Hello. My name is Doc and I was an NIT naysayer.
Hi, Doc.
OK, I admit it. I was one of those folks who thought the season was over and was kind of hoping UNC would not receive an NIT bid, or would turn it down (assuming you can even turn it down). At 16-15 in the regular season and after a disappointing loss in the ACC Tournament, I didn’t think my eyes could bleed any more than they already had through 32 games, and my heart just wasn’t in it for an NIT embarrassment. Plus, after 14 years of coaching high school and college basketball, I thought I could tell when a team was just done. From Larry Drew’s awful body language to Deon Thompson’s lack of heart to Dexter Strickland having the shanks, I just knew it needed to be over. Nothing good was going to come out of stretching this thing out one more game.
It appears I may have been mistaken.
How this team went from nearly pathetic to learning how to scratch and claw for wins in less than a week’s time is beyond me. I’m sure a sports psychology honors thesis will one day be written about how the Tar Heels went from an also-ran to pretty doggoned competitive in such short order. Carolina is still struggling with issues that have plagued them all season, but they are learning to manage their shortcomings and, more important, they are hustling, diving after loose balls, making better decisions, and appearing to enjoy themselves.
Certainly the weight of expectations was high, and nearly all observers agree that UNC was overrated at the beginning of the season. But it was not unreasonable to expect players to grow, fill their roles, and be competitive throughout the year. For whatever reason that did not happen, until last week. UNC on March 25 looks like the team most people expected to see on January 25, which is to say not doing everything right or everything well, but well enough to win games and get better from week to week.
It has been a fortnight of redemption for those who received much of the blame for the fall from grace. Deon Thompson and Marcus Ginyard helped lead the Heels past William & Mary and Larry Drew made the game-winner against Mississippi State. Along the way, Tyler Zeller and John Henson have played as part of the strong front line everyone expected at the start of the season, and Dexter Strickland and Will Graves have stepped up to make key shots and big buckets. And not getting a lot of glory for the team’s NIT play so far is Roy Williams, who must receive credit for keeping the thing in the road and moving forward.
Whatever it was, either the complete relief of not making the NCAAs and having no pressure, or the tiny hotel rooms with twin beds, or just finally realizing, as Jimmy Chitwood said in Hoosiers, “it’s about time I started playing ball,” I must admit I have enjoyed watching Carolina basketball again. The level of play in the NIT has washed out some of the sour taste from the season and gives Roy a chip to use in the off-season preparations. This is a much better way to end the season than bitter and angry after the Duke and Georgia Tech losses.
So I can admit it. I was an NIT naysayer – and I was wrong.
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Doc, I, too, was a NIT naysayer. It’s nice to know that you aren’t alone in this.
(Don’t get me wrong…I’m still looking forward to next season!)
rathskellar: I know you’re out there…come on back
I was definitely in favor of UNC playing in the NIT, but I’d be flat out lying if I told you I thought that they would make it to NYC.
Doc, you were/are in very good company sir. From the wanting it to just be over and done with, to the glimmer of hope returning, to the delight in seeing the closest thing we’ve seen to Carolina basketball being played since ……well….since last fall. I’m a long time Heel fan (read older than most of ya’ll) so I’m used to the highs and lows. Except the lows never felt this bad before.
There’s no one thing that caused the mess that was this season but I do think expectations and pressure were key. The guys stopped having fun and when they did the whole thing snowballed. That snowball crashed against dook and fell apart with the loss to GT in the ACCT. Since then the whole attitude has changed. They’re having fun again and they have a little bit of confidence.
Being a Tar Heel fan ain’t for sissies!
If Dook loses this weekend, we could be the last ACC team standing. Never thought that could happen.
Good for you, Doc.
A big part of the involvement on sites like this, and fandom in general, is making observations, conclusions, and projections about the team. Opinions this year have been very sharp, and it takes a good person to admit, without a dozen qualifiers, he may have been wrong . I’ll admit it didn’t look good, but that overweight lady had not begun to sing.
The most baffling thing to me this year was the mental and competitive digression. It’s also the hardest to put a precise finger on, so I really haven’t tried.
I can’t say, though, that the season was totally a wipe out until just recently. Those early season wins, and a reasonable level of success, count for something – that, or they were a total fluke, which I don’t think is the case. It’s also the part that makes what followed even more confusing.
If you follow sports long enough you understand that these types of mini-turnarounds are certainly possible, if not likely. And it’s not about false hope, or pipe dreams, but about just letting things fully play out.
This year the Heels pretty much took it to the last inch of the last mile before somewhat of a reclamation took place. Events like this are what always keep me coming back.
someday, we may hear from a particularly insightful member of this team about what the psyche of the team was this year, as it progressed.
preseason Top 5, media hype that we were reloading, that we could be a Final Four team again. how the freshmen brought this or that.
then we started off pretty well. what were we, 11-3? then the holidays came. maybe, and this is pure conjecture, the families and friends, just in being supportive and fans of the team, talked about how there was going to be success again.
pressure started to mount.
maybe Roy added pressure, with the ACC season about to begin. maybe his remarks, his backhanded compliments, became with more tone. maybe this particular group of young guys felt more pressure than they could deal with.
its my opinion, that when you have a fear of failure, you can make errors in learning, in execution, etc. errors you wouldnt normally make in an atmosphere of less anxiety.
maybe things snowballed.
maybe there’s a touch of lack of chemistry thrown in, based on rumor and rumor alone about how connected ed davis is to the rest of the guys.
