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Quick stuff (BC game)...

Look, there's no objection to rants --- I know my pen will never be the same after several table slams --- so yeah, I get it.

Meanwhile, before I respond, allow me to digress for a second:

I just watched another game tonight, and the very idea that Doug Shows is allowed within 50 feet of a basketball arena wearing a striped shirt is an abomination on the game. Lord knows, he and Groover gave us a royal butt-f***ing in Winston Tuesday, and with all that said, I have little doubt that one or both of those jabronies will show up in Durham Saturday... :rolleyes:

Anyway, while I'm not backing away from my systemic critiques of what we are doing (and the 1st-half defensive no-show tonight), there were some things that can be objectively taken as positives. For example, we batted a thousand in OT on the offensive end, while making enough plays on the other end to take a must-win home...
You're rigbt, Gary, when things really mattered yesterday the team did what it took to win and it can be argued this current team has lacked that ability for the most part so far. It was against BC and we shouldn't have been in that position to begin with, but baby steps I guess. We need some big steps this week though. Hopefully playing against BC's atrocious D and seeing the ball go in got us out of that prolonged shooting slump too. If we can hit some shots maybe we overcome our other deficiencies. Guess we'll see. Not holding my breath though!
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Quick stuff (BC game)...

Keep in mind this is the same team with a better version on Jackson and Powell not that earlier in the year played Florida, Kansas, Michigan State, and Louisville and had shots to win all 3 of those games but lost so I have a hard time believing that talent is our issue. You don't play teams like that well, and then wet the bed against Stanford, and have to pull wins out of your ass against BC and ND unless there are issues elsewhere.

I rarely agree with Gary on anything but what we do agree on is misuse of the players we do have.

If we don't make a change we are headed for mediocrity, in the long term.

Getting Caleb Wilson is a huge help but if he can keep what we should be having back next and use Wilson right then we are going to be on the same track we are on now.

I don't know about everyone else but I am not going to be satisfied with one year okay and the next year sucking pattern and that where we look to be right now.
I may have done a poor job communicating my current state of mind with this team. I agree with you and Gary that this team has top-15 talent. RJ is a proven commodity, Ian and Drake are emerging stars even if inconsistent (to be expected with freshmen), EC is really good (also inconsistent but for different reasons), and Seth... Washington... all talented... I could go on. Seeing them all show flashes of their ceiling but seemingly consistently underperforming tells me we're misusing them or deploying schemes that don't maximize our current roster which aligns I think with yours and Gary's opinion mostly. There's no Cormac or Harrison out there this season lighting fires under players in games either which hurts but that itself can't explain this level of regression in my opinion.

I really want Hubert to work out, i do, but at this point Hubert's record is: a very underwhelming first season with an amazing month of March, a terrible second season, a great 3rd season, and now another underwhelming 4th season. So, if my math is correct,that's approximately 6 good months and 12 bad months with this staff. That's not Carolina basketball.

6’10” James Brown

To start with he fouls way too much. His foul rate is significantly higher than Washington, Withers, and Lubin. The only big with a worse foul rate is Claude, and in recent games Brown has played while Claude has not. UNC has been in NINE games decided by one possession. You can't give minutes to guys who are going to give the opposing team free throws when the margin between winning and losing is so close.

Secondly, he has the worst rebounding rate of any big on the roster, including walk-on Holbrook.

Why did UNC recruit him? He was a top 40 big that seemed to be climbing towards 5 star status. After he committed he plummeted down the rankings over the remainder of his high school career. He finished ranked 122 and 3 star on at least one site.

That doesn't mean we should give up on him becoming a good player over time. It just means your initial comment was wrong. He is in fact the worst big on our roster. Had we been able to buy a good portal center, he probably should have redshirted.
Pretty sure he was a 5 star and top 10 recruit before he transferred and plummeted down the rankings. If memory serves correct.

Wordle

tried to play for hours this morning but it wouldn't let me in. Kept telling me I didn't have a connection. I've been having trouble getting into worldle as well. Something weird going on. NY Times, no wonder.

Wordle 1,317 3/6

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Quick stuff (BC game)...

The rational part of my brain knows that sometimes bad teams just have good nights against you and also that it's really difficult for teams to bring their all every game, especially against less talented teams with big games coming up. But, man, this was really hard to watch. I have almost zero confidence that UNC can win any of the next 4 games. On a positive note, I do remember a really bad home loss to Pitt in 2022 and feeling the same way and then the team clicking and going on that magical run. Conversely, with the exception of 2024, all of our teams under Hubert have had these months-long stretches of atrocious unCarolina basketball. I listened to the podcast with Pinson, Felton, and JJ recently where they chalked this up to missing in the portal and the need for players to shoulder responsibility. But if we can't also recognize an inability to bring in the necessary talent to arguably the most storied basketball school with what should be almost unlimited funds and big names then what are we doing? Or if we can't recognize an inability to adapt to roster imperfections and still maximize the top 15 in the country talent that is there...what are we doing?

End of rant. Glad we won. But still, ugh
Keep in mind this is the same team with a better version on Jackson and Powell not that earlier in the year played Florida, Kansas, Michigan State, and Louisville and had shots to win all 3 of those games but lost so I have a hard time believing that talent is our issue. You don't play teams like that well, and then wet the bed against Stanford, and have to pull wins out of your ass against BC and ND unless there are issues elsewhere.

I rarely agree with Gary on anything but what we do agree on is misuse of the players we do have.

If we don't make a change we are headed for mediocrity, in the long term.

Getting Caleb Wilson is a huge help but if he can keep what we should be having back next and use Wilson right then we are going to be on the same track we are on now.

I don't know about everyone else but I am not going to be satisfied with one year okay and the next year sucking pattern and that where we look to be right now.
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Quick stuff (BC game)...

The rational part of my brain knows that sometimes bad teams just have good nights against you and also that it's really difficult for teams to bring their all every game, especially against less talented teams with big games coming up. But, man, this was really hard to watch. I have almost zero confidence that UNC can win any of the next 4 games. On a positive note, I do remember a really bad home loss to Pitt in 2022 and feeling the same way and then the team clicking and going on that magical run. Conversely, with the exception of 2024, all of our teams under Hubert have had these months-long stretches of atrocious unCarolina basketball. I listened to the podcast with Pinson, Felton, and JJ recently where they chalked this up to missing in the portal and the need for players to shoulder responsibility. But if we can't also recognize an inability to bring in the necessary talent to arguably the most storied basketball school with what should be almost unlimited funds and big names then what are we doing? Or if we can't recognize an inability to adapt to roster imperfections and still maximize the top 15 in the country talent that is there...what are we doing?

End of rant. Glad we won. But still, ugh
Look, there's no objection to rants --- I know my pen will never be the same after several table slams --- so yeah, I get it.

Meanwhile, before I respond, allow me to digress for a second:

I just watched another game tonight, and the very idea that Doug Shows is allowed within 50 feet of a basketball arena wearing a striped shirt is an abomination on the game. Lord knows, he and Groover gave us a royal butt-f***ing in Winston Tuesday, and with all that said, I have little doubt that one or both of those jabronies will show up in Durham Saturday... :rolleyes:

Anyway, while I'm not backing away from my systemic critiques of what we are doing (and the 1st-half defensive no-show tonight), there were some things that can be objectively taken as positives. For example, we batted a thousand in OT on the offensive end, while making enough plays on the other end to take a must-win home...
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