Many years ago, I began making the case that usually you can see rather clearly with the 3rd year of a coach at the school whether he will be better for the program, no better than what he replaced, or worse than what he replaced.

Steve Sarkisian at Texas is another example that fits my theory. This is his third season: 5-7, 8-5 (lost a bowl to 10 win Washington), and now 11-1, on the cusp of making the playoff.

Mack 2.0: 7-6 (won a minor bowl vs G5 team), 8-4 (lost Orange Bowl), 6-7 (lost minor bowl to another 6-6 team).

Note Sarkisian's steady improvment to a really great season in Year 3. Note Mack's hot house flower Year 2 and then immediate fall back into a losing season.

That says that Sarkisian should be better for Texas than Herman was (and Herman had 4 bowl winning teams in 4 years at Texas), and that Mack will be better than Fedora but never achieve much of anything at UNC.

2 things:

1) our switching defense has been porous all year. UConn schemed beautifully against it, exploiting mismatches all night, getting clean looks. Hubert went zone 1 possession and UConn immediately hit a 3 , then went back to full switching. If it’s not working, try something else! I’ve said this all season. Not a fan of constant defensive mismatches. Just doesn’t make sense, but Hubert is stubborn.

2) At what point does Cormac’s poor shooting become a team issue? Before tonight, he’s shooting 33% overall, 29% from 3. Tonight he was 3-10. Live his hustle and heart, but we might get more from Trimble at this point.

I'm no guru but it seemed to me that UConn would often run their half court offense until our switches ended up with a mismatch they liked. I don't know how often that resulted in a score for them, but they seemed to be able to "work" our switches better than our previous opponents.

I'd appreciate hearing other folks' thoughts on this. Is that a fair assessment? What should we do about it?

...and apologies for the delay --- I attended the UGA-GaTech game and thus recorded ours to watch afterward. FYI: I dunno how Tech beat dook given what I witnessed. Haven't seen that many missed layups since I once got roped into reffing a 12-under girls game. Yikes.

As for us...

- The most important first take is perspective: We were playing a legit Top-5 team and defending champs on their de facto home court, and we would have to play very well to win. We did not, particularly in 3 key areas --- rebounding, FT shooting and making enough 3s (and at the right time).

- as for 3-pt shooting, RJ and Ingram made our numbers come out ok, but the 6 Ryan misses (seemingly all in key spots) hurt. Cormac still looks like he's having issues getting square and set, which he absolutely NEEDS in order to be accurate. I'm sure that will come back with some healing. We will also be so much more dangerous once EC regains confidence to take his looks and loosen up the defense.

- there was a deadly sequence in the second half when Cormac got maybe his best look from 3 and missed, leading to a 3 on the other end --- a 6-pt turnaround that summed up so much. There were several instances when we would get them down to an awkward end-of-clock shot and they knocked down an unlikely 3. I mean, sometimes there's not much more you can do.

- we didn't get to the line nearly as often as we should have given their "physical" play,--- we should've EASILY shot 30 --- but FTs are always precious when ya get em and 59% is not our formula for success.

- however, my biggest notice was on the boards. Look, UConn has NBA size and this was a lesson that this edition of UNC needs to BLOCK THE HELL OUT and scrap for boards. The staff has to be really dismayed at our lack of that in this game. Hopefully it will be a lesson going forward. Our default lineups are not gonna be big this season, so we hafta do the dirty work so we can get into our transition game!

- On the positive side, look, all 9 guys who played contributed. Encouragingly, Withers looked better (except for another missed finish)

- to his credit Hubert, tried his best to overcome the aformentioned deficits and pulled out the arsenal --- 44, 34, 33, 42 and 1-3-1. These were often effective (but remember, you can't expect them to fold like FSU, after all), but in key spots, again, were mitigated by UConn knocking down a shot when they needed it. Credit where it's due for sure, but don't let that dampen the positive sign moving forward that we have multiple defenses in our ammo bag, and the more we use them, the better we will get.

- Finally, again perspective --- UConn is not only VERY good, they are far more of a FINISHED PRODUCT than we are at this point. That's ok, as long as we keep progressing and finding our identity. Frankly, IF we correct the stuff mentioned above, including getting more comfortable with our defenses, and better at rebounding as a unit, this can be a fun progress to watch, and if we meet again in March on a neutral floor, who knows?... I might just like our chances by then.

Anyway, a bit disappointing of course, but nothing to be ashamed of by any means. Let's get thru exams and focus in on dealing with two more remaining tough December opponents...

Max Johnson arrived yesterday. He is at the game today and Tez is his host.

I spoke with Tez about 10 minutes ago and he said so far he likes Max a lot. He is also his host for today.

We normally have some our posters reduce their participation towards the end of the season because they are too far back to place in the contests. Thus, I am always trying to think of ways to make the contests interesting for the entire season.

Here are some changes I'm going to implement immediately. I welcome any feedback.


Here are our 5 contests:


Contest 5: Early Season Non-Conference Contest (only games that UNC participating )
Winners: Top 6 players win 3-month subscription to Premium
7 games

• Battle for Atlantis (Possible opponents - Arkansas, Memphis, Michigan, Texas Tech, Villanova)
• Tennessee (ACC/SEC Challenge)
• UConn (Jimmy V Classic)
• Kentucky (CBS Sports Classic)
• Oklahoma (Jumpman Invitational)

Contest Rules:
Contest #1: Total points for entire season (SEE CHANGE BELOW)
Contest #2: Reset: Total points after game #15
Contest #3: Final Four Pool Bracket (Top 64 players)
Contest #4 Grand Prize: Total points ACC and NCAA tournaments games through title game (contest continues even if UNC eliminated)
Contest #5 Early Season Non-Conference Contest


CHANGES
Contest #1: Winners will be declared immediately after game #15.
Prizes will be distributed within 2 weeks.

Contest #5: Winners will be declared immediately after Oklahoma game (Jumpman Invitational)
Prizes will be distributed within 2 weeks.


I want to get these prizes out quicker, plus reduce the amount of administrated work which helps me reduce the errors. Thus, after game #15 everyone gets a fresh start and hopefully we can get more participation in Contest# 2 for the rest of the season.

Also, I may increase triple point games to help reduce runaway winners (smile).

There are a couple of administrated issues with a couple of winners from last year. I hope to get these issues resolved today and get your subscriptions processed. Please look for an email and please follow the instructions.

Finally, I personally play for the fun of it. I will donate any prize that I win this year.

Go Heels!
Steat