Is it College Basketball Season yet?!
As one of the proverbial Grumbling Old Men of Franklin Street waiting on College Basketball Season to start this sports editorial particularly caught my eye this week. I thought that I'd post at least a few excerpts from it for those of you not deeply engrossed in teh Football Season. It is a long editorial (and so are my excerpts for which I apologize) but it's well-written and well-reasoned; worth the read if you have any interest in the great sport of Mr. Naismith...and in Carolina of course (link below).
Excerpt from "Grantland", all emphasis is my own:
Why the North Carolina Tar Heels Will Win the National Championship
by Jay Caspian Kang
17 Oct 2011
On January 16 of this year, the North Carolina Tar Heels were 12-5, having just beaten Virginia Tech in a close game in Chapel Hill. The grumbling old men of Franklin Street were grumbling about what they had been grumbling about for the past two years: Larry Drew II, the team's starting point guard, was playing horribly. In the Virginia Tech game, he had picked up more fouls (4) than assists (3), points (3), or rebounds (2). Kendall Marshall, Drew's freshman backup, had played spectacularly.
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Three days later the wheels finally came off what had already been a disappointing Tar Heels season. North Carolina lost by 20 to a Georgia Tech team that would finish the year with a 5-11 conference record. Drew did not score in that game. He was benched. Three weeks later he left the team in disgrace.
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Amid great fanfare from both the message boards and the old grumbling men, the Kendall Marshall era began.
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For the North Carolina basketball team, the point guard is "the engine that runs Roy Williams' supercharged machine." Carolina basketball, as the metaphor goes, is a beautiful machine stocked with elegant, fast parts — the Bugatti of college basketball. And like all high-performance cars, the machine is fragile and bound to break down every once in a while.
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It's a system with one massive inherent risk: Point guards are notoriously difficult to scout and project — in 2008, Drew was the fourth-best point guard prospect in his high school class. The three players ahead of him — Brandon Jennings, Jrue Holiday, and Kemba Walker — are all in the NBA. Drew, for his part, stunk for two years, and was stinking up his junior year before abruptly leaving the team in February.
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The point guard for North Carolina is the single most important position in college basketball. When Roy has a good one, the team wins national championships. When Roy has a bad one, the Heels are barely a tournament team.
This year, the Heels have one hell of a point guard in Kendall Marshall. He will probably never be the offensive force that Ty Lawson was, and there is a chance he'll leave Chapel Hill without a championship. But in 20 years, when we look back at Ol' Roy's era in Chapel Hill, Marshall will be the one we remember the most fondly.1 At heart, Carolina fans are basketball purists, and nothing on Tobacco Road reads as purely as the pass-first point guard.
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The 2004-05 Tar Heels finished the season with a 14-2 conference record, went 33-4 overall, and stormed through the NCAA tournament.
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The 2008-09 Tar Heels were one of the best teams in the history of college basketball. Their average margin of victory in the tournament was over 20 points per game.
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I bring this up because the 2011-12 Tar Heels are built a whole lot like the past two championship teams. They have a point guard who can run Roy's system (Marshall, Lawson, Felton). They have a sweet-shooting wing with a knack for knocking down big shots (Harrison Barnes, Ellington, McCants). They have a five-star freshman forward who can concentrate his effort on the defensive side of the floor (James McAdoo, Ed Davis, Marvin Williams). They have a low-post player who can take over games (Tyler Zeller, Hansbrough, May). They have an athletic two guard who can bear down on defense and help push the tempo (Jackie Manuel, Ginyard/Green, Dexter Strickland).
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When this system is firing on all cylinders, the Heels are unbeatable.
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There is a surplus of talent in Chapel Hill. Almost all of it — save Marshall — is interchangeable.
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So, my Carolina brethren, please join me in the following prayer for Kendall Marshall. Please, please, please let him be healthy. If he plays 35 games, the Heels will be cutting down the nets in March. If he plays 15, expect two losses to Duke, a quick out in the ACC tournament, and nothing past the second round of the NCAA.
There is very little middle ground here. But isn't that why we love Ol' Roy?
Source:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7114532/why-north-carolina-tar-heels-win-national-championship
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