Here is the question. Do you think Illinois has gotten over 2005 yet? They have won a game vs UNC since then, in 2006 but does that really matter? We still get pissed about Indiana in 1981 and 1984 or even Boston College in 1994. Chances are the crowd will be amped for a chance to stick it to the Heels. I will say this, Bruce Weber has had marginally better results vs UNC and Roy Williams than say, Tom Izzo.
Be aware of the commenting rules which are linked above in case you forgot. That means watch the profanity and the personal attacks on players or each other.
Comments if you have ‘em.
![[Bloglines]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[MySpace]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Technorati]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](../../../wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
When ur starting back court doesn’t score till 2 minutes into the second half. It can cause some problems. They heels can not score to save their lives. Scoring helps the defense.
we give more weak-ass fouls than any team I’ve ever seen.
ever.
He didn’t even touch him. Why can’t we get and 1′s like that? We deal with much more contact than that on our interior scores.
“I actually think this is a talent problem, mostly: Roy’s teams have always had the same defensive weaknesses and mental lapses, but they’ve also had premium talent. Right now, Henson and Zeller look pretty good, and nobody else looks like more than an average ACC starter at best.”
ding, ding we have a winner
Barnes was seriously rated the top high school recruit? No way! He looks more like a number 25-30 kid. The Illinois crowd is now chanting “over-rated”
Barnes: Take this game over. Show us … wow. Is the ranked team really shouting ‘overrated’ at you?
Destroy them.
They still dont get mad when teams dunk on them. Just turn their heads and run up court. Some please take a heart foul, are team has no heart. Lifeless zombies on the court waiting for the bottom to drop out.
We’re scoring, but Roy has 5 new guys waiting to go in. Offense for Defense already? Probably not (facepalm).
We’re seven games into the season and trouble is everywhere. Seven games is a quarter of the schedule. We’ve seen enough to ask The Great Forbidden Question:
Does Roy still have it?
At this point, that is still just a question, not an argument. But it is unfortunately a legitimate question.
what a bad team. Back to square one
Sh.. Misplaced, we get fouled harder on rebound attempts with no call. Wish we had this kind of home-court advantage.
Barnes looks scared to death out there. I don’t get it at all. Where is the fire. Where is the fight in these guys?
The are starting to get used to losing. That is a funk that is hard to cure. I honestly have no idea what this team does in practice.
Most of these guys are (trying) to play in the nba.Most of these are uncoachable. Don’t learn ANYTHING from PRACTICE. Where is our number 1 recruit, I don’t see him..
UNC33, this is not “blind optimism.” You can’t tell me that you aren’t seeing some things that you haven’t seen before this game? You’re not seeing more hustle, better defense, anything? Because that’s what I’m seeing. With developement and better leadership we will do better. Sorry I’m just not a negative person. I have this problem where I try to see the good in every situation.
I take back what I said about firing you Roy, BUT you are a major problem with this team.
TV announcer is saying that we lack leadership in the huddles. Wow, Barnes looks completely out of it on the bench. His mind is gone…far away from this game.
They have no pg, that runs the whole team. Until that get that, they aren’t going to be good.
Dexter’s good moments are SO not worth the bad ones…
Barnes is prolly thinking about kyrie and him getting barnes the ball in space so he can get out and run.
you know, as crappy as this looks, if our free throw percentage was anywhere near their 3-point percentage, we’d be in the game…
Right now… put all your 3 pt shooters in RIGHT NOW and let them fire away
It is blind optimism. I see nothing better. I see the same effort as last year with stupid mistakes. The rose-colored glasses need to be taken off.
Barnes not even on the court with 3:22 remaining. Not a good sign. And he looks completely distant on the bench. No emotion at all. Not talking to other players. Not cheering for the players on the court. Nothing.
partsman, that’s not how you get back in a game at all. We need to CATCH passes, get good looks, and make them. And getting stops would be great. Barnes and Marshall need to be in the game. We can actually score with Barnes if he could not be in 1-2 situations.
