Everything is better

Everything is better when Carolina wins.  George Will once said his friends who were Cardinals fans grew up to be happy, optimistic and liberal, and his friends - like him - who were Cubs fans grew up to be unhappy, cynical and conservative.  


Being a Carolina fan is like the Cardinals fans in Will's quote - to be a Tar Heel is be happy and optimistic. You knew Carolina would play a certain way - smart, feeding the post, getting good shots and making good decisions - and be extremely successful as a result.


This season has been more Cubs, but today's win was pure Cardinals.  For a day at least, Carolina looked like Carolina.  They rebounded, they fed the post and attacked the basket relentlessly thus generating good shots, and they played smart and excellent defense. 


Putting up a wall on defense - not taking a charge but stopping penetration or redirecting the ball where you want it to go - is a Carolina trademark, and today against the Deacons the Heels excelled. Carolina's walls repeatedly cut off penetration and forced them to become a jump-shooting team.  As a result the Deacons, who are not a good shooting team, had a tough day on offense.  


And when Heels like Deon Thompson or Tyler Zeller or Will Graves were not putting up walls, John Henson was blocking shots.  He was magnificent in the first half on defense.  


Capping off the great walls and shot blocking was the clutch defense of Leslie Macdonald, who drew two big charges. Macdonald was Henson's equal in the magnificence department.  


It was a yin-yang performance by the freshmen. Henson was great in the first half; Macdonald especially good in the second. Henson was a force on defense blocking shots and rebounding; Macdonald was an aggressive and confident and clutch hoopster on the offensive end, almost Danny Green-esque. 


Not only was it a great win, on the road, snapping a losing streak, and hopefully leading to some momentum in the last two games of the regular season and going into the ACC tournament but it also gave one hope for the future, both the rest of this season and the next. It's exciting to think about how players like Henson, Macdonald, Drew, Zeller and Strickland could explode after a year of adversity and seasoning. 


Best of all, for the first time since the win at State, Carolina looked like Carolina again.  The Heels rebounded, ran the floor, fed the post, consistently made the smart play, and played great defense for 40 minutes in Winston-Salem.  I've said it before and I'll say here one more time - losing is bad enough, but what made this team difficult to watch was the way they lost.  This team consistently made un-Heel like plays: bad passes, questionable effort, quick shots, you name it.  


But tonight? Pure Carolina


And when this team was pressed and the game tightened up late, the Heels responded like . . . well, Tar Heels.  They didn't panic, they didn't get the 'woe is me' thing going that Roy has talked about, they didn't choke. 


Instead, the 2010 Heels made plays.  Tough, big-time, plays.


Whether we're talking about: big three-pointers, two by Graves and one by Larry Drew II late (at one point the Heels were 7 of 9 on threes in the second half; the game is a lot easier when you shoot it well); a great double team by Drew and Graves in the corner to force Wake to burn their last timeout; Macdonald's charge late; or Graves' big rebound with about a minute left, the Heels made plays.


No play, however, was bigger than the one Macdonald and fellow freshman Dexter Strickland made with just under a minute left.  Wake had cut the lead to 3.  Instead of worrying or calling time out, the Heels performed like Heels.  As the Deacons were still celebrating their made three-pointer freshman Strickland, in the game due to Drew's brain lock at the free-throw line, quickly pushed the ball ahead in the mode of Felton and Lawson, and fed Macdonald for a quick and easy lay up.   


Then on the ensuing Wake possession a wall put up by Deon and Marcus Ginyard led to Macdonald sliding his feet and taking his big charge that sealed a great and satisfying win.  


And everything is better when the Heels win.


A few random notes:

• It was a great team win.  Everyone who played contributed.
• Kudos to Larry Drew, who had his best game since the Michigan State win in December.  He was aggressive and tough, and did not get down after a rough start to the second half.  His three late was huge, though his free throw woes were almost hugely bad. 
• Our point guards did a great job guarding Ish Smith today.  In Chapel Hill, Drew did a horrible job containing him, but tonight was the opposite.  Drew played Smith to drive, and let the notoriously iffy outside shooter bomb - and miss - from the perimeter. 
• Will Graves really stepped up in the second half.  His shooting was big time, but he also was choice on defense and the boards.  Like all the Heels, he made plays all over the floor tonight, but none bigger than his two threes late.
• It is not a coincidence that the Heels have looked better now that Zeller is back. He's a talented and gifted player who also knows how to play.  He is better than Deon or the Wears at getting position and asserting himself down low.
• Deon did not shoot it well, but his defense in the second half was great. Ditto Marcus Ginyard, who did not force anything on the offensive end and combined with Thompson and Graves for numerous walls and stops. 
• Like I said, it was a total team effort led by the magnificent play of Macdonald and Henson.  Both not only excelled and led their team to victory, they were having fun out there tonight.  Great to see, and great to win.

