Biorhythms for Carolina @SMU: 2:15 Start on CW

Former UNC player Dewey Burke is not a fan of the switching on defense.


He's saying the same thing every time I see one of these. He states that switching leads to being less locked in defensively which I don't buy at all. The best defenses are locked in as unit whether or not they are switching always or almost never

Switching was not the reason for late closeouts or guys being left open on the perimeter or not not getting picked up in transition or defenders getting beat 1 on 1 constantly. That's just poor defense regardless of your preferred x's and o's strategy

I agree with his point that the lack of defensive pressure (basically never) is an issue. Teams get comfortable and on days like yesterday we saw what can happen. That they never tried to get the ball out of Boopie's hands after he was making every play for them is a problem
 
When Doherty was fired Roy Williams was about as close to a "guaranteed proven winner" as you were going to get - it seemed clear that if he was hired he would be highly successful here. My point - which you basically made for me - is that this time there is no coach who appears that they would do a better job than Davis. Right now college coaching consists of a few famous faces who are either at or close to retirement age (Calipari, Self, Izzo, Pitino), some young up-and-comers who, like Davis, have yet to establish themselves as consistent winners at a high level, and some very sleazy types like Pearl at Auburn. There are very few available college coaches with a resume to indicate they would do better than Davis at taking us to another level or taking us back to our pre-covid consistency. They may be out there, but finding them is going to be a lot harder and much more uncertain than it was in 2003 we hired Williams.

And I've said repeatedly that if this season goes south then Davis should be gone. What I find frustrating is the seeming belief of his critics that there is someone clearly better who is just waiting in the wings to take over, and right now I don't see it. And frankly, given our head football coaching search I'm not at all sure that I trust the powers-that-be to hire anyone who is better.
I agree. Which is why I say if they decide to move on from HD then they do an actual proper search, find the best fit for the program, and hire them, not holding themselves to a constraint that it must be someone who has played/coached here before.

Regarding the existence of a staff better than HD and his staff, purely on the basketball side of things, my thoughts on this staff have been well known since last year. I firmly believe that there are folks in coaching who have shown that they are better at it than HD, currently. I see it. A very simple game to play, which I think does have some merit but is constantly ridiculed, is the following. Go through the list of programs and determine which ones would trade their staffs for HD/staff and which ones wouldn’t. I believe an exercise like this can help open up a person’s vision on what other coaches around the country are doing.
 
I agree. Which is why I say if they decide to move on from HD then they do an actual proper search, find the best fit for the program, and hire them, not holding themselves to a constraint that it must be someone who has played/coached here before.

Regarding the existence of a staff better than HD and his staff, purely on the basketball side of things, my thoughts on this staff have been well known since last year. I firmly believe that there are folks in coaching who have shown that they are better at it than HD, currently. I see it. A very simple game to play, which I think does have some merit but is constantly ridiculed, is the following. Go through the list of programs and determine which ones would trade their staffs for HD/staff and which ones wouldn’t. I believe an exercise like this can help open up a person’s vision on what other coaches around the country are doing.
Then list some names. Who do you think would be better, specifically?
 
We always lose a game to two a year when a "short" guard (or two) go off from the perimeter. It's partly our perimeter defense which has never consistently been on a par with say Duke's, and partly the price we pay for committing to play taller guards (usually and RJ and Elliot notwithstanding) that can't keep up with shorter, explosive guardsm who are having a video-game night.
 
And yet that team has yet to win a title under Scheyer and has the same number of Final Fours as Davis, despite all of their recruiting successes. And they've suffered some humiliating NCAA Tourney losses on the national stage under him. Maybe Scheyer will start winning titles, maybe he won't, but one could certainly make a strong argument that so far Scheyer is actually "doing less with more" than Davis has. He's been more consistent, but so far doesn't have much hardware to show for it. I will say that if Scheyer does win a title then that would obviously greatly increase the pressure on Davis.
I won’t get into the “doing less with more” argument because I don’t think it’s a good discussion topic. Just like I didn’t think it was a good discussion topic when I heard folks saying it about Dean.

What I will say is that their program has improved each and every year since he first started - last year was better than the year before, which was better than the year before that, which was better than his first year. In his first 3.3 years they have won 102 games (12 less than us during HD’s entire tenure as the head coach). They have won a lot of big-time games against other highly ranked teams. I don’t know his record against Q1 opponents but I would be shocked if he didn’t already have more wins against them than HD. All this to say, in this case, perception is pretty fucking close to reality when it comes to their program.

I am done arguing in their favor, it makes me frustrated.
 
Then list some names. Who do you think would be better, specifically?
To name a few in college, purely from a coaching standpoint, and not necessarily from a fit standpoint, currently Izzo is better, Pitino is better, Cal, May, Scheyer, Few, Sampson, Painter, Oats, Golden, Drew, Barnes, Underwood, Kelsey, Beard, and many more.

Finding coaches who have demonstrated to be better at coaching than HD is not the hard part. The hard/delicate part will be finding the best fit for our program amongst that list.
 