The 2 wide open shots they made to start the 2nd haft should have been a timeout right after to settle that down. They never recoverd from that disater
Good things I’ve seen in this game. Henson still looks like he’s improving on offense…that’s all I’ve got, seriously…Barnes was a no show again. LDII looks like he could care less that we’re losing. I realize Marshall had some bad turnovers, but has anyone else noticed how the other players on the court feed off of his energy and playmaking? They will actually pass the ball to him in the half court to create something whereas Drew just sits in the corner completely uninvolved in the offense.
Barnes’ complete lack of one-on-one game is what amazes me the most-I mean, I am completely honest and in no way exaggerating when I say this does not look like a guy who will get drafted. what NBA skill does he have??
5 out of 11 on Free throws tonight.
giving up all of these 3s are disasters. Seriously, is it that hard to realize that someone shooting 70% from 3 is gonna beat you if you’re shooting <50% from 2.
Oldschool, that’s called quit. And that what these guys do best. When it get tough they quit. It’s the most frustrating thing to watch, knowing the history of the program. Lynch, Tyler, Raymond, worthy, ford, and so on never quit.
Time for Hack-a-Henson
UNC33, okay, fine. You can think whatever you want, I’m not going to try and stop you. But, I don’t think it’s blind optimism. I don’t like what I see, but I have faith and I’m going to keep that faith until the world ends.
That guy in the gray? I want to punch him. He makes me mad.
I sure hope John is okay.
I agree Nick. barnes look very ordinary to me.
Just posted my season tix on craigslist for half price. Figured thats a little high but we’ll see what kind of offers I get.
3:00 mts left, Put strick in to guard best shooter, Marshall at pg then z, henson, knox. shoot the three
Keep the faith, UNCgirl. I’m with you.
klutch, I’ll give you an “I was on Franklin” t-shirt from 2009
Does Barnes have an identical twin who played HS basketball in Iowa the last 4 yrs?
We are now 0-3 against teams ranked in the top 50 this year (Sagarin rankings).
Thanks OldSchool. I’m a Tar Heel born and bred. That’s the way I’ll stay. Through thick and thin, I’m going to stay with this team. (That sounded way cheesier than I meant it to sound. Sorry dudes.)
Klutch, I’ve been meaning to buy myself a Christmas present. Thanks for putting those up there.
Maybe we should spend Wed-Fri in practice just working on free throws…
I mean… 4 time outs left with 40 seconds to play when you’re losing in the 2nd? Ugh.
C’mon man.
Not saying it is all Roy’s fault, but shouldn’t he be using those TOs for some line up changes? Get us fired back up?
The Illini fan’s have been brutal tonight. But have they been wrong?
can’t break 70 points again!
Barnes had 7 points on 2-8 shooting. It’s nothing short of shocking how overrated he seems to be. I mean, he may be the most overrated high school recruit of all-time.
Let’s stop acting like State fans shall we? Could we actually not throw our team and coach under the bus? I’m not trying to be rude here, but come on guys!
“Barnes had 7 points on 2-8 shooting. It’s nothing short of shocking how overrated he seems to be. I mean, he may be the most overrated high school recruit of all-time.”
i’m over 50 years old and i’ve never seen anything like it
I feel for Barnes. He looks so unhappy out there. The whole team seems out of it, as if Roy told them not to get emotional or something. These kids are not having fun at all.
In the heat of the moment I have 3 observations:
1. Larry is done. He played remarkably well in the 1st half (like he knew he had to produce) besides shooting. In the 2nd half he reverted back to the terrible play he’s trademarked this season. Marshall wasn’t good either, but he brought fire and passes that either did or should have led to buckets.
2. Strickland is garbage on offense when not going 94 ft. And he should never shoot the ball again in jumpshot form. To make matters worse, the thing he’s great at (finishing in transition, defense leading to DUNKS) he didn’t do and failed when he attempted.
3. We don’t punish anyone with anything we do. Zeller was out with foul trouble, but when he was in, he wasn’t grabbing rebounds and was missing free throws. When we fouled, we didn’t put them on the floor. We can’t make any buckets if people breathe on us. Take lessons from Kelvin Sampson, put on the friggin football pads, and get tough.
