Wilf — I don’t think it’s whining to point out deficiencies that were there for all to see, most unfortunately including the Syracuse players, and to think about what might be needed to correct them.

1. It’s not enough to say that the sky isn’t falling. That’s not the question. The question is whether this games augurs trouble for the future. It does.

2. The trouble specifically is playing against an athletic team with a zone defense. When your guards aren’t good enough to get the ball inside, and you don’t have relialbe outside scoring, you’re in for trouble. We saw the results tonight.

3. We are nonetheless good enough to overcome our weaknesses with the kind of effort we got in the first half.

4. In the second half, we came out not ready to play. This was not like our other second halves this year, in which we merely seemed content to battle on even terms with inferior teams. Repeated air balls and turnovers every other play are a sign of something more troubling than that.

I have very seldom seen a Carolina basketball team come out not ready to play. I wonder if something happened at halftime that we haven’t heard about.

5. It’s not just that, in those dreadful first ten minutes after halftime, we had neither an offense nor a defense. It’s that we had no star to lead us out of it. It’s great to have 11 or 12 talented players, which we do, but you can’t underestimate the value of someone the team can look to, and look up to, when things are grim.

Ginyard has the character for it but not the talent. So I think we’re stuck until someone else shows up, and right now I have no clue as to who that would be.

6. It’s also insufficient to say we’ll trust Roy. Of course we’ll trust him, first because he’s earned it, and second because we have no choice. But the players have to more than listen to him. They have to INTERNALIZE what he’s saying. The team I saw in the first ten minutes of the second half has done no such thing.

7. In addition to more creative guard play and better outside shooting, we need strength and toughness inside. We have height, but that’s not enough. We need muscle. Hansbrough is gone and left us grieving. All our big men need to get to the weight room, and all of them need to get mean. You would think they would have learned more from Hansbrough’s example.

8. About the only bright side I saw tonight was that the Wear brothers can play. They have both maturity and talent. This is a pleasant surprise. Right now I’d say they’re markedly better than Henson or Strickland, who were more sought after in high school.

9. We will lose again this year, a number of times. No disgrace in that with a team this young. But I very much hope we won’t be embarrassed, as we were tonight.

This early in the season, I won’t be unhappy, or surprised, with a single win in those three games…

Exactly, would we feel any better if this as 5pt loss? A loss is a loss. And this loss (along with the Vandy scrimmage) was another slap in the face, but this 16pt loss is more of a punch in the nuts. Again, this humbling experience will make the listening in practice and attention to detail more imperative for this group, and only good things can come from that….