UNC ONLY BASKETBALL 2024-25 SEASON

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CFordUNC said:
I don’t think it’s true that most schools won’t max out the revenue share. I think it is a forgone conclusion that every single SEC and every single Big 10 team will, and most ACC teams and Big 12 teams probably will as well. I certainly believe that UNC will grant up to the maximum allowable, but I think anyone expecting the revenue share to be a magic elixir to what currently ails us athletically may be disappointed. Until or unless UNC is in the SEC or the Big 10, the media rights discrepancy will continue to be a major albatross for us and every other ACC program. The league going 2-20 or whatever it is thus far in the season isn’t an accident or a fluke, unfortunately.
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This is accurate. As long as we are in the ACC we will not be able to compete monetarily with the SEC and BIG schools. I look at it this way - we named the football field after one of our largest donor's son because he gave $20 million to the program. It was a huge generational type donation for us. The SEC/BIG schools will be bringing in more than that per team every year than the ACC schools. How do you compete at that kind of disadvantage?
 
I'll say it and will get blasted for it. I hated the Hubert hire, always have. Has he done some good things in his first three seasons? Sure he has. Sending coach k out on his ass in those two games was awesome as was the run in the tournament. For the most part last year was pretty good although I think our #1 seed was built on the back of winning a subpar ACC. But his 2nd season and this season so far are terrible. And this season is all on him, it is fully his roster except for RJ Davis(who looks totally disinterested). This roster is made up of short guards and substandard post play. If we miss the tournament I gotta think his seat gets warm going into next season.
I hate saying this because I like Hubert. A friend of the family let the basketball office know that my dad was having some health problems. Hubert wrote a personal letter to my dad that he was able to read and understand before dementia really set in and other health issues caused his death a month later. Hubert is a terrific human being but he just doesn't seem to be the one to lead a proud and storied program like UNC.
 
OGtruthhurts said:
This is carolina blue sugar coating at its finest. Id say all those underperforming teams in tourney were over-ranked and under-coached. Dean Smith did less with more in tourney thru-out his entire career. Its ok to admit that even as a huge Dean fan.

Last yr was a huge disappointment other than the two dook wins.....you can sugar coat that dismal tourney run all you wish.
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No sugar coating there. Everything stated in my post was just stone cold facts.
 
circlesky88 said:
I'll say it and will get blasted for it. I hated the Hubert hire, always have. Has he done some good things in his first three seasons? Sure he has. Sending coach k out on his ass in those two games was awesome as was the run in the tournament. For the most part last year was pretty good although I think our #1 seed was built on the back of winning a subpar ACC. But his 2nd season and this season so far are terrible. And this season is all on him, it is fully his roster except for RJ Davis(who looks totally disinterested). This roster is made up of short guards and substandard post play. If we miss the tournament I gotta think his seat gets warm going into next season.
I hate saying this because I like Hubert. A friend of the family let the basketball office know that my dad was having some health problems. Hubert wrote a personal letter to my dad that he was able to read and understand before dementia really set in and other health issues caused his death a month later. Hubert is a terrific human being but he just doesn't seem to be the one to lead a proud and storied program like UNC.
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That “subpar ACC” did really well in the NCAAT. The hyped up SEC, outside of Alabama, not so much.
 
Icky Mettle said:
That “subpar ACC” did really well in the NCAAT. The hyped up SEC, outside of Alabama, not so much.
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So did George Mason a few years ago.

It should be clear to everyone now how far the ACC has dropped off relative to the SEC, and not to hard to see relative to others.
 
Mulberry Heel said:
If this season plays out as it appears to be then Davis is going to be under fire by the end of the year. I don't think he's on the hot seat yet and I've always been a big supporter since he was hired, and he's had two very good seasons out of his three full seasons as a coach so far, but if this season continues on this path then people's patience will start wearing thin. And I'm not sure that it's entirely justified, but for our program having two seasons out of the last three where we miss the tournament, or at least spend a good deal of time outside the Top 20, is not a good look.
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It’s been a bit of an up and down start for Hubert. I highly doubt he would get fired after this season barring like a single digit win total or something unexpected off the court. Unfortunately, I do think that if the team continues to struggle and either misses the tournament entirely or sneaks in as a bubble team and exits during the first weekend, he will have serious job pressure going into next season.