If I was coach, the 3 freshman, zeller and henson are starters. Lmac and knox get 20 mpg, larry and dex get 10-15 max unless we need strickland’s defense.
Sorry folks, this is the last time I come here to read or participate in comments. Yeah, not great game but not as awful as one would think reading the doom and gloom here. This place is far too fatalistic and negative.
If we were states fans we would accept a lose to Ill. Being a tar heel fan I think it’s disgraceful to lose to any big 10 school. But are offense is now worse than a big 10 school.
Again, the quitting is what kills me to watch. No one cares, they just take the ass whooping and get back on the bus and go home.
Agreed, UNCgirl, but I’m just stating the statistics. I actually feel bad for these guys. They want to succeed, but something is missing. It may simply be a talent gap. Not sure.
I don’t think a breakthrough is impossible, but there’s so much wrong that it’s at least a month away, if it gets here.
One major, major problem is that we lack both a leader and, so far as I can tell, anyone who even has the makings of a leader. That is big trouble.
Why did you remove my post? I didn’t swear or degrade anyone. I just spoke my opinion about Roy Williams and his using Dean Smith as an excuse for his coaching.
Is there any chance Barnes has a nagging injury of some sort? I honestly have not seen ANYTHING that justifies the hype. Even if he was forcing things you would see one or two plays that make him look spectacular, but even the 7 points he scored were pretty pedestrian.
Turnovers. A couple of them happened on rebound attempts and reaching in. First, if defenders are going to be allowed to push us (off the ball) and push the actual rebounder, we need to find a way to fall down and get the call. 2nd, if we are allowing defenders to reach in, grab our wrists, and take the ball from us, we need to find a way to position our bodies so that we draw that foul, instead of it leading to a fast break the other way. Yes, they started calling it in the last 5 minutes, but I guess that’s because the game was out of reach already.
I can’t believe we can’t shoot the ball any better than we do. Barnes is giving us no penetration, even when he has 1 on 1 situation. Im really at a loss for words. If pushing the ball in the paint weren’t so turnover risky, I’d say give it to Z and Henson every possession down there. We’ve got to be able to hit some peremiter shots and a much more efficient rate.
I’ll never understand how we can play such good defense, and have guys hit the most difficult shots on us anyway. I mean really, we hold them to inside 10 seconds on the shot-clock to watch them hit fadeaways with hands in their faces. If we get any closer, we’d foul them. Trust me, we would.
HOW WILL WE EVER BE ABLE TO BE LOCKDOWN DEFENDERS WHEN WE GET CALLED FOR FOULS THAT ARE SOFT TOUCH AT BEST?
Why did you remove my post? I didn’t swear or degrade anyone. I just spoke my opinion about Roy Williams and his using Dean Smith as an excuse for his coaching or lack thereof.
Blueblood, we need to spend practice rebounding and dunking in traffic. Assistant coach needs to shoot the ball, and 2 players go at it for a rebound. Do matchups like Zeller vs Drew. other assistants need to have the blocking pads out and hit the player that grabs the ball. Loser runs. If the winner dropped the rebound on the bump, they run.
Grab rebounds and develop strong hands. I have stopped caring about anything fragile about the players and their confidence. And Roy needs to realize he’s losing his team. Start marshall, there is fire there that Larry has never had.
My first game of the season to watch all the way through. I am totally perplexed. Little improvement from last year. Henson the one bright spot tonight. Strickland is scared to death to shoot the ball. Barnes in no way resembles a McD’s All-American. I’m starting to worry greatly about him. Drew…what can you say. Some improvement but he may be the worst Carolina starting PG other than Boone in 40+ years.
This team will struggle mightily to make the Big Dance. What will Roy’s explantion be? I don’t care what the excuse is, he is ultimately responsible for this mess of a team. I can forgive one bad year…but not two in a row.
I’ve read a few frustration comments tonight, but nothing beyond the pale. Did I miss something? Fans have to be able to vent to some degree, right? At the end of the day, we are all Tarheels rooting for our team. We get frustrated sometimes. That’s all.
That was awful….