To name a few in college, purely from a coaching standpoint, and not necessarily from a fit standpoint, currently Izzo is better, Pitino is better, Cal, May, Scheyer, Few, Sampson, Painter, Oats, Golden, Drew, Barnes, Underwood, Kelsey, Beard, and many more.

Finding coaches who have demonstrated to be better at coaching than HD is not the hard part. The hard/delicate part will be finding the best fit for our program amongst that list.
I would argue that several of those are too old, others like Sampson have a scandal-tarred past, and I disagree that most of the others, except maybe for Drew, have "clearly" shown themselves to be better than Davis over the long run at a high level. If Davis is let go I think it's going to be far more difficult to find a clearly superior replacement than Davis's critics think it will be. At any rate I hope we don't have to find out.
 
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To name a few in college, purely from a coaching standpoint, and not necessarily from a fit standpoint, currently Izzo is better, Pitino is better, Cal, May, Scheyer, Few, Sampson, Painter, Oats, Golden, Drew, Barnes, Underwood, Kelsey, Beard, and many more.

Finding coaches who have demonstrated to be better at coaching than HD is not the hard part. The hard/delicate part will be finding the best fit for our program amongst that list.
Not a single one of those is a viable option.
 
I think finding the right coach is, obviously, difficult. However, I don’t think fear of the new is reason enough to accept results below one’s standards.

Yes, finding the right fit involves a number of important factors. UNC’s head men’s basketball coach is a difficult job. We were so darn lucky to have Roy Williams come back.

Yet, just because a Roy Williams isn’t out there should not mean we have to just settle.

And no, I am not advocating for us to fire anyone right now. I want Hubert to be awesome. But we are in a position to discuss minimum achievements because of his uneven track record.
 
Can anyone explain how Trimble had a career offensive day (22 P, 5A, 0 TO), but Carolina was outscored by 23 in the 36:08 Trimble was on the floor, and Carolina outscored SMU by 9 in the 3:52 Trimble was on the bench?

16:53 on -8, 3:07 off +8 in the first half
19:15 on -15, 0:45 off +1 in the second half
 
I think finding the right coach is, obviously, difficult. However, I don’t think fear of the new is reason enough to accept results below one’s standards.

Yes, finding the right fit involves a number of important factors. UNC’s head men’s basketball coach is a difficult job. We were so darn lucky to have Roy Williams come back.

Yet, just because a Roy Williams isn’t out there should not mean we have to just settle.

And no, I am not advocating for us to fire anyone right now. I want Hubert to be awesome. But we are in a position to discuss minimum achievements because of his uneven track record.
I think what some few of us are saying is that between Covid, NIL, and the changes with the portal. that unevenness is not all about the coaching.
 
I would argue that several of those are too old, others like Sampson have a scandal-tarred past, and I disagree that most of the others, except maybe for Drew, have "clearly" shown themselves to be better than Davis over the long run at a high level. If Davis is let go I think it's going to be far more difficult to find a clearly superior replacement than Davis's critics think it will be. At any rate I hope we don't have to find out.
Oh, for sure. Some are too old, some are scandal-tarred, some would not carry on the excellence off the court. That is what I mean about "fit."
 
Can anyone explain how Trimble had a career offensive day (22 P, 5A, 0 TO), but Carolina was outscored by 23 in the 36:08 Trimble was on the floor, and Carolina outscored SMU by 9 in the 3:52 Trimble was on the bench?

16:53 on -8, 3:07 off +8 in the first half
19:15 on -15, 0:45 off +1 in the second half
Heelsanddeers alludes to the reason in their post above.
 
I think finding the right coach is, obviously, difficult. However, I don’t think fear of the new is reason enough to accept results below one’s standards.

Yes, finding the right fit involves a number of important factors. UNC’s head men’s basketball coach is a difficult job. We were so darn lucky to have Roy Williams come back.

Yet, just because a Roy Williams isn’t out there should not mean we have to just settle.

And no, I am not advocating for us to fire anyone right now. I want Hubert to be awesome. But we are in a position to discuss minimum achievements because of his uneven track record.
I don't disagree with that, and yes if Hubert continues to underperform then we do need to look elsewhere. But I think this could easily turn into a case of "be careful what you wish for." I wanted Mack Brown gone - and it was past time for him to go - and look at where we are now. That's not saying we shouldn't look if things aren't getting better, only that many of the posters I've seen here and elsewhere who want Davis gone also seem to think that because we're UNC we're very likely going to end up with something much better, and that is a risky proposition to take, especially as we're just entering a whole new era of college basketball where the old rules and standards don't really apply. And given what we've seen in football I don't really trust the people who will likely do the hiring to make the best choice.
 
I think what some few of us are saying is that between Covid, NIL, and the changes with the portal. that unevenness is not all about the coaching.
it’s a good point. I know many disagree with me and I understand that. I think UNC made two big mistakes. They did not put the infrastructure in place for Roy’s successor and we hired a coach who did not realize he needed that infrastructure. I know I am probably in the minority with that opinion.
 
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