GO HEELS!

February Hates CHB

Good thing it's the shortest month of the year, because February has been really cruel to all things Carolina and Hellenic.  It goes on today, with the Post taking a break from it's front page coverage of Greece's economic problems long enough to run an article chronicling the decline of blue-blood basketball programs like Carolina, Arizona, UCLA and Connecticut. 


Good riddance to February; I'm tired of talking about the problems with the two stales of my non-family, non-enviro life - hoops  and Hellenism (and it's not just Carolina; our hometown Wizards also had a horrible month).  


Hoops and Hellenism is a pretty good name for a blog, but I probably could not stand the competition for the Greek/basketball blogosphering public.


Finally, March will not be much better.  Just found out the Greek Prime Minister, Berkeley-born, American-bred George Papandreou, will be in D.C. for meetings with President Obama and others on March 9th, and of course a central part of the initial March Madness coverage will be reminders of the collapse of the defending national champs.


More hoops and Hellenism:

• When the Wizards traded Brendan Haywood then Antawn Jamison I decided to give up on our hometown team.  But the new look Zards, led by of all people Andray Blatche, are 3-3 including a win over Ty Lawson's Denver Nuggets.  Evan is no longer interested, but I'm thinking about giving this team another shot - and tickets on StubHub are pretty cheap.  Besides, they are only 8 1/2 games out of the eighth play off spot!
• NBA favorite player Haywood is thriving in Dallas. The Mavs are 6-0 in games he has started, and his numbers - though similar to the ones he put up in DC - are nonetheless impressive. In the six games he's started B-Hay is averaging 12 points, 11.5 boards and more than 3 blocks. His defense could make a team known around the league as soft a force in the playoffs.  Pretty ironic stuff for a guy once derided by know-nothing Wizards fans as 'Brenda' Haywood.   
• Seeing Haywood or more likely Antawn Jamison win an NBA championship this year with their new teams would take some - only some - of the sting out of this bad college hoops season.
• But my main rooting interest for the rest of this year will be the Charlotte Bobcats, led by second-favorite NBA player Raymond Felton. It looks imminent that Michael Jordan will purchase the Bobcats from do-thing black Republican Robert Johnson so they better make a run now before he screws up that franchise. The Cats are in 9th place in the east, in a tight race with Jerry Stackhouse's Milwaukee Bucks for the final playoff spot.
• Speaking of MJ, I received Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection, as a what-I-believe-to-be-sincere Valentine's Day present from Alison. I've been listening to it, especially disc one, a lot. That guy is really like Elvis, with a brilliant career that eventually choked in it's own vomit.  Disc one has three all-time great American songs by the Jackson 5: I Want You Back, ABC, I"ll Be There. The intro to I Want You Back, with the piano riff that quickly blends into a scratchy guitar part, is the ultimate Motown fanfare.  The rest of that disc includes Dancing Machine, Off The Wall, Shake Your Body, and Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. But like the rest of the four-disc set, each one is a mix of brilliance - those songs, plus Billie Jean, Bad - and absolute dreck - Ben, She's Out of My Life, and his song to his chimp Bubbles.  But it's worth wading through the dreck to listen to Wanna Be Starting Something.
• In college I had a great mixed tape that had an excellent segue from Wanna Be Starting Something to Flashlight by Parliament, FYI.
• My admission of affection for Michael Jackson may be as shocking to some (though I grew up with The Jackson 5) as last year's blog about American Idol.  But this week I was reminded once again of one of the main reasons I watch AI (besides Simon Cowell):  an excuse to engage and talk to our kids about something they like, something especially important now that Ariadne is a full-fledged teen. On Wednesday night Evan went to bed early, so it was just me and my daughter watching TV. We sat there talking, discussing each performance, having a real conversation, goofing off during commercials, etc.  And when I came home from my Greek Language MeetUp on Thursday night she gave me an update on who had been eliminated on her way to bed.  Ariadne and I fight a lot more now than we ever have, but those casual conversations and happy moments - in this case spurred by American Idol - are pretty cool.