I have no explanation or theory on why this team is as horrible as it is. Roy can’t seem to find his five best players on this team and play them. Hell, our supposed savior is giving opposing fans a reason to shout “overrated” and all he can do is sit on the bench with a lost look in his eyes.
OldSchool, I’m the first to admit that we have problems that need to be fixed. What I have a problem with is people are ignoring the good and focusing one the bad, giving up hope, and generally being rude about a group of college kids trying to do what they love and play basketball. Throwing our coach under the bus and making personal attacks on players is despicable.
I’m in with BuonRotto. People forget that this team has 1 returning starter, and that 1 returning starter is Larry Drew. It doesn’t matter how much talent a team has, when they’re all freshman and sophomores who have never played at this high level of basketball until now (or last season sitting behind upperclassmen).
These are growing pains, for everyone on the team. These words will float over spoiled UNC fans deaf ears, so why even bother. Tar Heel “faithful” have been spoiled with success, that a down year is unbearable. Dook fans must really be getting to you guys. You guys sound like how Dookies want UNC fans to sound.
We lost this game on a 10 minute lapse on defense.
Barnes has lost some confidence -he has never been in this situation before - where he does not perform well.
Thought we have some hustle back - did not quit. We have a tendancey to be out of position on defense. That is what costs us games.
If we improve shooting just a little bit and increase FT Percentage -we could have won all three games we lost.
Love you guys support - already bailing out. It is easy to be fans when winning. True fans stay the course.
Roy knows more about coaching than all of us put together. It is easy to coach from your living room.
Fortunately for us, we have some cupcakes right in our own back yard, the ACC. But, we have to beat Kentucky and or Texas to give us a good top 25 team win. I don’t think we see the tournament without those.
With our next nonconference games, can we even pencil in Evansville as a win? Not with this bunch…..
I’m with you, JBowling. I thought our defense was pretty good tonight, but they just seemed to always find a way to make a shot with the shot clock winding down.
But if they’re always making those shots, is it good defense? I can’t tell if they’re getting lucky, or if I’m just only seeing the plays they make versus the times we force them to make bad shots.
I seem to remember a lot of good looking shots rimming out last year, and that being the case this year. Something is up. Chemistry is off. Or we’re just spoiled by the 09 team, and the 05 team.
I also have a nagging feeling something else is amiss, but I’m not ready to voice that yet. For the love of Dean, I hope I’m wrong.
The Henson experiment failed last year.The Watts experiment has failed this year. The McGraph for Holiday coaching change prior to last season has been a failure. Dean said you should not write a book until you retire.
I’m going to bed y’all. Please try to be positive and keep the faith! Go Heels!
Well MTH, we very well may be spoiled by our recent success of 05-09, but failing to make the tournament 2 years in a row is not UNC basketball. I’ve watched UNC since 81, and I can’t remember a time through the 80′s or 90′s we’ve failed to make the tournament. Even at our worst, we were still pretty good. We were just a few mistakes away from beating Florida in 2000, and that team was the one with Capel & Lange. So this is really odd to me what we are encountering right now. Just seems weird.
Amen, OldSchool. But seriously, we have got to make changes. Barnes and Marshall and Bullock especially came into this season with an edge about them that the other players lacked. That edge is wearing off. This can be blamed on many things (lack of a pg that has a sense of competitiveness for one). It really doesn’t matter what it is as long as Roy knows what it is. Playing the players that have that needed edge about them would probably do wonders towards developing a new identity.
I’d rather start McDonald than Strickland right now. His fadeaway jumpers look like they have no chance, and his shot selection is terrible. If he’s not in transition, then he’s worthless on offense. And obviously Marshall over Drew. Drew can’t score and gives us no halfcourt offense whatsoever. We need to SCORE the ball. Enough talk about defense. Roy said it himself “at the end of the day, that thing on the wall is a scoreboard…” Well, Roy, at the end of the day we aren’t scoring and you haven’t done anything to fix it in terms of playing time or starters.
“Chemistry is off”
I think there’s no chemistry on this team. Look at them on fouls, timeouts, etc, etc, etc. No encouragement, no leadership (Where are you, Mr. Drew?), no getting in your face, no nothing. I don’t want to see a bunch of rah-rah false hype crap, but it’s almost like these guys don’t really care about each other.
