Biorhythms for Carolina @Virginia: Post-Game Discussion

[4thgenheel]

There's a strong correlation to being good in the regular season and good in the post season

But struggling in the regular season, getting better, making the post season, and winning a bunch of games is accomplishing the same goal no?

Weird fan perspective imo to dwell on January losses when a team is winning in March

again, that sort of evolution is rare. beyond 2000 and 2022......crickets.

like i said in a different part of the post that you quoted, when analyzing HD's coaching tenure we can't just pretend that the relative dumpster fire earlier in the 2022 season didn't happen because the great run of wins later on made us all feel amazing.

 

[4thgenheel]

I think the idea is that NCAA victories are not very predictive, as they are kind of random. For instance, in 22 we had an unusually easy path to the Final Four, given that we played a 15 seed in the Elite Eight.

Regular season results tend to be more predictive year to year (i.e. more stable).

yep. being good all year long is the kind of solid foundation that a program of UNC's stature should demand. that's what you build on long-term and what (almost always) is a barometer for post-season success.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

i appreciate your thoughts. i agree with you about the way that the end of that season felt. it was amazing. the most fun that any of us have probably ever had in a non-title season. but a lot of that, as you said, is due to the "vanquishing the rat factor" which we will never have the opportunity to do again. it was a one-off.

and i thought that this thread had trended into more of a dispassionate review/debate on the pure results and outcomes of HD's 5 seasons at the helm thus far and we shouldn't just ignore the really poor performance on court in a discussion of that nature even though later performances that season made us feel amazing because they featured a couple of once in a lifetime wins.

i still think that your general position glosses over the fact that most of the teams that end up being good later in the season and making nice post-season runs are also pretty good earlier in the season. 2000 and 2022 are clear outliers/rarities.

"i still think that your general position glosses over the fact that most of the teams that end up being good later in the season and making nice post-season runs are also pretty good earlier in the season. 2000 and 2022 are clear outliers/rarities."

I don't gloss over that at all. I think it actually helps prove my point... or maybe a better way to say it is that it helps explain why I feel the way I feel (I don't think you can prove right or wrong about feelings). The fact that those seasons are outliers is part of what makes me feel those seasons are special. It's not every season that a coach turns around a mediocre season and turns it into a dominating run through the tournament.

Barring a twisted ankle by Bacot, we were absolutely trouncing KU in the NC game in HD's first ever season as a head coach. Has any other rookie HC in the history of college basketball taken a team to the NC game?

As for a "dispassionate review/debate on the pure results," that's kind of meaningless for defining a subjective evaluation of how you "should feel" about a season. If the system results in a score that aligns to how you feel, you think it's good. If it doesn't, you think it's rubbish. What does that solve?

You want to discount "once in a lifetime wins" because they mean less to you. For me, those are the moments I'll remember on my deathbed... not whether we beat Cal in a Jan road game. You want to ignore the emotional side of things and just look at numbers. I think that's the antithesis of being a fan.

 

[akillesheel]

again, that sort of evolution is rare. beyond 2000 and 2022......crickets.

like i said in a different part of the post that you quoted, when analyzing HD's coaching tenure we can't just pretend that the relative dumpster fire earlier in the 2022 season didn't happen because the great run of wins later on made us all feel amazing.

would also add that the end of 2022 felt better at the time because it felt like HD had landed on something as a first-year head coach that he could harness into consistency as his career continued. 3.8 years later that hope has pretty much dissipated.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

yep. being good all year long is the kind of solid foundation that a program of UNC's stature should demand. that's what you build on long-term and what (almost always) is a barometer for post-season success.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's acceptable to have mediocre regular seasons every year, so long as they turn into NCAAT runs. That's a fine razor's edge to live on even if it was acceptable, but a good coach has to figure out how to do better.