Final answers

There were a number of questions heading into this Carolina basketball season. The defending national champs were talented, but there were three main questions.

Is Larry Drew ready - and seasoned enough - to run Roy Williams' Carolina offense?

Though inexperienced in the back court, can Carolina's long and talented front line replace the scoring provided by Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, and Danny Green?

Can Dean Thompson and Marcus Ginyard lead a young team the way David Noel and Tyler Hansbrough did in 2006?

The clear answers, writ large tonight in another embarrassing home loss this time to FSU, are no, no and no.  That's been evident all season, at least this calendar year, but it saddens nonetheless.

Against FSU tonight Larry Drew looked clueless, seemingly unaware that his number one job is to push the ball up court and get the ball down low.  But in addition to initiating Carolina's offense, a Tar Heel point guard is supposed to disrupt the other team's offense.  Drew was horrible at both tonight (as was his back up, Dexter 'Sloppy' Strickland).

Our most reliable low-post scorer, Dean Thompson, barely touched the ball and ended up only taking 6 shots.  Deon should assert himself more, so it's not completely Drew's fault.  But after almost a full season at the point he still seems incapable of regularly initiating Carolina's offense.

Carolina's injury-depleted front court was overmatched by a more physical opponent again tonight. In the first half Drew did feed the post a bit, but mainly to John Henson and Tyler Zeller.  Unfortunately, Henson was routinely manhandled by the Seminoles front line and Zeller must have run out of gas as he played limited minutes in the second half.  Without Ed Davis, our most talented player hands down, and the Wear brothers our front court is literally thin - and thin.

I thought he would, but Deon has not established himself as the go-to player for the Heels this season. And Ginyard seems to lack the talent - perhaps due to his multiple injuries - to lead this team.  Our two senior leaders have struggled to lead this team ever since the loss to Texas in Cowboys Stadium.

No, no, no.

To make matters worse, with the exception of Will Graves and Zeller the Heels played as if they were going through the motions tonight.  Most of the team acted as if the season was already over despite the fact that winning four in a row, though improbable, could have gotten the Heels to 7-9 and probably into the NCAA tournament.  Winning against FSU would have meant the team still had some fight left, perhaps enough to run the table - again improbable -  at the ACC tournament.  Or at least stay out of a last-place tie with NC State.

The lack of effort was most pronounced on the defensive end, where FSU easily moved the ball on offense and seemingly got any shot they wanted.  

So still no answers, no wins, and another loss in Chapel Hill.  Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

Tiger Woods

I've always thought Tiger Woods was a scumbag, in December he told the world he WAS a scumbag, and last week he reminded us he will always be a self-serving, self-centered scumbag.

Political Contradictions

So we're celebrating President's Day in Politics and Prose's coffee shop this morning.  As I sip my Fair Trade coffee surrounded by other upper northwest liberals, I'm struck by the political and cultural schisms within the left and increasingly the right.


You can generally (and I'm being very general) describe the left as made up of three groups: college educated NPR listeners, the new left, and what's left of organized labor and minorities, the old left.  Politics and Prose is a new left nirvana - an independent bookstore where you can get a vanilla steamer, an Andean Quinoa Salad or fig jam served to you by an emo-listening and tatooed 20-something taking a semester off from Oberlin. 


The differences between the old and new left couldn't be more stark when you are sitting in P&P.  Culturally, the old left is more into cheeseburgers and beer than quinoa, prefer Maxwell house to lattes, is more religious and left complicated that the new left, and would rather listen to Led Zeppelin or Bruce Springsteen than Conor Oberst (is he still popular?).


Finally, the new left is more concerned with personal issues like gay rights than the old left is, though both groups are equally concerned about labor rights and minority rights; we can all agree on fair trade coffee and using union hotels for our conferences!


That kind of cleavage is kind of old hat for the Democrats.  It was perfected in the 60s, and led to Richard Nixon getting elected in 1968.  And some argue the new left voting for Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000.


The right has done a better job of papering over their own schisms - but that may not hold this year.  Everyone from Charlie Crist to John McCain to Utah Senator Bill Bennett are fighting off primary challenges from the new right.  


