It's Not Too Late - But What Happens if We Don't Turn It Around?
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
When we were struggling in the first half of last year, I was one of those arguing that Hubert should be given a chance for at least 3 and maybe as many as 5 years. Both Dean Smith and K would have had short careers in the current climate.
Dean had a W-L record of only 58% in his first 5 years. Hubert is winning 69% to this point. Sure that's well down from Roy in his prime (around 80%), but I'm guessing that's better than the overwhelming majority of coaches.
Which is to say, I'm sticking with my belief that he should get 3-5 years.
That said, next year is his 3rd. And I worry that with only one ready-to-play freshman (Wilcher) and several good players leaving, next year could be a rough year. Maybe the portal will help us again.
Hubert's seat could get pretty warm next year if he doesn't right this ship. But even if we struggle, I'd like to see what he does with the following year's talent.
Dean had a W-L record of only 58% in his first 5 years. Hubert is winning 69% to this point. Sure that's well down from Roy in his prime (around 80%), but I'm guessing that's better than the overwhelming majority of coaches.
Which is to say, I'm sticking with my belief that he should get 3-5 years.
That said, next year is his 3rd. And I worry that with only one ready-to-play freshman (Wilcher) and several good players leaving, next year could be a rough year. Maybe the portal will help us again.
Hubert's seat could get pretty warm next year if he doesn't right this ship. But even if we struggle, I'd like to see what he does with the following year's talent.
Of course its coaching.. I find it amazing that the reporters have never asked Hubert in the post-press conference "why does your team wait until the last 5 minutes of the game to start playing?".. Seriously, if this team played the whole game like they did the last 5 minutes, we would be blowing teams out. Why is our staff not having these guys ready to come out firing on all cylinders from the start? Have they given up on the staff already?
He's fine this year. Next year is a potential problem though. We just don't have a lot of guys that will be ready to step into the starting lineup.
I expect Hubert to look for 2-3 starters in the transfer portal. If we follow up this year with a record under .500 next year his job will be in danger, so I don't think he can afford to have any kind of rebuild.
My hope for next year is a Davis-Portal-Portal-Portal-Bacot lineup. If Bacot leaves then Washington or another portal guy at 5.
Puff is oft injured and inconsistent. The team has not thrived even with him as the 6th man, so I don't see a need to count on him as a starter. Dunn is the only other bench player whose even played passably. I think if we have more than 1 of this years bench players in next year's starting lineup we're going to have the same problem of too many non-threats on offense.
I expect Hubert to look for 2-3 starters in the transfer portal. If we follow up this year with a record under .500 next year his job will be in danger, so I don't think he can afford to have any kind of rebuild.
My hope for next year is a Davis-Portal-Portal-Portal-Bacot lineup. If Bacot leaves then Washington or another portal guy at 5.
Puff is oft injured and inconsistent. The team has not thrived even with him as the 6th man, so I don't see a need to count on him as a starter. Dunn is the only other bench player whose even played passably. I think if we have more than 1 of this years bench players in next year's starting lineup we're going to have the same problem of too many non-threats on offense.
I've wondered about that, too.
Some time back I reported here on a sideline conversation where, instead of teaching or yelling at our players, there was a heated exchange between Hubert and one of his assistants. Because of the camera angle, I couldn't tell which bald white dome I was looking at, but the 2 faces I could see told the story. Hubert was livid and screaming at his assistant while, standing sort of between them, RJ was looklng like he wished he could be anywhere in the world except there.
We sometimes worry about chemistry problems within team - and this team is one of them - but maybe we should be looking about chemistry problems on the staff.
Who would you replace? While I "know" several of them from their past association with UNC and coaching stints, I don't actually know enough to point fingers. I do know that I was happy to add every one of them, but things that look good on paper don't always play out as expected.
It feels like we are hammering square pegs in to round holes and wondering why it isn't working?
Nance as a direct replacement for Manek, using him the same way we did Manek rather than how his particular way playing, his strong part of his game is not featured? RJ or Caleb as PGs, Leaky as a 3pt marksman, Trimble brought in to a role more suited for shooters (the 2 spot), Nickel as last guy before McKoy plays? WE have a more athletic team than a team filled with skilled players, means for me we should be running & breaking in a style Roy loved, should be pressing on the defensive end and using the talented depth we actually do have. But rather we seen to want to slow it down in to a half court game that features big time treys and pounding it inside without really moving the defense.