My point is that only somebody with the potential to be a good coach can do the things he's done. He has a lot of growing to do still. It's suboptimal that he was put in a position to have to do that growing on the biggest stage. But you don't take a team to the NC game as a rookie coach unless you're doing a lot of things right.

The PTB put us in this position because they wanted family over proven track record. This is the path they chose for us. I don't think it's fair to beat up HD for doing exactly what should have been expected. I get that this path is not what many/most UNC fans wanted, but it's the path that was chosen.

They have to decide whether his growth trajectory is sufficient to keep giving him runway. And I get why a lot of people have already decided that it's not. My opinion is that he needs to end this season showing a "hockey stick" in his growth trajectory if he wants to keep his job... and for every moment of this season I'll support him as much as I can, as all this public trashing of him every game is only hurting the program at large.

 

[4thgenheel]

"i still think that your general position glosses over the fact that most of the teams that end up being good later in the season and making nice post-season runs are also pretty good earlier in the season. 2000 and 2022 are clear outliers/rarities."

I don't gloss over that at all. I think it actually helps prove my point... or maybe a better way to say it is that it helps explain why I feel the way I feel (I don't think you can prove right or wrong about feelings). The fact that those seasons are outliers is part of what makes me feel those seasons are special. It's not every season that a coach turns around a mediocre season and turns it into a dominating run through the tournament.

Barring a twisted ankle by Bacot, we were absolutely trouncing KU in the NC game in HD's first ever season as a head coach. Has any other rookie HC in the history of college basketball taken a team to the NC game?

As for a "dispassionate review/debate on the pure results," that's kind of meaningless for defining a subjective evaluation of how you "should feel" about a season. If the system results in a score that aligns to how you feel, you think it's good. If it doesn't, you think it's rubbish. What does that solve?

You want to discount "once in a lifetime wins" because they mean less to you. For me, those are the moments I'll remember on my deathbed... not whether we beat Cal in a Jan road game. You want to ignore the emotional side of things and just look at numbers. I think that's the antithesis of being a fan.

calling the dook wins once in a lifetime discounts them?!

bro, what?

i think we're talking past each other a little bit. i personally enjoyed 2022 immensely, even with the early struggles. the end (outside of heartbreakingly not closing the deal against KU) made up for that. but those are just feelings.

winning is what makes UNC what it is and we haven't been consistently doing enough of it under HD. 2022 is up there with 2005, 2009 and 2017 for me as far as enjoyment. i was a sophomore in 2009, that may have been the greatest night of my life.

but the early, shitty results in 2022 actually happened and can't be hand-waved away when analyzing HD's coaching tenure because we ruined the rat later in the year. i'm a pretty emotional person but you have to set that aside imo for an honest, dispassionate discussion about coaching production at a program of UNC basketball's stature. that's why i originally took exception to you calling 2022 good, because i thought that sort of discussion was going on. the end result was good and really fun but we nearly didn't get to see that because we were so poor earlier.

 

[4thgenheel]

Just to be clear, I'm not saying it's acceptable to have mediocre regular seasons every year, so long as they turn into NCAAT runs. That's a fine razor's edge to live on even if it was acceptable, but a good coach has to figure out how to do better.

My point is that only somebody with the potential to be a good coach can do the things he's done. He has a lot of growing to do still. It's suboptimal that he was put in a position to have to do that growing on the biggest stage. But you don't take a team to the NC game as a rookie coach unless you're doing a lot of things right.

The PTB put us in this position because they wanted family over proven track record. This is the path they chose for us. I don't think it's fair to beat up HD for doing exactly what should have been expected. I get that this path is not what many/most UNC fans wanted, but it's the path that was chosen.

