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Last year this time, us North Carolina Tar Heels fans were touting the team’s efforts of overcoming an average regular season to ascend to a college basketball national championship game that they should’ve won. The team returned four starters from the 2022 national runner up squad making them a preseason number one in this year’s college basketball poll. The very disappointing season that saw UNC fall out of the polls after Christmas brought to light one thing that Pittsburg Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin always says- “Each season is different.”
So much for the carry-over and hunger from coming up just short in the previous season. So much for the team returning experience and talent and replacing perimeter shooting with a player gained from the transfer portal.
Do you know why each season is different? For one, you don’t know how injuries and off the court issues will factor into game competition. Second, you can gauge weight, height, free throw and field goal percentage statistically, but you can’t measure heart, passion, desire and will. You also can’t measure whether a collection of players will be complementary with one another in what skill sets they bring to the court. I feel for the guys like Leaky Black who came back for a fifth season and Armando Bacot, senior about how they ended their careers in the baby blue. In addition, my advice to the backcourt of RJ Davis and Caleb Love is to come back for your senior seasons because all of y’all’s NBA stock went way down this year!
As I watched this team this year, it was taken for granted perhaps that they could regain the spark and energy it took to lift them out of a subpar season like they did last year this time. But it just didn’t happen. There was not enough diving for loose balls, getting back in transition defense, taking charges, overplaying passing lanes or sustained movement without the ball. These are the nuances of basketball that make for championship teams when all things are equal. Although they are my least favorite team in college basketball, this is one thing that I’ve always admired about Duke University.
When North Carolina found out that it would not be one of the 68 teams that would be in the big dance this season, the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) quickly came a knockin’. And just as swift and perhaps in an ultimate display of arrogance, the blue blood Tar Heels spurned the NIT’s offer. I’m conflicted on whether my favorite team should’ve accepted the offer. On the one hand, I think they certainly have the talent to win the thing and give players who plan to be around next year more time to develop against some pretty good competition. But, on the other hand, I just don’t think I can take another possession of passionless Tar Heels basketball in 2023.
Patrick Ervin is the editor for the Delta Democrat Times. Write to him at .