How about we put square pegs in to square holes and round ones in round holes for a change? You have 2 choices as a coach, you can structure your team around their individual strong points or you can bring in players thru recruiting or now days the portal that fit the style you want played. The one thing you just can not do, the cardinal sin so to speak is bring in guys that do not fit your preferred style of play and forcing them to fit to it.
Nance as a direct replacement for Manek, using him the same way we did Manek rather than how his particular way playing, his strong part of his game is not featured? RJ or Caleb as PGs, Leaky as a 3pt marksman, Trimble brought in to a role more suited for shooters (the 2 spot), Nickel as last guy before McKoy plays? WE have a more athletic team than a team filled with skilled players, means for me we should be running & breaking in a style Roy loved, should be pressing on the defensive end and using the talented depth we actually do have. But rather we seen to want to slow it down in to a half court game that features big time treys and pounding it inside without really moving the defense.
How about we put square pegs in to square holes and round ones in round holes for a change? You have 2 choices as a coach, you can structure your team around their individual strong points or you can bring in players thru recruiting or now days the portal that fit the style you want played. The one thing you just can not do, the cardinal sin so to speak is bring in guys that do not fit your preferred style of play and forcing them to fit to it.
What concerns me is we don’t adjust well. Against Miami we ran the same pick and roll play that was destroyed by their hedging over and over again. I thought I had the DVR on repeat. And I don’t think it worked once. Need to change it up guys. Fake the pick and drop to the paint. Reverse the ball. Find the open man. Anything but repeatedly getting double team on the hedge and dribbling far away from the basket as possible.
We need to adjust on the fly in order to improve. Seems obvious to me.
We need to adjust on the fly in order to improve. Seems obvious to me.
I think this sums it up nicely and a primary driver of why we've had so much inconsistency in Hubert's short tenure so far. Our lineup structure is awful, with no adjustments being made to try for a different result. That is what's most alarming. We continue to run the same crew out there in the same spots, and expect a different result. That's insanity! I don't have any confidence in Hubert's ability to get the job done based on what we've seen thus far. The body language on the bench towards Caleb specifically leads me to believe he's gone or will be encouraged to pursue his career elsewhere.
That was never Roy's game and, frankly, when we were forced to play that way we often looked very ordinary. Now it seems to be Hubert's preferred style of play. Which would be OK if we were good at it, but we don't seem to be quite up to the task.
The problem with falling behind is that sometimes you cannot get righted for many years, even decades. How long has it been since Indiana had back to back Top 10 seasons?
The Dean Smith time was unique in that UNC over-reacted to a scandal and penalized the program. Smith began with a depleted roster and playing fewer games. And he faced that while Dook was a legit Top 5 team and Moo was very good and Wake was very competitive, making the ACC a very tough league.
Davis faces none of those obstacles.
Most of us, including coaches, have spent most of the season telling ourselves that Pete is not Brady and shouldn't try to be.
How's that worked out for us?
Instead of telling Pete NOT to try to be Brady, maybe we should hand him a bunch of Brady tapes and tell him to do EXACTLY THAT. Tell him to position himself exactly like Brady did. Tell him to shoot like Brady did. And tell our guards to pass to him exactly like they did to Brady.
Sure it might be a bust, but would it be any worse?
At least - for a change - Pete would know where he's supposed to be and what he's supposed to do.
We usually wonder what players may be leaving or returning. I wonder if we will have any assistant coaches who will be leaving and, if so, why?
the fact that Hubert let Steve Robinson go makes me question his ability to put together a staff. Hubert is the issue.
No, that is the problem rather than the solution! We are trying to use Nance like we did Manek, that has just not worked. If we are so intent on playing a stretch 4 then Nickel or Puff are as close as we will get to a stretch 4 in this roster, Washington maybe in time but from what I see Jalen is a kid in dire need of a strong off season of work in the weight room and on the court, the game looks to fast for him right now. Nance is a back up center, just what he is, he needs to be in more of a high low set than a stretch variation.
agree. Nickel is the closest thing we have to a stretch 4 and if that's what this "system" needs then give him a damn chance.
I got no answer to why that kid has been used as he has, the he is a weak defender doesn't cut it, he is not the worst defender we have, he is NOT Kerwin level of matador, at least he give effort and is not scared.
The hope is that Caleb leaves. That's the starting point. I think this is more of a Caleb thing than a Hubert thing. Hard player to coach. Hard player to be dependent on. I need to see him without Caleb. Players like Caleb are just losing players most of the time. We got tantalized by a few good moments in March. But that's not who he is. I don't care too much if we suck next year with a new group of players. I know we're going to suck next year if Caleb comes back. You think he's going to shoot the ball less if he comes back next year? Hopefully Caleb moves on and we can see what kind of coach Hubert is.