Leslie McDonald-5 of 6 the last 2 games-where is he? on-the-bench
The variability in comments and the tone of emotion running through them is orders of magnitude better than the lackadaisical emotional attitude that these players seem to have …Barnes acts like a deer in the headlights..the rest of the guards aren’t sure which end of the floor is which and now we have the rest of the season the figure out why good players disappear on this team..or maybe they are all over rated>>>>>>>
the talent’s not there, but roy should be doing a better job. he’s starting to piss me off with his media comments.
an Identity, or Leadership starts at the top…or not.
I understand as well that Roy knows far more about coaching than I do, and he’s probably much better handling player relationships than I ever would, but he said he was going to be meaner, and right now he’s still playing that tenure game with minutes. Play your best players and if some don’t like it, TOUGH (something else we lack).
I have faith in this team b/c the talent is so much better than last year in terms of scoring. What I’m beginning to fear is that the causes of last year’s problems are on the 08 class. Larry doesn’t play with an edge, Zeller is soft and Ed was apparently a cancer.
I’m just frustrated b/c of the loss and the competitive juices are still flowing so maybe I sound irrational. I apologize.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. For those optimists, I did not take anything away from this game that looked like an improvement. LD2 should not be getting his minutes. He brings nothing. And what’s with Barnes? His distant expression and tentativeness really make me think he will not be the game changer we had all hoped he would be. What a disappointment. But most of all its the complete lack of passion or heart. Kinda like a Stepford Heels. I agree with a previous post that they look like they’re getting used to losing. Mediocrity at best. Who’d have ever thought.
Purple, I love McDonald’s stroke, too. He also plays defense very well. If he or Bullock isn’t on the court, we really don’t have anyone capable of hitting outside shots.
As for Strickland, in all seriousness, I’d have him as Marshall’s backup at PG. I know Strickland isn’t a pure PG, but he’s able to at least push the ball up the floor and can be dangerous when he attacks the hoop.
I think McDonald can be a really solid player if he gets more minutes. He’s nowhere near as hesitant to shoot the ball as he was last year and is playing with a lot of confidence.
DookSux -
The problem is that “growing pains” too easily morphs into a euphemism for “bad basketball.” And it’s hard to ascribe missed free throws, poor passing and lack of toughness to growing pains. Some things get learned in high school.
Nor do I think the fans here are “spoiled.” Carolina’s motto is, “Winning is a tradition.” To settle in to what we are seeing now, not to mention all last year, is to abandon that motto. Along with many others here, this is not something I’m prepared to do. Our performance thus far is a good deal short of what most neutral expert observers thought it would be, so for a fan to be disheartened is not a sign of petulance.
It makes no difference what Dook fans think. The problem tonight, and on other nights, has not been Dook fans. It’s been turnovers. Optimism does not make turnovers disappear.
RIP, 2010-11 Carolina basketball. I’m no longer interested in watching the text book definition of insanity.
Bullock drove in and scored on a floater. We need more of that. McDonald took some mid range jumpers and made them. We need more of that. Henson split the defense twice and scored in traffic. We need more of that. Zeller positioned his body in such a way that he could score and absorb the foul. We need more of that. Marshall found a player slashing to the basket for the strong finish at the rim. We need more of that.
just looked at the minutes: all 10 guys played at least 13, nobody played more than 28.
let me state, politely: screw that noise.
we do not have the depth to overwhelm people. if we played fast enough for the depth to matter we’d have 40 turnovers.
Roy needs to figure out the guys who have the potential to be good ACC players, and start giving them 30 minutes.
Expectations will always be high at Carolina because of the great winning tradition. The kids know that. That’s why they come. Tarheel fans expect good basketball (even in losing), and the supposed top-notch recruiting classes fuel our expectations. But we are quickly learning to disregard those recruiting lists. They mean little these days. My heart goes out to Barnes. The moment is just too big for this reserved kid from Iowa. God bless him.
