but the Heels to win, especially after early season thrashings of Notre Dame and Michigan State. Even more difficult personally for Roy was his attachment to the team, and particularly to Hansbrough, that made the prospect of not winning a title agonizing to a degree that falling short this year could not possibly attain.

It seems odd to make this argument at the present time – it would be more fun to agree with the author, given that it is 2012, not 2009. But I was there as a student, and perhaps for that reason his error struck a nerve. But alas, in honor of the approaching arrival of the 2012 season, one that is highly anticipated for a team that, while not 2009, could be historically good and does seem to have a uniquely strong connection to the students and fans: an actual ranking of the most anticipated seasons in my short lifetime of Carolina basketball history.

1) 2008-2009: As mentioned above, no other season comes close. We had never experienced that level of anticipation before, and only perfectly unusual circumstances would allow for it again.

2) 2004-2005: Carolina fans should be thankful that Roy is two for two in delivering national championships during the years in which we were expected to win. Dean Smith was one for a whole bunch of seasons, not because of poor coaching, but because that is often the reality of college basketball (in 1982 Carolina was the preseason favorite, but in 1993 we began the year #7 and were not ranked #1 until early March). The 2005 team was not only expected to contend for the title, but was expected to redeem at last Carolina basketball from the abyss of the previous six seasons. That journey was best exemplified by a senior class that went 8-20 as freshmen and a trio of juniors that represented one of the most heralded recruiting classes in program history. Both groups weathered the storm of initial underachievement and the firing of Matt Doherty, and even Roy Williams at the time brought his additional pressure of having never won a national title. We are fortunate that this squad got the job done, as it set us on course for the most successful five season stretch in program history, and having not won a national title in over a decade, it was a long anticipated event.

3) 2011-2012: It doesn’t take long to arrive at the present season, which, for all of its contrast to 2009, is itself an anomaly, especially for the current state of college basketball. It was such a shock that this team stayed together without NBA defection that we forget how young this team is; we haven’t yet had time to fully invest ourselves as fans in Harrison Barnes and Kendall Marshall, especially in the case of Barnes, from whom many of us had resolved not to expect more than one season. In any case, the gap between our talent and the rest of the country, excepting Kentucky, may be the largest it has ever been. This team, like 2005, hopes to culminate the escape of its own abyss (2009-2010 and early 2010-2011), and like 2009, returns after a dramatic near miss last season. Unique to this year’s squad is the special connection these players seem to have to each other; I cannot remember another core group of players who were unanimous in the level of joy this team has for playing basketball in Chapel Hill. Capping off the anticipation is that a title this season would be our third in eight seasons, placing Roy Williams’ tenure rightfully at the pinnacle of the sport as its most recent dynasty.

4) 2002-2003: This season did not end as happily as the first two, but there is no questioning its spot on the list nonetheless. Carolina fans had toiled through an embarrassing 8-20 season the year before, and resorted to following intently the developing stories of the incoming recruiting class, especially local South Carolina superstar Ray Felton. As they were one of college basketball history’s most highly regarded classes, and given our program’s prolonged struggle, Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants were stamped as nothing short of saviors before they set foot on campus. Less than a month into the season the three freshmen led us to an upset of Roy’s highly ranked Kansas team, and Carolina fans were relieved to again be in the national spotlight. Stumbling down the stretch led to the firing of Matt Doherty, but early on at least this season was anticipated at a historic level.

5) 1997-1998: This year’s team contends with 1982 and 2009 as one of Carolina’s most talented groups, though unfortunately it would eventually fall short in the Final Four for the second season in a row. Nonetheless, they returned nearly everyone from that first Final Four team, including juniors Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter, both of whom would be top-five NBA selections after the season. They were deep with NBA talent for a supporting cast, and they were guided by one of college basketball’s all-time assist leaders, Ed Cota. Additionally, this season was Bill Guthridge’s first as the replacement for Dean Smith, the first coaching change for the program in nearly 40 years. I can remember as a ten year old child thinking that my time had finally come to experience a national title I would remember, and wondering if my generation was somehow cursed when it ended. That level of anticipation earns this season the final spot on the list.

2011
09/08
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The NC Sports Hall of Fame’s 5 Greatest Moments in History

I am a bit late on the scene with this one, but I had been meaning to post for a while on the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame’s five finalists for the greatest sports moment in the history of our state. Recently, the Hall announced that Carolina’s 1957 national title victory over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas won the voting as the #1 Greatest Moment.