The old right worships Wall Street but wants less government intervention in their personal life; they golf and play tennis but aren't known for being big NASCAR fans.  The new right - epitomized by the tea baggers this year - want the opposite.  They think Obama is conspiring with Wall Street (to keep the white working class down, deliver the nation to the Muslims, etc.).  And of course they favor government telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies, and want government to prohibit gays and others from having equal rights (marriage, military, etc.).  


They are so mad - and so crazy - that if their candidates lose those primaries there is no guarantee they will loyally stick with the Republican brand this November.


So who knows, 2010 could be a rerun of 1968, where people in the streets are mad but don't get what they want via the ballot.

Perfect tonic

Though it entailed driving to North Cackalacky and back in 48 hours, through snow on both ends of the drive, attending 'The 100 Years of Carolina Basketball Celebration' on Friday night was well well - well - worth it.  

The night was the perfect antidote to the recent doldrums the 2010 Heels have experienced, but it was much more than that.  

The biggest highlight among many was the halftime tribute to Dean Smith.  There are a million reasons to love Dean Smith, my unparalleled hero, and Carolina. I can't believe how lucky I am to be Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred.  And that kind of cheesy but incredibly sincere affection I have for Carolina is shared by almost every Tar Heel you will ever meet.  And it is epitomized by Dean Smith.  

Dean may be the last true hero.  We already know his flaws - he was a big smoker, he's divorced, and he probably went to the four corners 2 minutes too early in the 1977 national championship game versus Marquette - but he will never let us down like other heros (take your pick, Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Mark Magwire, John Edwards, etc.) have.   

He's successful yet genuinely humble; lives in the public eye but abhors public adulation; an activist Christian who is NOT pompous or judgmental. Dean is authentic and sincere.  

Most importantly, Dean understands that we define ourselves in how we interact with other people (had to drop some Aristotle; it's Carolina AND Hellenic Blue after all)  in his case mainly his players who have always excelled on and off the court.  When Dean says 'we' he means it.  It's always been about we, not me.

He even strikes a pose that is almost Sinatraesque in this photo from Inside Carolina.

Dean Smith not only epitomizes the University of North Carolina, a university that epitomizes the good side of the Old North State - more tolerance and excellence than other southern states, a general moderateness and humility, with a distinct lack of pretension - but the transplanted Kansas epitomizes the state itself.  North Carolina's state motto is "Esse Quam Videri" Latin for "To Be Rather Than To Seem."  

That's Dean Smith, and why most of the 21,000 in attendance welled up when Dean came on the floor on Friday night.

There were other highlights from the Celebration of 100 Years of Carolina Basketball, including:

• Evan and I got to speak with Lenny Rosenbluth, the first supersTar Heel who led Carolina to an undefeated 1957 National Championship season.  Evan got Mr. Rosenbluth to autograph a photo from a commemorative edition of Sports Illustrated of Rosenbluth battling Kansas' Wilt Chamberlain.   Pretty cool.
• Watching Phil Ford play one more time.  By far the three loudest ovations of the night were for Dean, Ford, and Tyler Hansbrough.
• The nice hand for of all people Matt Doherty.  That's another great statement on North Carolina. Fans at other places would have booed, but the North Carolinian thing to do is clap politely. Doherty's tenure as coach was a disaster, but he is still a Tar Heel. Classy move by Heels fans to give him a nice ovation.
• The centerpiece of the celebration was an old timers game that featured more than 100 former players, some who played in the 1940s, that featured walk ons to stars like Ford, Walter Davis, Bobby Jones, Eric Montross, and 1993 Final Four MOP Donald Williams.  A highlight of the game had to be Shammond Williams' defense of Donald Williams at the end of the game, and the classic Carolina ball movement that led to Serge Zwikker's game winning basket for the White team.  
• The celebration ended with a legends fast break, with Heels whose jerseys are in the rafters passing a ball down the floor in a mock fast break. The fast break featured Bob McAdoo, Billy Cunningham, Rosenbluth, Ford, Wayne Ellington, Al Wood, among others, and culminated with Tyler Hansbrough making a lay up. 
• The game was interrupted every four minutes for video highlights and live interviews.  The best one had to be the debate between Wayne Ellington and Jawad Williams on which recent National Championship team was better, the defending champs or the 2005 edition.  

