Exams were tough on everybody it would seem.
Wake Forest only won by 13 over a 2-7 Wright State team.
Georgia Tech lost to Illinois-Chicago. No word on if they made a bid for Obama’s Senate seat in the process.
Miami muddled through versus Robert Morris winning by eight.
So for anyone freaking out about the Heels performance versus Oral Roberts, don’t. Big breaks in the middle of the schedule shake things up and often times lead to rusty play. Meanwhile….
Boston College reeled off an impressive string of wins over the likes of UMass, Bryant U and USC Upstate. Actually, the win over UMass does carry some weight, especially since that same UMass team clipped Kansas over the weekend. Interesting to note that the Eagles offense seems to have found some balance. Tyrese Rice is only averaging 15 ppg with three other teammates averaging in double figures.
Virginia Tech lost to Georgia by one. The Hokies simply cannot win the close games. Their four losses have come by a combined eight points. And none of the losses are considered bad losses. Now #9 Xavier needed a half court shot at the buzzer to beat the Hokies. Wisconsin and Seton Hall are a combined 16-3 while Georgia is 6-3 and decent in their own right. Despite the record, VT will be a dangerous team to play when the ACC gets going.
Duke will not play again until Wednesday. Given the fact the prep for exams was tough on the team I can only assume UNC Asheville will beat the Devils since the exams themselves will likely be debilitating for the players.
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I bet Roy secretly loves games like we saw on last Saturday. He gets all the benefit of a loss (grabbing the players attention with a brutal series of marathons, err.. I mean… practices) without any of the downside (you know, actually losing!)
Yes and the players know full well their play was crappy. That is the benefit of a veteran team. They will show up and work this week in practice. Evansville is 7-1 and should not be trifled with. There will be a lot of extra attention on Tyler as he scored his nine points to pass Ford. The team in general needs to stay focused despite all of that going on.
Georgetown, which got hosed by Tennessee, is now rated number one by Pomeroy:
http://kenpom.com/rate.php
Sagarin, who has remained in control of his faculties, unlike Ken, apparently, still has Carolina number one overall and in both of his pertinent categories, as does Greenfield:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/bkt0809.htm
http://www.teamrankings.com/ncb/
What is Ken Pomeroy smoking? Did he forget to carry the one or something?
I hope Roy posts Pomeroy’s ranking on the bulletin board.
Yea, I think I saw Roy make a cell phone call during the second half to the Maintenance Dept.
“Yes, Joe, please make arrangements to remove all rims from the backboards in our practice facility”.
Virginia Tech lost to Georgia by one. The Hokies simply cannot win the close games. Their four losses have come by a combined eight points. And none of the losses are considered bad losses.
I guess Greenberg will again be lobbying hard for a spot in the NCAAT at season’s end when they’ve won maybe 18 games and have 8 or 9 wins in conference and ACCT. I like the guy, but he needs for his teams to somehow get it done on the court. As I said last Spring, there’s a place for teams like VaTech in the postseason: the NIT.
Seth should have recruited Stephen Curry….
Everyone says that but at the point in which you begin investing trying to recruit these guys, no one had any idea that Curry was going to turn out to be this good. Besides that, Greenberg explained that at the time Curry came out of HS he did not have a slot for him, he had Dowdell and Gordon already as starters and told Curry he could come but he would redshirt and go without a scholarship. Probably not a big deal on the money but if he wanted to play right away he was told to go elsewhere so he did and Davidson benefited from it.
Sounds like the same exact situation that Dean Smith faced with Hubert Davis.
When the all time greatest player from your school, (only great player) Dell Curry has a son and said son wants to play for VA Tech, any coach with one whit of sense finds a spot for the kid.
Dean Smith told Walter Davis’s nephew that he was not good enough to play at Carolina but as long as Hubert understood that, he was welcome to come on board as a scholarship player.
Dean would say something similar to another kid that he felt a strong connection to, Ranzino Smith. Things worked out pretty well for Dean, Ranzino and especially, for Hubert, who led Carolina to the Final Four after having missed for many years, played for the Knicks and now is a successful commentator for ESPN.