There is little to dispute here – as the most recognizable and widely followed sports institution in the state, this honor, whether bestowed democratically or not, was going to belong to the Heels. The ’57 tournament title is arguably our most significant, and not only for being the first; it was an epic three overtime win over a great team and a great player, and it was the first time that basketball was televised across North Carolina. The following season a collection of regular season games were televised, and Carolina basketball was on its way to becoming one of our state’s most important cultural institutions.

The Hall got it right at the top, important since that moment will define the larger project, which organizers hope will draw more attention to the museum. But the Hall’s list of five finalists peaks early and gets worse. As Scott Fowler points out in his column on the project, the five finalists are without representation by professional sports or Duke.

Both of these omissions are reasonable, and I will even defend Duke’s. Christian Laettner’s game-winning turnaround to defeat Kentucky in 1992 is comfortably in the top five greatest moments in national college basketball history; but at the time the proportion of this state to which it was significant was far too small for it to be a defining moment in our history.

As for the omission of professional sports, I am far from indignant – like most North Carolinians I am first and foremost a college basketball fan, and it is one of the great characteristics of our state that we have had multiple professional sports teams for over a decade yet can put together a top five list excluding them. As I will note shortly, this is not because our pro teams have been terrible. It is because we are one of a small handful of states with access to pro sports teams that have consistently preferred the college brand as a whole.

However… though it may be possible to construct reasonably a list of our five greatest moments with no mention of professional sports, ultimately the results of the list make this difficult to defend. Attribute the flaws of the list to improperly defined terms: when most of us think of “great moments” we are imagining moments that were culturally significant to North Carolina in a lasting manner, memories that will be passed on to later generations of sports fans. If we assume these terms – which the museum folks clearly did not – we can toss immediately from the list Jim Beatty’s mile run and the formation of the ACC. The first is a tremendous accomplishment, but that’s not the measure. The second is the product of someone severely overthinking this project; yes, that is significant, but absolutely no one remembers it because no one was watching and no one was there.

If I was reconstructing the list, I would mostly leave the remaining moments in tact: they chose the right moments from our storied college basketball history, my only suggestion (credit to Fowler on this one) being to sub in State’s 1974 upset of the UCLA dynasty in the tournament for their win over Maryland a couple of weeks earlier. I might also add Carolina’s 1982 title as greatest moment #6, unable to separate it from the other three college basketball moments since this was Dean’s long overdue first title.

That leaves two remaining spots, and the choices are so obvious – both coming in the past decade – that perhaps the museum folks just didn’t mark post-2000 history high enough. One is the 2006 Stanley Cup Championship by the Carolina Hurricanes. It remains the only professional sports title in North Carolina history (a mark not to be broken any time soon), and it mesmerized, for a brief period of time, a state full of people who know nothing about the sport. Native hockey haters can sneer, but my memory reports truthfully: 30 of my friends huddled around a television to watch a Hurricanes playoff game at my high school graduation party, and the Weynand family (at my coaxing) watched the clinching victory together from a hotel room in Washington, D.C. It was significant.

The other is assuredly less controversial: pick a moment from the amazing 2003 season of the Cardiac Cat Carolina Panthers. It could be one of the four regular season overtime victories, especially the October one over the Colts that took us to 5-0 and alerted the city, and the country, of the special season in progress. If you are looking for moments, it would have to be watching Steve Smith streak across the middle of the field and take a simple slant route 60 yards to end abruptly the NFC Divisional game against the Rams with a touchdown. The moment chosen by the Hall as one of the 22 greatest moments, but not advanced to the final five, was the victory over Philadelphia to win the NFC title and clinch a trip to the Super Bowl (this was technically my first time rushing a street in celebration, and the only time it was not Franklin Street, but Symphony Woods Drive in my neighborhood in Charlotte).

Those last three playoff games nearly shut down Charlotte in total focused attention – I was playing a rec basketball game during the first half of the Rams game and receiving updates from a teammate’s dad sitting on the front row. During that few week span, the Panthers pervaded conversation in the same way the Heels do during March Madness, and it also cemented the Panthers as the state’s first and only perenially relevant professional sports team. It was surreal month – a team from North Carolina playing in what is by far the nation’s biggest sporting event? That’s a top five moment.

2011
05/17
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The Roy Williams model for building national champions: strategy or luck?

Thanks to a tip from Shannon, I read this post from a UNC recruiting blogger offering his interpretation of Carolina’s ability to keep so many highly talented players in school. It’s a nice theory: Carolina and Duke regularly pass on the guys who would turn pro after one season in favor of high-character players that are committed to staying and winning, capitalizing on their status to be “selective about skill and personality.”