There are a few things working against the perception of Hubert that aren’t really in his control:
  1. The program wasn’t exactly in great shape when he took it over. This is not a criticism of Roy, but when fans start citing all of the stats about how this 5 season stretch is one of the worst in our history because of X amount of wins or whatever, the 20 and 21 seasons account for a lot of that, and I think fans subconsciously lump that stretch in with the Hubert era, even though he obviously wasn’t the coach yet.
  2. 2023 preseason #1 debacle. That season felt so much worse than it actually was because of the dubious distinction of being the only preseason #1 team to miss the tournament constantly getting thrown in our faces. Had we been like preseason #18 and had the same exact season, I think it would have been much easier for us to give a mulligan to a second year coach still figuring things out.
  3. NIL. Being the HC for one of the 2 revenue sports is a prominent position where lobbying the admins/fans is part of the job description, so I do think Hubert is partly culpable here for not being more vocal about this sooner. At the end of the day though it’s more of a wholistic UNC problem. Seems like Hubert pulled out all of the stops trying to get a big man for this season and just got outbid.
Things working against Hubert that are his responsibility:
  1. Recruiting and roster building. To his credit, I think Hubert has done a solid job with the transfer portal over the last few years. While it’s nice when transfers like Manek, Ingram, and Ryan are the engines of your team and help lead you to successful seasons, it’s ultimately unsustainable if you're trying to catch lighting in a bottle out of the portal every season as opposed to building the nucleus of the team via HS recruits that develop in your system over multiple years. The fact that he’s in year 4 and he doesn’t have a better roster core than this is worrying. If you start to project out to next year it gets even more grim. This could very well be the thing that ultimately does him in.
  2. Coaching and scheme. Even if you chalk up the poor roster construction to NIL or whatever, we have more than enough talent on the roster to look better than we have this season. Way too many stretches during both this year and the previous 3 years where the team comes out with barely any energy and no defense while the guards dribble around the perimeter and take turns bricking jumpers. That’s all coaching.
 
circlesky88 said:
I'll say it and will get blasted for it. I hated the Hubert hire, always have. Has he done some good things in his first three seasons? Sure he has. Sending coach k out on his ass in those two games was awesome as was the run in the tournament. For the most part last year was pretty good although I think our #1 seed was built on the back of winning a subpar ACC. But his 2nd season and this season so far are terrible. And this season is all on him, it is fully his roster except for RJ Davis(who looks totally disinterested). This roster is made up of short guards and substandard post play. If we miss the tournament I gotta think his seat gets warm going into next season.
I hate saying this because I like Hubert. A friend of the family let the basketball office know that my dad was having some health problems. Hubert wrote a personal letter to my dad that he was able to read and understand before dementia really set in and other health issues caused his death a month later. Hubert is a terrific human being but he just doesn't seem to be the one to lead a proud and storied program like UNC.
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I’m with you. I’m not necessarily saying he hasn’t done a good job or needs to be fired ASAP, but I thought the actual hiring process was incredibly lazy and shortsighted. If we had gone through a thorough coaching search and still landed on Hubert, fine. That clearly wasn’t the case though.
 
Peppers49 said:
It’s been a bit of an up and down start for Hubert. I highly doubt he would get fired after this season barring like a single digit win total or something unexpected off the court. Unfortunately, I do think that if the team continues to struggle and either misses the tournament entirely or sneaks in as a bubble team and exits during the first weekend, he will have serious job pressure going into next season.