The debate reminded Heels fans that we should not feel sorry for ourselves this year.  The Heels have won two championships in five years, have the most national championships - four - in the modern era (since 1979), been to 3 final fours in five years and 5 since Dean retired in 1997 (remember the old days when the Heels went 9 years between final fours?),  have averaged 19.9 wins a year for the last 100 YEARS, boast an unparalleled list of alumni, ad infinitum. 

Best of all, Carolina basketball is probably the only entity that could pull off such a special celebration.  What other school has that kind of history, legacy and quality?  

[Of course, boasting like this is not very North Carolinian, but as any native of the Tar Heel State will tell you: "North Carolinians love to brag about how humble we are." So today's blog Esse Quam Videri!]

Still No Answers

I don't like Led Zeppelin, but this piece from Inside Carolina sums up the frustrations of many Heels.  


Still No Answers: "CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --- Legendary rock band Led Zeppelin made a classic album in 1976 called 'The Song Remains The Same.' For North Carolina’s basketball team, that would be an appropriate title to its 2010 season."

Man . . .

I thought we had that one, up four and rolling enough to make Krzyzewski call a time out.  But give Duke credit; after that time out they responded, and Scheyer and Singler made plays.  Heels did not make plays down the stretch.


We made some bad decisions - poor shot selection by Ginyard and Graves - left lots of points on the free-throw line, and had our best player, Ed Davis, disappear.


The good news is the Heels were intense on defense, and intensity and effort was there and on the boards.  But as weird as it may sound, this team is not a skilled offensive squad.  For proof look no further than watching a Roy Williams-coached team only score 54 points in 40 minutes.  

Tonight's the Night

I'm convinced that the Heels will turn their season around tonight versus the blue Devils, for a number of reasons:

1. Intensity, which has been a problem at times with this team, should not be an issue in a rivalry game;
2. The 100th anniversary of Carolina basketball is Friday night, and who wants to go into that celebration on a down, we-just-lost-to-Duke note;
3. Marcus Ginyard seems recovered from his injuries, and should shut down Duke's Jon Scheyer;
4. Seniors like Ginyard and Deon Thompson have spent the last four years beating Duke like a drum, and they don't want that to stop;
5. Duke has been pretty weak on the road this year;
6. Carolina is retiring Tyler Hansbrough's number tonight at halftime.

All that will add up to an inspiring and season-saving win for the Heels on that puts us on the road to at least seven wins in the ACC (how pathetic that we are hoping for seven wins in conference?).  GO HEELS!

Undercover Boss + American Idol = ???

We’ve been snowed in for what feels like forever, actually five days. Today we are getting buried by our third snow storm in the last month. With today’s incredible wind our car, deck and yard are literally buried under two to three feet of snow.  Some parts of the yard have drifts up to five feet.

Today is also the one day we will not go out at all (except to shovel walk and take some pictures) Even with the blasts of the last week or so we had been able to walk to Politics and Prose, 7-11, Mazza Gallerie, the grocery store, the bank, etc., and the kids even had play dates yesterday.  But today we are stuck inside.


Having been stuck inside for the last five days has increased our TV watching (though it hasn’t been too excessive).  Two shows in particular prompted me to blog.


The first was ‘Undercover Boss’ which debuted right after the Super Bowl. The show documents what happens when a CEO goes undercover to work a variety of jobs within his or her company. The debut followed the CEO of Waste Management (next week’s episode follows the CEO of Hooters; wonder how that company made the show?) so the show emphasized among other things recycling.


Overall UB is pretty sympathetic to workers, who at Waste Management get docked if they take more than 30 minutes for lunch, have to do the work of 4 people at one site, and if you are a female garbage collector have to pee in a can as part of an effort to maximize efficiency.


We also caught up on a week’s worth of episodes of American idol via TiVO. It’s almost a cliché, but all the contestants on Idol want to improve the lives of their family and their economic station in life.  The thing that strikes me about the contestants is all of them are young, have jobs, but seem to be stuck in non-career type jobs. The show features lots of waitresses, fast food employees, sandwich makers, sales associates, etc. (there is a steady stream of high school students but not many college students).


The contestants on Idol remind me of the Waste Management employees.  I imagine most of the jobs that AI contestants have don’t come with health insurance, paid vacations, or many benefits at all.  And I’m not sure what the benefits are at Waste Management, but if you get docked for taking 31 minutes for lunch or don’t have time to stop to go to the bathroom they don’t seem that robust.