They have to decide whether his growth trajectory is sufficient to keep giving him runway. And I get why a lot of people have already decided that it's not. My opinion is that he needs to end this season showing a "hockey stick" in his growth trajectory if he wants to keep his job... and for every moment of this season I'll support him as much as I can, as all this public trashing of him every game is only hurting the program at large.

i think 2022 was special, too. and HD is a beloved alum who has a lot of great qualities even if he's still in a bit of a trial and error phase with coaching. similar to roy and dean he's a good, kind man who we can feel proud to have at the helm.

if we finish out this year in a decent fashion.....top 2-3 in the ACC, nice little post-season run, i think he should stay. but he really needs to start stacking multiple entire good seasons because that's how we build a solid foundation and how he will truly secure his job.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

i think 2022 was special, too. and HD is a beloved alum who has a lot of great qualities even if he's still in a bit of a trial and error phase with coaching. similar to roy and dean he's a good, kind man who we can feel proud to have at the helm.

if we finish out this year in a decent fashion.....top 2-3 in the ACC, nice little post-season run, i think he should stay. but he really needs to start stacking multiple entire good seasons because that's how we build a solid foundation and how he will truly secure his job.

(assuming this counts as a fist bump on this board)

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

i think 2022 was special, too. and HD is a beloved alum who has a lot of great qualities even if he's still in a bit of a trial and error phase with coaching. similar to roy and dean he's a good, kind man who we can feel proud to have at the helm.

if we finish out this year in a decent fashion.....top 2-3 in the ACC, nice little post-season run, i think he should stay. but he really needs to start stacking multiple entire good seasons because that's how we build a solid foundation and how he will truly secure his job.

"i think 2022 was special, too. and HD is a beloved alum who has a lot of great qualities even if he's still in a bit of a trial and error phase with coaching. similar to roy and dean he's a good, kind man who we can feel proud to have at the helm."

To be honest, this is the part that gives me pause the most when people start talking of pulling the plug on HD. It's shocking to me on all the "Next Coach Option" threads the number of fans who don't give a crap about whether our next coach is a good man... in fact, a good percentage thinks not being one is an advantage. Then I see where our football search landed... I read think about this, and it quadruples my belief in giving HD every last chance to prove himself before we put our program in the hands of some slick weasel who excels in this transitionary time and moment because he figured out first how to leverage the option to buy talent for 1 year at a time.

 

[4thgenheel]

"i think 2022 was special, too. and HD is a beloved alum who has a lot of great qualities even if he's still in a bit of a trial and error phase with coaching. similar to roy and dean he's a good, kind man who we can feel proud to have at the helm."

To be honest, this is the part that gives me pause the most when people start talking of pulling the plug on HD. It's shocking to me on all the "Next Coach Option" threads the number of fans who don't give a crap about whether our next coach is a good man... in fact, a good percentage thinks not being one is an advantage. Then I see where our football search landed... I read think about this, and it quadruples my belief in giving HD every last chance to prove himself before we put our program in the hands of some slick weasel who excels in this transitionary time and moment because he figured out first how to leverage the option to buy talent for 1 year at a time.

yeah, the people who wanted BB are probably fine with the nate oats's of the world. gag me with a spoon.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

I also think that we are in a transitionary period where coaches who have been working for clean programs are at a HUGE disadvantage vs coaches who run/ come from programs that having been paying players for over a decade. Even though everybody can do it now, the coaches who have been doing it their entire careers are shifting seamlessly into this world.

I also do not believe we are top 5 in terms of what we are paying for our team. I think there are some schools like UNC who are doing 100% of their NIL money above board... and some schools where their public NIL expenditure is only the tip of the iceberg for what they are spending... The schools that that have been funneling money in under the table for years are still doing a lot (most?) of their payments to players under the table... if for no other reason that a lot of that money was dirty, under the table money from the beginning.

 

[Enigma94]

I think the idea is that NCAA victories are not very predictive, as they are kind of random. For instance, in 22 we had an unusually easy path to the Final Four, given that we played a 15 seed in the Elite Eight.

Regular season results tend to be more predictive year to year (i.e. more stable).