There are a few things working against the perception of Hubert that aren’t really in his control:
  1. The program wasn’t exactly in great shape when he took it over. This is not a criticism of Roy, but when fans start citing all of the stats about how this 5 season stretch is one of the worst in our history because of X amount of wins or whatever, the 20 and 21 seasons account for a lot of that, and I think fans subconsciously lump that stretch in with the Hubert era, even though he obviously wasn’t the coach yet.
  2. 2023 preseason #1 debacle. That season felt so much worse than it actually was because of the dubious distinction of being the only preseason #1 team to miss the tournament constantly getting thrown in our faces. Had we been like preseason #18 and had the same exact season, I think it would have been much easier for us to give a mulligan to a second year coach still figuring things out.
  3. NIL. Being the HC for one of the 2 revenue sports is a prominent position where lobbying the admins/fans is part of the job description, so I do think Hubert is partly culpable here for not being more vocal about this sooner. At the end of the day though it’s more of a wholistic UNC problem. Seems like Hubert pulled out all of the stops trying to get a big man for this season and just got outbid.
Things working against Hubert that are his responsibility:
  1. Recruiting and roster building. To his credit, I think Hubert has done a solid job with the transfer portal over the last few years. While it’s nice when transfers like Manek, Ingram, and Ryan are the engines of your team and help lead you to successful seasons, it’s ultimately unsustainable if you're trying to catch lighting in a bottle out of the portal every season as opposed to building the nucleus of the team via HS recruits that develop in your system over multiple years. The fact that he’s in year 4 and he doesn’t have a better roster core than this is worrying. If you start to project out to next year it gets even more grim. This could very well be the thing that ultimately does him in.
  2. Coaching and scheme. Even if you chalk up the poor roster construction to NIL or whatever, we have more than enough talent on the roster to look better than we have this season. Way too many stretches during both this year and the previous 3 years where the team comes out with barely any energy and no defense while the guards dribble around the perimeter and take turns bricking jumpers. That’s all coaching.
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I am glad to see someone else doesn't like the offensive scheme. Seems like all they do is set a pick and roll to begin the offense and then the rest is all freelance. I know that's the thing to do in today's game, but if it's not working for your team then try something else. If the defense can't guard the lane and also can't guard the 3, then try something else besides man. At least try to see if it will work better.
 
stankeylegjones said:
So did George Mason a few years ago.

It should be clear to everyone now how far the ACC has dropped off relative to the SEC, and not to hard to see relative to others.
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But George Mason is one team. When they did well in the tourney, they were a good team. A number of ACC teams did quite well in the tourney last season. So maybe the conference wasn’t as bad as some people thought if the multiple teams that made the tourney did well there. Maybe perceptions on conference strength were based too much on how teams looked in November and December. Not saying that will translate to this season, though.
 
Turd Ferguson said:
I am glad to see someone else doesn't like the offensive scheme. Seems like all they do is set a pick and roll to begin the offense and then the rest is all freelance. I know that's the thing to do in today's game, but if it's not working for your team then try something else. If the defense can't guard the lane and also can't guard the 3, then try something else besides man. At least try to see if it will work better.
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It’s just so inconsistent. When the guys are in a groove and also playing with a little bit of tempo they can score with anyone. If the defense has the pick and roll stuff figured out because of a mismatch or whatever, it’s like the only other option is for the guards to take guys off the dribble or shoot contested jumpers while everyone else stands around. RJ and Cadeau just aren’t big enough or quick enough for that kind of offense to work.
 
Icky Mettle said:
I won’t disagree that we underperformed in that we were a 1-seed and lost in the Sweet 16, but it wasn’t like we were beat in a major upset. We lost by 2 points to a very good Alabama team. It happens. People have fond memories of UNC basketball under Dean Smith, but from 1970 through 1980, outside of 1972 and 1977, we had only one NCAAT win (not counting a consolation game win in 1975). We lost the first round of NCAAT games in which we played in 1976, 1978, 1979, and 1980 (which technically was the second round, as we had first round byes). Then from 1983 through 1990, despite having some great teams with great players, we never reached a Final Four.
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We also lost in the ACC tourney to lolstate.
 