To me, both shows make compelling arguments for more unions. Last time I checked more than 30 percent of American workers do not have paid vacations or paid days off, another embarrassing statistic for the world’s richest nation of all time.  As these shows point out, Americans are working hard but the economy is not working for them.  To me, one remedy is to restore balance by allowing workers in every sector – from sandwich maker to garbage collector – to collectively bargain for more money, paid vacations, and lunch breaks long enough to go to the bathroom.  You shouldn't have to pin your hopes on winning American Idol - working should be enough to provide for you and your family.

Did The Season Just End?

With today's dispiriting loss to Maryland, a game where the offense was better but the defense lackadaisical, it's not hard to declare the 2010 season over for the Tar Heels.  We all knew this year would be a rebuilding year, and it now looks more and more like an NIT year.  


Against Maryland today we simply could not get a stop - at any time during the game. I know Maryland leads the ACC in scoring but our defense never ever rose to the occasion after two spirited offensive runs got the Heels back in the game, especially early in the second half.


The lack of defensive execution undercut some positives from today's game, namely the play of Ginyard, Thompson and Davis (who finished with 16 rebounds but was weak on defense).  Those guys had nice games, but the flip side was Larry Drew completely stinking up the joint, finishing with 0 points, 4 turnovers versus 5 assists. 


I probably should not be that harsh. Carolina can probably still qualify for the NCAA tournament with a 7 and 9 ACC regular season record (both because of the Heels' strength of schedule and the fact that the PAC 10, and some mid-major conferences who have gotten 3 bids recently, are very weak this season).  


But to do so, we will need to run the table at home since it appears unlikely that the Heels will win another road game this season. That's the rub - the Heels only have four home games left, versus State, Miami (the two 'easy' games) but also host FSU (doable since we're talking about a Leonard Hamilton-coached team) and Duke on Wednesday.


For more reasons than one the Duke game is crucial.  The good news is, a win could turn around the season and give this team confidence as it enters the second half of the ACC schedule.  The bad news, the season really would end with a loss to Duke.  


There is one ray of hope in Carolina's road schedule, and that's Boston College.  In addition to visiting Chestnut Hill, the Heels have to go to Durham, Wake Forest, and Georgia Tech.  Of course, it would be fantastic to win in Cameron for the fifth year in a row, but winning at Duke and Wake appear unlikely with this squad.  Winning in Atlanta seems a bit more likely but not nearly as possible as winning at BC.  


Either way, we need 5 wins to get into the NCAA tournament and need to start versus the Devils on Wednesday.


GO HEELS! (please!)

48 Hours

 It's embarrassing to admit how much my mood is impacted by the Heels.  As I get older I have gained more perspective so I haven't been mad or short tempered since Sunday night's loss to Virginia.  But it still gnaws at me, to see how badly Carolina played in that loss.


And I'm just a casual fan/blogger.  It must be tearing the players and Roy up, to the point where 'ol Roy got emotional at his post-game press conference.


Let's hope the loss to Virginia was a testament to overconfidence - the Heels had just rolled over State and new a win over the Cavaliers would make them 3-3 - and not due to a lack of talent or heart, or bad coaching.


I guess we'll find out in another 48 hours, when the Heels travel to Blacksburg to take on Virginia Tech. I wonder if the Heels will find inspiration from the football Heels. Just 3 months ago, also on a Thursday night, Carolina saved their season by defeating the Hokies a week after losing at home to Florida State.  What are the odds of salvaging two seasons in Blacksburg?


And though the Heels are 2-4 they can still finish at 8-8, enough to make the NCAA tournament when you consider their schedule, pedigree, and record.  


To get to 8-8 the Heels will need to do the following:

• win at Virginia Tech, at Boston College, their two most winnable away games;
• hold serve at home versus Duke, NC State, Florida State and Miami.

That's a doable path to 8-8.  


Finally, I would not be surprised if we steal a win at Duke.  It's unlikely, as simply the odds of winning any away game in the ACC five times in a row are improbable, especially for a team that only scored 60 points at home versus Virginia.  But we play the Dookies in the last game of the regular season, and the Devils could start their annual late-season, Krzyzewski-fatigue induced swoon early this season.  Could happen.


Anyway, we'll know soon enough.  Call Butch Davis, and have him fire up the Heels with tales from the football team's win in Blacksburg.  And GO HEELS!