People are talking themselves into how good this team would've been with a couple of rotation changes. Are we out of our minds? This group just isn't that good, lol.
And being serious here. If we lost in the 1st round last year to Marquette and everyone came back... How disappointing would this season be? Slightly? It may be disappointing but not surprising. Hubert drastically overachieved in March, and as a result, expectations became completely unrealistic. So would Hubert have been better off just losing in round 1 last year? I don't get it.
This team is what it is. Hopefully it's a new team next year.
People are talking themselves into how good this team would've been with a couple of rotation changes. Are we out of our minds? This group just isn't that good, lol.
And being serious here. If we lost in the 1st round last year to Marquette and everyone came back... How disappointing would this season be? Slightly? It may be disappointing but not surprising. Hubert drastically overachieved in March, and as a result, expectations became completely unrealistic. So would Hubert have been better off just losing in round 1 last year? I don't get it.
This team is what it is. Hopefully it's a new team next year.
I don't disagree to an extent. I warned folks about all the hype to start the season. I thought we were a top 10-15 team, truly, but not a consensus #1, especially losing Manek. But I think you are leaning a bit too far on the side of this team doesn't have the talent to be good. That's simply not the case. Look across all of college basketball and I think you could make the argument, it's actually quite embarassing given how weak the ACC is specifically, that we are in the spot we are in. Do I think we are the best team in the country? Sure don't, but we clearly have the pieces to be a top 5 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Are we saying that Chris Collins is a better coach than Hubert? Pete played better both of his last 2 years at Northwestern than this year with us.
I wonder of Pete would rather be back there?
to date, yes. Experience counts in coaches as well as players, probably more so.
I think I was expecting a 4 or 5 seed going into the season. Then I thought this was a fringe top 25 team once I saw the first 5 games or so.
And of course they could be good. But I think they have a bunch of losing players on the team.
- You don't win with Caleb Love type players
- Leaky type players only work on extremely gifted offensive teams, or else he's probably a negative value player
- Northwestern is FAR better by simply subtracting Pete Nance and Ryan Young
Then, we have a bunch of guys who we either hope are good, Or we talk ourselves into being good because of how disappointing the season has been. Now we suck because we're not playing Tyler Nickel enough. Yea, ok. We suck because our best players didn't get better at all. And we weren't all that good last year. So, we're not going to be all that good this year.
I don't know where all the confusion comes from.
I'm choosing to look at it through a positive lens.
We got to see this group win at Duke in Coach K's final home game, thoroughly dismantle 1 seeded Baylor before Manek got ejected, beat Duke in a Final Four game in Coach K's final game, then nearly finish the deal in the National Championship game. It's almost comical that this group provided eternal bragging rights over Duke, lol.
That's pretty awesome. Good for them. Thanks for those memories. They aren't that over an entire season and they never will be, but they were all of that for the last 10 games or so last season.
Hopefully they move on and we can get root for, get frustrated, and get nit-picky over the next group of Tar Heels.
I don't know what level of coach Hubert may become, I know he has not had a great season this time as our coach yet he had a great initial season that had a dreadful beginning. So what will he be in year 3, I have no idea, am interested to see. But deep down, I didn't think I can fairly judge him as a coach until he has had a couple years with his own players rather than guys he got when Roy stepped down. I do believe things would look so much better if we had a real PG rather than 2 guards trying to handle the PG job. I just do not think our starting back court duo really plays with great chemistry with each other, it more seems like they step on each others game as opposed to helping it.
First time we played Wake they ran the same inbounds play 4 or 5 times. I think Appleby hit the shot or was fouled all but once. Basketball IQ may be lower than 3-point % for this group.
Does anyone remember in the games when Roy fell out a few years ago and had to leave, Hubert wasn't left I'm charge Steve was.
Getting rid of him was a huge mistake, he should have been kept if for nothing else just to keep some experience on the bench!
I think they come into a game with a plain and when the other team counters our plain they are lost on what to do. The Cuse game is a perfect example we was killing them with the bigs in the middle of the zone st the free-throw line then Cuse adjusted and we damn near lost that game because they looked lost.
This was a huge mistake that Hubert made Day 1 on the job. The arrogance to say that you had to be an alum to coach here is ridiculous. Was Dean Smith an alum? But yet he’s the guy Hubert always talks about and gives credit to. So if Dean was okay to coach here why the heck would Hubert think the staff has to have a degree from UNC?