Peppers49 said:
It’s just so inconsistent. When the guys are in a groove and also playing with a little bit of tempo they can score with anyone. If the defense has the pick and roll stuff figured out because of a mismatch or whatever, it’s like the only other option is for the guards to take guys off the dribble or shoot contested jumpers while everyone else stands around. RJ and Cadeau just aren’t big enough or quick enough for that kind of offense to work.
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Yes, exactly. They look good when they can get turnovers and run. The problem is the defense hasn't been good enough against good teams to get turnovers. They look good when they hit 3s, but that is inconsistent, too. The rest of the time in the halfcourt offense there just isn't any movement.
 
I have definitely questioned our offensive schemes under Hubert. I just see A LOT of dribbling and one-and-one. And it often looks like people aren’t dribbling with purpose. I don’t see a lot of ball movement, and of the ball movement that I generally do see, it seems to be mostly around the perimeter. This has been going on for 3+ years now. Every now and then last season, we ran some plays where the ball moved around, touching just about every player and barely touching the floor, and those plays seemed to throw the other team’s defense off and worked. But when that happened it was noticeable because it seemed to be the exception to the rule.
 
Icky Mettle said:
But George Mason is one team. When they did well in the tourney, they were a good team. A number of ACC teams did quite well in the tourney last season. So maybe the conference wasn’t as bad as some people thought if the multiple teams that made the tourney did well there. Maybe perceptions on conference strength were based too much on how teams looked in November and December. Not saying that will translate to this season, though.
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Maybe
 
circlesky88 said:
I'll say it and will get blasted for it. I hated the Hubert hire, always have. Has he done some good things in his first three seasons? Sure he has. Sending coach k out on his ass in those two games was awesome as was the run in the tournament. For the most part last year was pretty good although I think our #1 seed was built on the back of winning a subpar ACC. But his 2nd season and this season so far are terrible. And this season is all on him, it is fully his roster except for RJ Davis(who looks totally disinterested). This roster is made up of short guards and substandard post play. If we miss the tournament I gotta think his seat gets warm going into next season.
I hate saying this because I like Hubert. A friend of the family let the basketball office know that my dad was having some health problems. Hubert wrote a personal letter to my dad that he was able to read and understand before dementia really set in and other health issues caused his death a month later. Hubert is a terrific human being but he just doesn't seem to be the one to lead a proud and storied program like UNC.
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It’s very difficult to replace a legend.Very. Hubert has done a pretty good job of it.

The funny thing is if UNC had played a cupcakey schedule and was sitting at 7-1 right now the whole conversation would be different.

There’s still plenty of time for this to be a good season.
 
Peppers49 said:
It’s just so inconsistent. When the guys are in a groove and also playing with a little bit of tempo they can score with anyone. If the defense has the pick and roll stuff figured out because of a mismatch or whatever, it’s like the only other option is for the guards to take guys off the dribble or shoot contested jumpers while everyone else stands around. RJ and Cadeau just aren’t big enough or quick enough for that kind of offense to work.
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Which teams have great ball movement and execution in the halfcourt?
 
stankeylegjones said:
I'm pretty sure Sherrell mentioned that UNC is making NIL offers on par with other top programs, saying NIL is not an issue...or at least wasn't last summer.
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I'm surprised this doesn't get mentioned more than it does, but we don't produce 1st round picks. If we're offering similar NIL $, but the other school has a recent track record of getting freshmen and transfers into the 1st round, I know which one I'd be choosing.

The knock on UNC is that they expect you to be a "program guy" - i.e. come in, work, earn your way, and your draft stock will suffer as a result. They also typically don't feature one-and-done freshmen. I get there's this "chicken/egg" dynamic going on with this, too - do we not produce OAD's because we don't get the best freshmen or do we not get the best freshmen because we don't produce 1st rounders?

Either way, the perception is reality - 5 star freshmen come here and struggle while others go to Duke or Kentucky, flourish, become high draft picks, rinse and repeat.

I don't know that there are any good answers on the roster for what ails this team. But I do know that the staff needs to feature Ian and Drake moving forward. They're the two (along with Seth) who do things that jump off the screen and getting them both into the 1st round this year needs to happen. Then Hubert needs to attend the draft with them in June. Make a damn show of it, too, a la Calipari.
 
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