NOW, the pressure is once and for all in the rearview mirror. as of Selection Sunday, they were not going to the NCAA. they werent going to run the table and get in. it was over. permanently.
pressure, relieved. maybe they felt it, maybe Roy felt it and changed his tone. dont know. speculation, only.
but again, if Zeller says they didnt play this loose all year, then that means something.
i didnt think theyd win 3 games either. i thought the burden of the whole unpleasant season would linger on them, and they wouldnt have their hearts in it.
but now they have a lot of good they can take from it into the offseason, and the energy coming in next year can change the psyche for good.
Doc, the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Well done.
I admit I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of watching the Heels get beat in the first game of the NIT, and I was ready for the season to be over so I could concentrate on baseball and football. But that is what makes March fun (whether it is NIT or NCAA), you never know what might happen.
You know what’s funny?
In January and February how many times (myself included) did we all project starting lineups for next year? Discuss and predict whose staying, leaving or transferring?
That’s what losing does, it makes us talk about anything and everything (Twitter, recruiting web sites, Clay Aiken concerts, etc.) that can make us not have to dwell on the abysmal present. But winning does strange things, haven’t seen nearly as much talk about Harrison, Reggie, Kendall, Twitter, etc. since this team started to play like it didn’t want to stop playing, ever. Kudos to this team for not listening to us or anyone else and just truly leaving everything on the floor.
So Doc, I appreciate your honesty and while I was a strong advocate of the NIT because I thought this scenario was somewhat possible I think I may have a worse confession:
Hello. My name is Chris and I was a next-season-looker-forwarder-this-season-forgetter.
Hi, Chris.
N&O ran a story today, about how much ESPN is loving that UNC is in the NIT, last game was the highest rated NIT game since 2006.
Though I hope they didnt make the NIT, I am truely happy that the kids are playing well. UAB was the first game in 2010, I expected them to win, not Hope, but EXPECTED, them to win.
Credit to Roy for getting the players to believe, and show us again why he is one of the best coaches in America.
Its been a long year, but I want it, NOW, to last two more games,.
^^ Two thumbs up Chris!
” My name is Chris and I was a next-season-looker-forwarder-this-season-forgetter.”
This NIT run is still about next season not this season, no matter what Roy says. Do you actually think you will look back 5 years from now and say, “remember that great run in the NIT back in 2010, boy those were good times” or head to the Dean Dome and say “hey son look up there that is the 2010 NIT Championship Banner, man that was one special team that was a joy to watch play”?
Has this NIT run been great? Hell yeah, especially compared to the pile of dung we’ve had to endure the past 3 months, but let’s be honest this performance in the NIT has only mad a stinky season not smell quite as bad as it once did. But in the end it still stinks. This NIT is all about a springboard for next season, where hopefully the team is building habits and confidence that will be used as the foundation for making a run at the REAL Tournament and the REAL Final Four this time next year. What we all hope to do is look back upon this season a year or two from now after Carolina has won another National Championship or made another FF appearance and say “Wow, look where this team came from” just like we all did in 2005.
But for me this NIT still is about looking forward to next season because I don’t know about you, but I’m not sporting any 2010 NIT Champion T-Shirts or saving a whole bunch of memories from this season, even if Carolina finishes #66.
^so no “Two-time NIT Champions” t-shirt? with 1971 and 2010 featured prominently?
Great write up, Doc.
I was one of those who was all in favor of the NIT. Like everyone else I’ve been mystified by this team. I wanted the NIT because I hoped that if, even for one game, we could play with some intensity and make big plays, it would make us so much better in the future. Not just next year, but probably for years to come.
This team has gone from giving me a season I want to forget to being a team that I will remember with some fondness. I think it shows a lot of character to get knocked down like they did and get back up and play hard in the NIT. The last couple of weeks has sure made up for a lot of heartache this season.
I think many of us harbored the thoughts that Doc expressed in that we had mostly given up on a team that seemed to have also thrown in the towel on this season, but for whatever reasons that has changed with the NIT wins. Great!
I credit no small amount of this change to the emergence of John Henson and the joy that he has brought into play on the court. Attitudes have changed by others and the result is 3 straight wins over competitive teams.
The Heels have now won more post-season games than any other ACC team that has played in the NCAA’s. Now if Perdue will come thru tonight and send Dook back home to their gothic rockpile in Durham, happy days will again reign in Tarheel Nation.
Three down and two to go! Go Heels!!
If somebody is going to invite the Heels to play someplace, I am going to watch.
I think I have so many positive memories of the NIT during its second heyday in the late 60′s and early to mid 70′s, that it is hard for me to ever see going as a negative. Granted, back then you pretty much had to have 20 wins and 20 wins meant something back then. The NIT champion would usually end up ranked in the top ten, as well, until NCAA expansion.
The reason why UNC never played in the NIT until 1970 is that the ACC did not permit it until about 1966, I believe, and 1970 was the first year that UNC was eligible to play in the NIT. We would go on to win it in 1971, followed by Maryland in 1972 and VPI in 1973. UNC Charlotte would make a great run and finish second to Kentucky in 1976. These games were all nationally televised during a period when a lot of NCAA tourney games were not.
We are guaranteed two more games this season, which is extra practice for our team, plus a chance to pick up that 20th victory. No, it doesn’t make up for getting thrashed by UVa at home, but we may one day think of its therapeutic effect as how “Roy got his groove back.”
william, I’m printing up some 2010 NIT Champion T-Shirts, I’ll put you down for a dozen
“No, it doesn’t make up for getting thrashed by UVa at home”
William, I was at that game, 4 rows from the front, best seats I have ever had for a UNC game, and got to witness that…..
I will never forget that game, and the feeling of watching the WaHOOs, blow us out at the Dean Dome. That was my low pt of the season, Duke a very close second.