And let’s be honest, the talent pool of UNC coaches is extremely shallow right now. For a guy that came from a tv booth and then sat the bench as an assistant, you better surround yourself with excellent coaching minds so that you can essentially be the GM of the program.
AGREED! As much as I hate to give him credit, in this case I will to make a point. K was not afraid to mange the team in front of him. We all banged on him for the " Live by the 3, die by the 3 " mantra.
But we also saw him go big with Aldenaby and Ferry in the 80' s and with Bagley and the other big, name escapes me, just a few years ago. K had seasons where he played a lot of zone because it fit his roster. Hubert has not adjusted to his roster in my opinion, and in the process has discarded some Carolina staples of success.
To me it has become obvious that a Cadeau reclass is now a " Need".
Move Davis to shooting guard and let him do what he does best. NBA has had 3 years to watch him play pg, they know what is/ isn't there from R.J. at that position.
Now it is time to win games moving forward.
I give Nickel first crack at the 3 spot and hope he can be a consistent 10-12 ppg scorer with playing time.
I don't trust Puff as my 4 man starter, so I am all in for an athletic defensive minded 4 man in the portal. Puff can compete for the 6th man role at both forward spots.
Washington is my 5 man with High as his backup.
Wilcher is my first guard reserve at 1-3 positions and Trimble and Dunn would compete for 4th guard and 3rd small forward minutes.
4 years of double figure losses has not happened at Carolina since the early 50's.
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Well we were 16th in KenPom last year. At the time most people thought Manek was, what, our third best player? I think finishing top 20 again was a reasonable expectation. Instead we're 38th right now. I think it is a disappointing season as it currently stands.
I thought Love would be better, but the biggest thing is Nance has been a total pumpkin. He obviously wasn't going to shoot 45% from 3 consistently, but 29%? Assist percentage has gone from 22% to 9%, TO% up from 12% to 18%. Rebounds per 40 down from 9.5 to 8.0, despite us needing it badly when Bacot sits. Block rate down from 5% to 3.3%. And the B1G is better than the ACC. What on Earth happened? This guy got invited to the G-League Combine last summer!
I thought Pete might be more well rounded than Manek and be 90% of the overall player. Oops. That transfer not working out at all is the biggest difference. Unfortunately I feel we may be in a lot better place with the team if we had gotten someone like Matthew Mayer. I do think the rest of the starters on the team are good enough for top 15-20 if we had one more player.
I'm hoping we can add a couple of actual high impact transfers next year. It's a tough thing to do but this is UNC, I don't think we should just roll out a bunch of the current bench players and punt the season. We should expect top 20 consistently, and I feel Hubert will be under a lot of pressure to do that, so I can't see him foregoing transfers if he can get them to commit.
At least need to find a true, top tier point guard. That would solve so many problems!
i will always be grateful for what they did to dook / Ratface last year. but i'm also looking forward to fresh faces and attitudes.
We were 38th in BartTorvik after we lost at home against Duke last year. We're currently ranked 42nd nearly year-to-year. I'm pretty sure the end of season KenPom rating was inflated due to our March run.
It's an interesting question. What has been a bigger contributor to this season's downfall? Caleb or Nance?
I would argue it's Caleb because he has a higher usage and the offensive possession ends with the ball in his hands a lot of times. If that's the case, you just have to shoulder a bigger responsibility when things go wrong. You simply need your best player to not be one of the worst players in the country. Caleb takes the most shots, he takes the most 3's, and turns the ball over the most on our team.
I remember I was wary about Nance's shooting coming in because he had a below 30% 3-point shooting season a couple of years ago and I don't like assuming that basketball is a linear sport with experience. Shooting can especially be fluky and Nance wasn't a high volume shooter to warrant any level of confidence in those statistics. Manek had a huge sample size and was consistent every year as a shooter.
This season is a caution that players aren't guaranteed to get better just because of talent and/or experience. You need the right type of player and need players who have skills to fall back on in case they run into difficulties during the season.
Spot on.
Last season we started 40th on Pomeroy, dropped to a low of 53 after a sluggish start, then started climbing back to that 40 vicinity where we bounced around for the rest of the regular season.
On this date last year we lost to a bad Pitt team on our own court. As a consequence we dropped 10 spots on Pomeroy to 49th. Going into the Championship game, we were 16th, and arguably should have been higher. An impressive rise.
We were 18-8 after that Pitt loss. We're 16-10 now. I'm guessing that our somewhat better ranking this year vs last year is due to other teams being worse. That is, we are actually a worse team, but the competition sucks even more.
