Sunday, March 19, 2006

Carolina's Out

Argh!

I really love these Tar Heels. They've got a really fantastic spirit and great chemistry. A bunch of excellent guys. It was a real joy getting to watch 'em play this year. It was a privilege. It was especially fun given that everyone predicted that we'd be terrible this year after losing 97.5% of our scoring last year. The whole ACC was said to be gearing up to give us the ass-whuppin' they all seem to think we've earned over the last 40 years or so... (As if they didn't get enough payback during the Dougherty years...) But it was not to be. So it was a really great, fun, surprising, rewarding year.

Needless to say, none of us expected them to win it all (though you can never completely rule Carolina out...), but the smart money was on them making it at least to the Sweet Sixteen. I wish they'd at least have gone out on a high note by playing a good game, but that's the thing, of course, with a young team: inconsistency. Their last three games have been decidedly uneven and fairly lackluster. So that was kind of disappointing--we really wanted to see them come together and put out one of those stellar games they played toward the end of the season. Unfortunately they don't seem to do well against rough teams like BC and GMU that bump and grind and slap and hand-check a lot. Needless to say, I do wish the refs had called this one just a bit closer, but it was within specs and that's the way it goes. Carolina did themselves in by coming out and throwing the ball away six times in a row on their first six posessions of the second half, giving up the lead more-or-less for good. Very, very ugly, exactly the kind of thing you get from such a young team--especially a team without an experienced, effective point guard. They never recovered from that. Too bad, also, given that Wichita State beat Tennessee, opening up an even easier road to the final eight than we already had. Ah, well. That, as they say, is why they play the games.

But Mason did what they had to do, they didn't get intimidated, didn't give up (even when down 16-2), didn't back down, and somehow forced us to play their game. They shot an astounding field-goal percentage in the second half, neutralizing Carolina's fast break, and basically triple-teamed Hansbrough every time he touched the ball.

So, anyway, big congrats to GMU.

Man, I sure hate it that I won't get to see this team play anymore, and I'm especially going to hate to see David Noel--one of my favorite UNC players of all time--go. What a great story. Had scholarship offers from lots of other schools, but wanted to play for Carolina, so he came in as a walk-on, but eventually earned a scholarship for himself, and became the team captain this year . We've got an astounding recruiting class coming in next year--#1 in the country--and that'll be nice. Nice, but not the same. These guys just had amazing heart.

Ah, well. At least it means that I can start getting some work done again instead of watching basketball all the time.

Um, how long 'til November?

3 Comments:

Blogger rilkefan said...

Ok, I totally don't care about this, but since comments are working again:

"We've got an astounding recruiting class coming in next year--#1 in the country"

Why is that?

6:31 PM  
Blogger rilkefan said...

Let me amend that to, "since comments aren't entirely screwed up".

The front-page comment link doesn't work, and http://philosoraptor.blogspot.com/2006/03/huh-um-can-anybody-explain-to-me-what.htmldoesn't work for me.

9:28 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Thanks for the info, Rilkefan.

Duh, I'm not sure what you mean by "the front-page comment link"...

Re: the other question: well, UNC's historically gotten good recruits. Kids--rightly--want to work with Williams and be part of the whole UNC thing.

9:19 AM  

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