Curry actually has a second son who looks to be pretty decent and he is not playing for Tech either, but rather in Tech’s back door at Liberty University. Seth Greenberg should not be heard to bitch and moan this year if he misses the tournament and gets fired. It is all on him.
There is no reason why Curry’s brother should have ended up at Liberty unless he simply chose it.
That’s part of where the Carolina family comes in. Dean was willing to give up a spot for a kid who he thought might not have the necessary skills, just because the kid’s dad was part of the “family”. It’s just another reason that we are the best college basketball program in history.
I agree. Curry’s dad and mom both were athletes at Tech and now I think they are basically out of contact with the program.
Coaching turnover has something to do with that. Dean was at UNC for 36 years and even his three successors were all part of his program. You are basically talking about the same program being maintained through different coaches for almost 50 years now.
No question that coaching turnover (or lack thereof) has significantly helped our program. However, I also think that UNC (especially Dean) has always put forth the effort to reach out to former players. Other schools have not done so, and I think it really hurts their programs.
Case in point, NC State has finally tried to embrace some of its past with the hiring of Lowe and Towe. However, it has taken them decades to do so, and Valavano’s name is still taboo in some NC State circles. Yet he is one of the best coaches they ever had, and certainly made for a much more interesting rivalry. However the State administration threw him under the bus and washed their collective hands of him. I think some of that animosity contributed to the bottoming out of their program during the 90′s (even after the sanctions were history).
HeelYeah,
I hate to disagree—technically it happened after he was head basketball coach—but I’d say that Dean wasn’t exactly a “family” guy when it came to the hiring and tenure of Matt Doherty. By all accounts, Dean wanted Rick Majerus instead of Doherty, and after he became coach, I have the feeling Dean gave Doherty plenty of rope to hang himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for Dean as a coach and as a person, and I certainly agree that Carolina Basketball is if not the best, then no less than the runner-up program in history. I just don’t believe as much in the “Carolina Family” myth as I once did.
(THF, I apologize for once again being a Doherty defender and possibly causing this thread to veer wildly off topic.)
When it comes to coaching, I don’t necessarily think we have to keep it in the family. There are a lot of other good coaches out there. And if, for some reason, Roy left UNC, I would consider the likes of Pitino, Donovan, ect. I sure would take them over someone with lack of experience, in the family or not.
I could be wrong, but I thought the rumors were that Doherty came in guns blazing and sort of upset the balance a little early on. Now I don’t necessarily blame him for trying to put his stamp on the program, but you’ve got to understand the situation that you’re getting yourself into. I wonder if he stepped on Dean’s toes a bit and Dean let him go his own way. That being said, I do think that Doherty got the shaft and was put into a situation that he had little chance of surviving.
My point about Dean was more along the lines of what Sam Perkins said in his video in the basketball museum. He said that Dean calls him all of the time, and probably knows where he’s going before he even knows it. The sheer respect and admiration (I’d say bordering on love) that these guys have for Dean, Coach Gut, and Roy show that the relationships they forge go beyond coach/player.
RE: hiring Doherty, I always heard that Baddour jumped the gun pretty quick to get him in, and Dean was wanting to wait it out longer to perhaps speak with Majerus. Whatever his qualms, mr roly-poly knew himself some basketball. Plus, I suspect Doherty went on a power trip knowing he had a marquee program at his command. I just think it was quite soon in his coaching tenure; he now suffers in the no-man land known as SMU basketball. SMU athletics is, well it’s not UNC for sure.
PITINO?? DONOVAN ?? HELL, THROW CALIPARI IN THE MIX WHILE WE’RE ATIT. NO WAY, NOT IN A HUNDRED YEARS. Winners yes…does not mean i would ever welcome them to the Hill.
Same topic, similar question: what role do you think the athletic boosters / Rams club played in the dismissal of Doherty and Re-recruitment of Roy Williams? I recall that a lot of folks (myself included) were unhappy in the way long-term assistants such as Hanners and Ford were treated after Coach Gut stepped down.
WE can think this happens in the small confines of our UNC basketball world, but just check out how far a program like Nebraska football has come. They are still hoping to figure it out…coach # 3 is just getting started.
I’d have no problem with Pitino. Calipari ranks number 3 on the list of coaches who can stick it where the sun don’t shine, with #1 being Boeheim and #2 being K.