This year Carolina celebrates 100 years of basketball. And though North Carolinians love to brag about how humble we are, this year it will be tough to keep from being too smug. I've blogged this before, but with the way Roy Williams has the program going one has to admit this is the golden age of Carolina basketball. ESPN has a nice interview and article about Roy's stamp on the program on their website.
Part of the smugness comes from two national championships in 5 years, 4 in the modern era which is the most in college basketball, and the fact that - unlike the highly entertaining and exhilarating 2006 team - the defending champs are returning a mix of proven and tantalizing talent in Deon Thompson, Ed Davis, Marcus Ginyard, Tyler Zeller, Larry Drew II and freshman like John Henson.
But some of that smugness comes from simply being that much more superior to other college basketball programs. Duke is run by a right-wing whiner and plays in front of a bunch of rich kids, Kentucky has sunk so low they hired a weasel like John Calipari to 'restore' their luster (he could not look more stupid here). Louisville is even worse - led by a whiner AND a weasel (which if you check out the details of Pitino's affair is an insult to weasels)! Indiana is still in tatters post-Bobby Knight. NC State has still not fully recovered from the Valvano flame out, etc. etc.
Ironically Kansas, along with Tom Izzo's Michigan, Ben Howland's UCLA and UConn (though Huskies fans must be nervous about Calhoun's health) appear to be the only programs that can hang with Carolina in terms of having good solid coaches, winning consistently, good fan bases full of good basketball fans who have at least a little perspective, and who recruit likable kids (I'm generalizing here, especially when you consider that the Kansas basketball team got into a fight with the KU football team last month).
But Carolina is the cream of the crop, and THE standard when it comes to college basketball.
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