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You can poo poo dook all you want but they are due to win another title soon....its been 9 yrs. Its just a matter of time. F em regardless
UNC ONLY BASKETBALL 2024-25 SEASON
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Heelsandeers
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Sign me up for getting good players and winning a bunch of games
Final 4s and national championships are a ton of luck in most cases
Final 4s and national championships are a ton of luck in most cases
UNCRx85
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yeah, this is what fans are concerned about. People cite the crazy run in '22 and throw that whole season in with it as being great. It wasn't. That team stunk for 2/3rds of the year.
Carolina Basketball was built on winning. Winning in the regular season. Winning the ACC. Winning in the NCAAT. And winning on draft day.
I'll take the odds, whatever they are, with having the best players every year. Are there challenges? Sure there are. And there are bound to be some blips, some down years. But this rationalization that being elite every 4 or so years is OK is both naive and unrealistic. Especially if you're missing tournaments in between. You string together some down years, and the elite ones (players and seasons) become harder and harder come by.
Heelsandeers
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"Effort" and "intensity" is like a catch all excuse for when a team plays poorly/below expecations
Not saying it never happens or hasn't happened with this particular group - but every game? I don't buy it
Heelsandeers
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To me Hubert's success (at least initially) was going to be predicated on getting among the best talent. Both in the HS ranks and portal, once that became the way roster construction was trending. And the hope was X's and O's and other aspects of being a HC would work themselves out with time
He has done some of the roster building and landing of talent - but that has dipped dramatically if we are looking at the last 18 months. Why that is, is the question that needs answered. I still believe he deserves at least another chance to put something together
He has done some of the roster building and landing of talent - but that has dipped dramatically if we are looking at the last 18 months. Why that is, is the question that needs answered. I still believe he deserves at least another chance to put something together
Bigs23
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UNCRx85
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Damn right I'm buying the hype. So are the best players. Sure, Duke should have won a few more titles with the players they've had.
You know who else everyone used to say that about? Us, under Dean Smith. Also, Roy at Kansas. Nobody's saying that about us anymore, are they?
My point, as others have made here as well, is that the OAD talent pipeline they established significantly elevates their floor. Same at Kansas (and UK, generally). All things considered, I'd prefer to field the most talented team we can field, year after year.
Bigs23
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Heelsandeers
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StoneColdHeel
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I just don't seem how anyone can dispute the last 5 years of Carolina basketball has been down overall a lot more compared to previous decades and had more bad seasons than good ones. I also don't understand how fans can be okay with it and just say well, that's how things are with college basketball now when it hasn't been that way with other programs. Fans shouldn't want Carolina to just settle for that excuse and be okay with how things have been overall the past 5 years.
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UNCRx85
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Both would be great. I'd very much like to do both of those things.
We haven't been doing much of either.
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Yup, like many say they have done less with more for a decade now.
Yes, their recruiting is enviable. But they haven't won a championship in a decade. Their last final 4 appearance they lost to their arch rival.
There are better comparisons of current success.
How is UCONN achieving the level of success they are? How is Pope doing as well as he is with 9 transfers and 3 freshmen?
I agree there are questions and comparisons, but we don't need to hang everything on how we compare to dook.
My biggest question at this point is the center position and how it was handled over this last year. Was it poor evaluation of current players and needs? Why were we not able to bring in talent? NIL, selling a backup role, player perception of the staff or how they develop talent? What's the answer?
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Can we all agree that it is down over these last 5 years? And shift the discussion?
I hope my post don't come across as accepting. I just don't see the benefit of focusing on a past we cannot change.
Where do we go from here?
What are the primary concerns and how are they addressed?
StoneColdHeel
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Some refuse to see it has been down, though. Or say it's ok because some other programs might have been down some, too.
Heelsandeers
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NCs/FFs are not the only metric of success, despite those being expectations many years. Duke has still won a ton of games over that span
Wouldn't trade their last 10 years for UNC's at all but still a very short list of more successful programs (Nova, UCONN, Kansas, ????)
Both run beautiful offense
UCONN happened to benefit from also having elite talent
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As Carolina fans we have high expectations, based on our history of success.
At the same time 6-5 is not 0-10. Yes there is reason for concern, but we are not Indiana. They have not been to a final 4 in 30 years.
Some posters come across that we are Indiana, some are sugar coating things. Truth is we are somewhere in the middle.
I hope we course correct quickly. I believe that starts with recruiting.
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You wanna talk about a program that's fallen off, at least in terms of tourny results, it's UK. They missed the tourny completely the year following covid (9-16 record that year), then proceeded to flame out in the first round, second round and first round in the next 3 tournys. Imagine the howling if we had put up similar performances over the last four years. Yeah, we missed the tourny one year, albeit with a 20-13 record (compared to UK's abysmal 9-16 record when they missed the tourny), and lost in the first round one year, but we also have a Sweet 16 appearance (a game we should've won and then proceeded to the FF) and, of course, a Finals appearance that we clearly had every chance of winning..
StoneColdHeel
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They wouldn't have been in the 2020 tourney, though. So that's really 2 tourneys missed. And this year doesn't look promising so far. The year they got sent home in the first round wasn't good, either. And the two sweet 16 losses were as a number 1 seed to lower seeds. The win against dook at Cameron and the tourney run Hubert's first year was great, but the season was bad until then. Overall it has not been nearly as good the last 5 years as we usually see.
UNCRx85
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I really think a focus moving forward, aside from the obvious extinguishing of the current dumpster fire, needs to be incorporating Ian and Drake more and trying to get them into the 1st round.
We've been negative-recruited for a long time for not fast-tracking 5 star guys. Hubert got a little reprieve because he wasn't Roy, but now that he's had 3 top-ten level 5-star guys (EC, Ian, Drake) who aren't exactly flourishing.
We also probably need to get comfortable with overpaying for portal talent. I don't know the ins and outs of getting that from donors, but we need to identify guys early and be aggressive in getting them. Maybe even try to take more than you think you need. How different would we look if we'd overpaid for Cliff? Or took Danny Wolf earlier?
I honestly don't have much faith in getting things flipped without a pretty big influx of $ for players. I mean, Cliff went to Alabama for similar/same $ to play 17 minutes per game. He'd have to beg to leave the court here.
Every year you're not successful makes being successful the next year even harder. That's how Indiana got to where they are. I fear we'll just have to pay up, at this point. Do those with the deepest pockets trust Hubert with their $ is another question.
In defense of Hubert specifically, I think the whole grim 5 year overview unfairly damages fans’ perception of him considering 2 of those seasons (including by far the worst one that contributes significantly to all of the unsavory stats during that stretch) happened with Roy as the HC. I love Roy and this is not at all a knock on him, but he didn’t exactly hand Hubert a program that was in peak condition.
That aside, I fully agree with your overall point. I think most of our fan base would acknowledge that the days of being as consistently excellent as we were under Roy and especially under Dean are unrealstic nowadays because of the increased parity in the sport. It’s still fully within our wheelhouse to be one of the top programs in the sport though. We’re not entitled or ungrateful for collectively having higher expectations, and it really irks me when people say that. Literally any fan base of an historically great program will get antsy when things start to slip. In fact, I would say UNC fans specifically are on the more patient side compared to a lot of fan bases of programs of similar stature (LSU football, UK basketball, etc).