It’ll get better. I have to believe that this team will get better. We’ve seen flashes from everyone. Zeller’s first few games, Barnes’ half, Kendall’s passes, Henson’s sudden offensive game, McDonald’s mid-range game, Dexter’s defense/transition scoring. Its just a matter of finally putting everything together, some resemblance of continuity. The turnovers and mental lapses have to be eliminated. But to have a team shoot 67% from threes and hit absolutely everything is just unlucky. Eventually things tend to even out, shots are falling the other way right now…some will probably fall our way sometime soon.
I agree we need someone to lead the team - it is probably not Barnes yet. They do need a personality. Henson could be the man. He is starting to play with some confidence.
The leader will be the one whom can start hitting some important shots.
As for Roy getting “meaner”- what does that do ? They need to know if they take some chances -they will not be yanked.
I would like to see more zone defense - would have helped Zeller/Knox when they got in foul trouble.
dman, the chances of Roy Williams playing a zone are the same as us being able to ice skate in Hades. =)
I can’t buy that Barnes is overrated. It’s understandable if he struggles a little, but it’s Roy’s responsibility to coach him through it.
I agree with those who say that if it was just last season, maybe it was chemistry or a player or two who was a “bad egg”. But not this season. We’ve got as much talent as almost any school. If Roy can’t get these guys to win, it’s on Roy. Give these good young players the minutes on the court to develop their game. When you start to wonder if all your players are overrated, then it’s time to realize that that would be one heck of a coincidence. It’s then time to look for a common cause, and to me that comes down to the coach. But what do I know.
^^ I also feel really sorry for Barnes. He appears so unassuming, reserved and does not appear to have any strut and woof in him. I like that but I wonder whether that will hurt him in the long run.
By meaner, I just meant that the best players need to play, and if you were getting minutes b/c he felt like he owed you something, that needed to change. Larry getting 20-something minutes while only being good in <10 of them is unacceptable after last season and the first part of this season.
If you don't like the playing time you're getting, EARN IT BACK. In the meantime, play the guys that are going to compete and have the talent to make a difference. I'd even think about removing Zeller for one game to send a message. He doesn't grab rebounds with any anger, he never powers up and tries to dunk on people, and he fouls like he's playing against his own mother.
Play like you were billed to play, or play with an edge of "We went 20 and bleeping 17 last year and I am NOT going to lose games like that EVER AGAIN."
hey Pollyannas:
Listen one time:
It’s not about the winning or the losing.
It’s about playing hard, with heart and hustle.
You do that, and lose, then you do no dishonor to your team.
You lack that, as this team painfully does, and you deserve no respect, because anyone can play hard, regardless of talent.
Playing with heart, passion, and desire, whether or not you win or lose, is what this is about.
Don’t confuse bandwagoning or fair-weather fandom with simply expecting guys to play hard. It ain’t about winning all the time; it’s about playing like you give a rip and have some pride all of the time.
period.
Not only can I not watch this team anymore, I can’t even stomach the box scores. The calendar poster comes down tomorrow, for the first time since I starting buying them in the 3rd grade. The poster stayed up last year, during 8-20, and all the rest. No longer.
Even though I beleive this team still has a good chance of finishing up quite well. I would like to see some line up changes.
Marshall and Strickland with McDonald, Henson, and Zeller.
Barnes,Bullock, Knox as 6, 7, and 8.
If Bullock progresses maybe slip in him at Strickland’s spot.
I might sit Zeller some - he does need to more agressive.
I know we will not play a zone but I do think it would help us esp when get into foul trouble and against bigger teams.
Great players and great teams always play the way they practice and are a direct reflection of their COACH! don’t believe me look at the best most consistant teams/programs college or pro…Patriots business like fired up play hard like the coach is when he is coaching…hate to say it but dook aggressive plays to the max always ready and fired up and scrappy like the coach…Lakers/Bulls business like, thinkers like Jackson it goes on and on! what on earth is UNC doing in practice this year? Seriously what are practices like? And usually don’t coaches in practice make u switch jerseys to get the best 5 and go from there if its sucks the way it is now? Say what u want but its a trickle down effect that starts with coaching and motivation