There are elements of this that are absolutely true. Character is a major factor in Roy’s recruitment of players, and even a casual college basketball fan recognizes a fundamental difference between his model and that of John Calipari at Kentucky. It’s also true that keeping players in school as been the most critical component of college basketball success over the last decade, and Carolina’s two titles during that span – and its set up for a third next season – especially demonstrate this trend.

But to suggest intentionality by Roy to become the anti-Calipari, the coach who actively seeks players who will stay three years in order to win a title when they do, is an idealistic and inaccurate picture of Carolina basketball. As much as we want to think otherwise, Roy’s players – though they may not have a singular focus on getting to the NBA as soon as possible – do have it as their end goal, and a quick look at our most recent NBA prospects immediately dismisses this blogger’s theory. It is nonsense to derive theories of this nature from the decisions of thirteen individuals, and that is the most problematic aspect of his argument: the history of Carolina basketball, and his interpretation if it, would have to be radically different if merely two or three of these players had made alternative decisions. And it very nearly happened:

Marvin Williams and Brandan Wright: Two of the top recruits in the country who both turned pro after one season.

Ed Davis: Returned for his sophomore season despite establishing himself as an early pick, but only one more season was enough to convince him he would rather be in the NBA.

Sean May, Rashad McCants, and Raymond Felton: It is difficult to know for certain how close these three were to leaving after 2004, if at all, but it is certainly true that their decision to return was a calculated benefit from a draft stock perspective even had we not won the 2005 title, after which all three became lottery picks.

Tyler Hansbrough: He is one of two players on this list that fits the blogger’s theory, but for that reason it should be cautioned that his extremely exceptional case is exactly that: extremely exceptional, even strictly within the realm of Carolina basketball.

Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Danny Green: The exception of Hansbrough is contrasted with the decisions of his teammates and fellow national champions. The textual critic in me reads the statements of each player following their decision to withdraw from the draft in 2008 and notices that all three reference the negative results of testing their draft stock as their reason for staying. Danny Green stayed and cemented his legacy as one of my favorite Tar Heels ever (I am looking now at his jersey hanging on my wall). But the fact remains that these three returned only because their stock wasn’t where it needed to be to justify the jump, and in doing so drastically changed the course of college basketball history. The ability for a blogger to even speculate on this suggested recruiting strategy of Roy Williams teetered on the difficult decisions of three individuals who declared for the draft and subsequently withdrew; had they chosen the alternative, we are not having this conversation.

Harrison Barnes, John Henson, and Tyler Zeller: In this team there may be a general exception; it certainly appears that the desire to win was a bigger factor for these three than with past groups, but that itself does not reveal a recruiting strategy. Only Barnes does not have the potential for substantial gain by staying, and we will never know what Henson, and in turn Barnes, would have decided had John been a projected top five pick as he was coming out of high school. Thankfully, that is irrelevant, and I will ruminate on this special group in a later post.

Roy recruited Barnes so heavily no doubt because he thought there was a chance he would stay. But he took a risk there nonetheless, just as he did, and lost, with Wright, Davis, and Williams. UNC recruits from among the top players in the country, all of whom want to play in the NBA, and actually to adjust our strategy as this blogger suggests would come at our expense. That the 2005, 2009, and 2012 teams exist as they do reflect a perfect storm of varying motivations, but in most cases a calculated assessment of NBA draft stock that came back negative was a significant factor in a player’s decision to return.

The point here is not that Carolina players do not want to stay in school and win – many others would have turned pro in the same circumstances, so there is no questioning that a desire to win and be a part of a great tradition plays a role in keeping players in school. The point is that it isn’t always the determining factor, certainly not often enough to establish a trend, and that Roy has benefited from, among other factors, a little bit of luck.

2011
05/01
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Carolina football’s big weekend…

I don’t plan on being in the habit of posting on football, even when the season starts, but it is difficult to ignore this past weekend’s NFL draft, one that Carolina knew a year and a half ago would be historic for the program. It took a roundabout way of arriving, and it looked much different than originally anticipated, but we did have our weekend in the sun leading the nation with nine draftees to set a school record and get pundits talking again about just how talented our 2010 team was.

The immediately obvious answer to how a team with nine players drafted never won more than 8 games is that three of the first four did not play a down this season, but it isn’t the best. For one, three straight bowl appearances with eight wins is a major accomplishment for this program that matches our historic concentration of NFL prospects. Secondly, the balance of our nine picks (five on defense, four on offense) does not accurately reflect the dynamic of our team. The past three seasons will always be marked by a nationally elite defense coupled unfortunately with a mediocre offense. If the scandal that sidelined most of our star defensive players had never happened, it is possible that we would have been top ten in the country or higher, but it is also possible that our offense provided a ceiling for this team that couldn’t be eclipsed.

