UNC only lost three games last year so it didn’t seem such a stretch when they had everybody back and a top recruiting class and were beating teams by thirty points. Of course, it may be turning out that the Ginyard and Zeller injuries are much more important than previously thought and that the other freshman are less ready to step in.

It is definitely doable in the way that going undefeated in the NFL is doable–very, very hard but far from impossible, unlike say, going undefeated in the NBA or the NHL.

1. All of the “can UNC go undefeated” tripe was media-driven, depsite what the ABCers say. Usually the undefeated talk begins about the first of February when someone looks around and a team is 22-0. To saddle this team with this idea in December and early January was ludicrous and unfair to the team.

2. There’s a reason why the NBA is best-of-7. In college, one team plays well, one team plays awful, and you get beat over a 30-game season. Add to the fact that we missed a thousand chippies and a hundred free throws and were still within 4 in the last minute against a team that traditionally plays well against us. You don’t think Duke sweats when Virginia Tech comes in the gym? It’s because VT has shown they can beat Duke, and BC has shown the same against us.

3. Let’s call it what it is – this team hasn’t played a terribly good basketball game since Michigan State. Deon is regressing into, well, Deon and the chemistry just doesn’t seem right. Was anyone else uncomfortable with Graves in at crunch time last night?

A season is a marathon, not a sprint. When Florida returned practically everyone from the NCAA champs, not even then did someone suggest an unbeaten season. I’m not one who believes in “good losses”, but at least that glass slipper is broken and we don’t have to deal with it anymore. Now we have CofC to work out some kinks and get ready for Wake. I predict things will be just fine.

at one point last night I yelled out – Hell if that’s the best you can defind go zone!

Indeed I was rooting all the way!

Up to now, Carolina had not had a team closer than 11 points to us in the second half. You obviously are not going to maintain that the whole year, but that is one key. Generally, leads of over four to five possessions are safe in the final four minutes regardless of what the opponent does.

What really bothers me is looking at three similar games, the Georgetown game from 2007, the Kansas game from last year and the BC game and seeing how similar the stat lines are for Lawson and Ellington in all three games, on both offense and defense. In all three games, our guards almost completely disappeared on offense, while allowing the opposing guards to torch us with over fifty percent shooting.

I am looking at the box scores from the Georgetown-UNC game in 2007, the Kansas game and last night’s game and they all look disspiritingly similar. Lawson, 2-9, Lawson, 2-11, Lawson 3-13, with very poor assist to turnover ratios. Ellington wasn’t much better in those games, especially from three point range, going 1-6, 1-9 and 2-7 last night. All three squads had equal or superior guards to UNC. Georgetown’s starting guards went 12-20 from the floor; Kansas’s went 16-27 and BC’s last night went 16-28 from the floor, overall and 6-13 from three point land.

Obviously, stats are going to be worse when you lose, so maybe the positive thing to take away is that we need good play from our guards to win, and perhaps that our opponents need both Ellington and Lawson to be off to beat us, but what really concerns me is that our guards weren’t just off, they basically melted down in all three of these games. Perhaps bad shooting is something you can’t control, but all three of these losses saw Carolina’s getting smoked on both ends of the court by the opponent’s guards.

We are looking at games over three years and these guys are all juniors and seniors for the most part now. I am not sure this group of guys either wants to play defense or is willing to learn. Wake Forest fans are familiar with this phenomenon back from the Chris Paul days. Those Wake teams could look spectacular one day, while beating UNC and look pathetic the next, getting torched by Illinois and then getting lit up by FSU and West Virginia for more than 100 points.

I will say that UNC had a chance to just quit and take their beating when they were down 15, the way that UConn did, and in spite of the huge odds against them, they made a game out of it. I will have to look again but my recollection is that they never got closer than four, but even if they had pulled the game out, it wouldn’t change anything. The issue is how they played, not merely whether they won or lost.

I never expected us to go undefeated, but I sure as hell didn’t expect a 1st loss (spanking) at home to BC either. We have the talent, but this week will tell a lot about whether this team has the mental toughness. Like it or not, the wolves are at the door and they smell blood.

One thing I though we could have done is change up our zone offense. Maybe try Green at the high post, or move Tyler up there and let Deon go down low. They were collapsing on Tyler so much there was no room to operate. He (Tyler) also made some poor decisions vs. zone/double teams. We never ‘hit the gaps’ well against the zone. Drive, kick out, reverse the ball, then go inside.

Also, some said we should have played zone on defense. Wouldn’t have mattered. If you don’t have good man principles, you can’t make a zone work, either. Plus, it’s tougher to rebound out of the zone (which is partly why we had 20+ offensive rebounds).

We had an off day against a team that, while less talented, matched up well, was brilliantly led by its senior star, and played hard (yes, harder than we did). We woke up, but too late.

A wise man once told me that “experience” is what you get when you don’t get what you want. Yesterday, we saw some college kids get experience. Perhaps they won’t learn from it, but their improvement from last season, and the Kansas disaster in particular, suggests to me — although it does not prove — that they will. Every team in America is going to lose this year, and I’d bet a lot that a chunk of those losses are going to be inflicted by inferior opponents.

Nothing is guaranteed in college basketball, just as nothing is guaranteed in life. We were never a sure thing to win the national championship, but no sensible person thought otherwise. What we were — and, yesterday’s poor performance notwithstanding, what we are today — is the team with a better shot to win it than any other. And the team with a player like no other. For that we can, and I believe should, be proud and grateful, even in the aftermath of a very disappointing defeat.