The season being discussed wasn't just a tournament run at the end of a bad regular season though. We went 12-3 over our last 15 games prior to the NCAA tournament. That's basically 40% of the season before the amazing NCAA run. The team had a rough start, but it was an elite team for a big chunk of that season.

 

[Heelsandeers]

again, that sort of evolution is rare. beyond 2000 and 2022......crickets.

like i said in a different part of the post that you quoted, when analyzing HD's coaching tenure we can't just pretend that the relative dumpster fire earlier in the 2022 season didn't happen because the great run of wins later on made us all feel amazing.

No one has to pretend anything. the results are what they are

a first year head coach inheriting a young team from the covid era and winning the most games any UNC team has since 2017

Interpreting the results of that season as anything but positive is certainly a choice

 

[4thgenheel]

No one has to pretend anything. the results are what they are

a first year head coach inheriting a young team from the covid era and winning the most games any UNC team has since 2017

Interpreting the results of that season as anything but positive is certainly a choice

 

[CarolinaFever]

Wonder if the week off will be good or bad.

 

[thebruinbleedstarheelblue]

"i still think that your general position glosses over the fact that most of the teams that end up being good later in the season and making nice post-season runs are also pretty good earlier in the season. 2000 and 2022 are clear outliers/rarities."

I don't gloss over that at all. I think it actually helps prove my point... or maybe a better way to say it is that it helps explain why I feel the way I feel (I don't think you can prove right or wrong about feelings). The fact that those seasons are outliers is part of what makes me feel those seasons are special. It's not every season that a coach turns around a mediocre season and turns it into a dominating run through the tournament.

Barring a twisted ankle by Bacot, we were absolutely trouncing KU in the NC game in HD's first ever season as a head coach. Has any other rookie HC in the history of college basketball taken a team to the NC game?

As for a "dispassionate review/debate on the pure results," that's kind of meaningless for defining a subjective evaluation of how you "should feel" about a season. If the system results in a score that aligns to how you feel, you think it's good. If it doesn't, you think it's rubbish. What does that solve?

You want to discount "once in a lifetime wins" because they mean less to you. For me, those are the moments I'll remember on my deathbed... not whether we beat Cal in a Jan road game. You want to ignore the emotional side of things and just look at numbers. I think that's the antithesis of being a fan.

I enjoyed that too but that's the past...we'll always have that and he will too . Hopefully he turns it around, but the ceiling is getting lower... now we go into the season wanting to make the tournament .

He , like Gut, is a custodian of North Carolina basketball.... we go downhill for 10 years because of one great run?

 

[Centerpiece]

Wonder if the week off will be good or bad.

Seems like it's usually bad.
Hope it's not this time.
But Tech is not a good team and I think we shake off any doldrums pretty early on in the game.

 

[NYCBlueBlood]

I enjoyed that too but that's the past...we'll always have that and he will too . Hopefully he turns it around, but the ceiling is getting lower... now we go into the season wanting to make the tournament .

He , like Gut, is a custodian of North Carolina basketball.... we go downhill for 10 years because of one great run?

The ceiling still is the roof, so to speak. The question is not whether we expect more/ better... the question is whether we think he can get there, and if it's worth the roll of the dice now to see if what we get is better... vs giving him more time to figure out whether he can do it.

 

[Icky Mettle]

Seems like it's usually bad.
Hope it's not this time.
But Tech is not a good team and I think we shake off any doldrums pretty early on in the game.

So far this season we are 3-0 after a full week (or more) off. Under Hubert, we are 13-4 with a full week (or more) off during the regular season. Since 1999-2000, we are 62-21 with a full week (or more) off during the regular season.

 

[Centerpiece]

So far this season we are 3-0 after a full week (or more) off. Under Hubert, we are 13-4 with a full week (or more) off during the regular season. Since 1999-2000, we are 62-21 with a full week (or more) off during the regular season.

Like I said, seems like it's usually good.
I hope so this time.
Tech is bad and I think we shake off any doldrums pretty early on in the game.