The decision by the Houston Texans to draft T.J. Yates in the fifth round today glosses over the wide gap between our defense and our offense in a way that borders on insanity. T.J. Yates is not a fifth round quarterback. He isn’t even worth a look as an undrafted free agent. But he is tall with a strong arm and gained attention as Carolina entered the top 25 during his career thanks largely to our defense. To anticipate objections to the harshness: I’m not hating on T.J. – he did some great things at Carolina – but a mediocre to good QB in the ACC doesn’t get to play in the NFL. The other bizarre pick from our offense was the selection of Ryan Taylor by the Packers. Taylor was so far off the draft board Mel Kiper hadn’t ranked him among available TE’s or bothered to give him a grade, and the Packers chose him above undrafted but injury prone Zach Pianalto.

What this weekend’s draft might have looked like if a) these two exceptionally strange picks did not occur and b) our defense stars were never sidelined by scandal and maintained their draft stock of spring 2010:

From the defense alone, Quinn is a top three pick, Austin goes in the first round, and in addition to Carter, Sturdivant, and Searcy, NFL teams also select Kendric Burney, Deunta Williams, and Charles Brown. All but Searcy were at one time ranked in Todd McShay’s Top 40.

That would have left our count at a more appropriate balance of 8 for the defense and two for the offense, three if Pianalto is selected as he should have been. This demonstrates two points about our season and the draft: that this NFL draft could have been even bigger for the Heels and remains a missed opportunity, and that our offense may never have been good enough to realize the potential of the D.

2011
05/01
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The significance of Harrison Barnes’ awesomely bizarre decision

There is a debate brewing on the significance of Harrison Barnes, Jared Sullinger, and Perry Jones choosing to return for their sophomore season, with some hoping that it turns into a much-needed trend, and others cautiously mindful that they are merely three individuals with an unusual preference. In the meantime, before an unlikely trend does or does not play out, Carolina fans should appreciate just how plainly bizarre Harrison’s return is in the current context. He and Sullinger are the first college basketball players in the last five years to be ranked in the top four of their high school class and not turn pro after one season.

A sophomore Harrison Barnes will be without question the most talented, formidable, NBA-ready force to play at Carolina since Antawn Jamison and Vince Carter. The past decade of Carolina basketball has ironically been its best while at the same time its least fruitful of star professionals. During 2009’s alumni game, the best on a floor full of Carolina’s pros were still Jamison and Carter, relics of the 90s outmatching every player the program produced since their departure. The 2000s produced five relevant NBA players – Raymond Felton, Brendan Haywood, Marvin Williams, Tyler Hansbrough, and Ty Lawson – with perhaps Wayne Ellington and Ed Davis soon to join. But of that small group none is or ever will be a star, which is interesting given that at one point in the early 2000s Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, Jamison and Carter were all playing at an All-Star level. I’m not complaining; we have shown that you can win huge with a team full of college superstars who will be merely solid in the NBA due to lack of NBA size or athleticism.

But enter Harrison Barnes to radically disrupt the trend. He is the kind of should-be-one-and-done player Roy has not typically recruited, and in a total coup, he stayed. There is a reason Felton, Sean May, Rashad McCants, Hansbrough, Ellington, Lawson, and Danny Green stayed three or four years each: they were not Harrison Barnes. They may have matched and in some cases exceeded him in pure skill, but not in the total package of skill, athleticism, versatility and size. We have not seen a player like him in college for his sophomore year in a long time, in a really long time at Carolina, and he is playing against a weakened college basketball landscape due to the same reason it is so strange that he stayed.

It may alter our highlight reels in a way we haven’t seen since Carter’s famous dunks. Barnes is not the leaper Carter was, so it won’t be in that way that he lights up SportsCenter, but with his killer instinct at the end of games, his propensity for taking over individually when it is most needed, and his versatile ability to score almost at will in a variety of ways.

All of this does not mean necessarily that the 2012 team will be better than the 2005 or 2009 team – I don’t think it will. But it certainly helps to offset this team’s lack of an established trio of college superstars on the level of 2005’s and 2009’s. Most of the guys capable of effectively guarding Harrison Barnes are already playing at the next level, and that does add up to a unknown ceiling for his, and our season.

2011
04/22
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