End of the Year Effort

It’s an effort to figure out where to start the last blog of the Carolina basketball season, a season that began with the Heels the pre-season favorite to win our third national championship in 8 seasons.

In that context, losing in a regional final looks like a failed season.  But you can’t say that about this year’s Heels.

For most of the year, THE question around this squad was ‘Will the Heels pull it all together after the injuries - first to Strickland then Henson - and the terrible road loss in Tallahassee in time to win the championship?’

The answer to that question was answered in the second half against Creighton – heel yes. 

Carolina looked that good in the second (third) round game in Greensboro, just the way they looked in humiliating the devils in Durham to close out the regular season with a 14-2 record.

Of course the entire sports world knows what happened next. All-everything Kendall Marshall, whose offensive blossoming down the stretch was THE Carolina story even more than Tyler Zeller becoming the ACC Player of the Year, went down with a broken wrist.  And any realistic chance at national championship broke down with it.

However, the reason the 2012 campaign was not a failure is the way the Heels responded to Marshall’s injury.

The fought, they competed, and they expended maximum effort. We measure sports contests with wins and losses, but sport is really about one thing and one thing only – effort. 

Against Ohio (sure, it was only Ohio, but they played well!) the Heels could have easily hung their collective heads, especially Harrison Barnes, when they went down by 4 with 4 minutes to go; ‘oh well, what can we do?  We don’t have Kendall Marshall?’

But the Heels did the opposite. John Henson hustled back to block an Ohio fast break basketball, Barnes refocused and calmly hit two big shots in overtime, and Reggie Bullock manned up and repeatedly hit big threes down the stretch and to start overtime to carry Carolina.

They did not feel sorry for themselves; they competed.

For 36 minutes against Kansas, it was a tie game. The Heels, playing their third- and fourth-string point guards, were toe-to-toe in a regional final. 

White withstood the pressure from Kansas’ guards. James Michael McAdoo made play after play, and the Heels were a great shooting team for the first 24 minutes, getting points from all over the floor behind Barnes and Henson and Zeller.

Unfortunately, coming out of the under-four time out, the Heels were spent. Points were left on the rim – two nice drives by Barnes ended with missed shots including a Zeller tip-in that did not go in – and Kansas over played Zeller and Henson, forced White and Bullock to take and miss shots.  And just like that, the great and promising season ended.

It would have been great to see Barnes score on those drives, to see the freshman White direct Carolina into the final four.  Unfortunately, the reward was not the one Heels fans wanted but we DID get to see the Heels compete.

Injuries are the wild card in sports.  Stay healthy and expend the effort, and you will be rewarded.  The effort was there, and for that we can be proud.

GO HEELS!

A few more notes:

• The last four minutes of that game reminded me a little of the 2007 regional final against Georgetown, where the Heels simply could not make a shot down the stretch. In that game, we took some bad shots. Yesterday, the Heels were spent and going against a tough and smart Kansas defense.
• Sad to see Bullock end the season with a bad game shooting 3s. He had been so hot coming in, I really expected him to help carry Carolina one more game. But he was fantastic as our starting shooting guard this year.
• Enough cannot be said about Stilman White handling the first two starts of his career with such aplomb. Has any freshman had to do that, have their first two starts come in the sweet 16 and elite 8?  Or forget starts, just talk about getting significant playing time for the first time in the NCAA tournament.
• McAdoo was electric yesterday versus Kansas, much like he was in the second half of the season. He was the second-biggest story of the second half of the season. Mark my words: McAdoo will become Rasheed Wallace next year.
• The worst part of any ‘end of the season Carolina blog’ – even when the Heels win a national championship – is the speculation about who will come back.  Of late, Barnes, Henson AND Marshal – probably McAdoo, too - have been projected as early- to mid-first round picks in the NBA draft (as has Zeller, for that matter).
• I guess there’s a scenario where 2 of the three come back – either Henson or Barnes, along with Marshall – but I would not get my hopes up.  Then again, this is a pretty deep draft (six Kentucky players alone will go pro, along with Austin Rivers, Jared Sullinger, etc.), so maybe Marshall comes back for another season to work himself into a lottery pick rather than the 15^th or 16^th pick in 2012.
• Or maybe Barnes wants to keep increasing his brand one more season, or comeback to do something truly worthy of getting your jersey in the rafters?  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/moneyballer/8911/
• Either way, next year’s team will be a fun one, with McAdoo, a freshman at 4, Bullock (taking Barnes’ spot), Strickland (at one?), P.J. Hairston (starting over McDonald at 2), Leslie McDonald, even Desmond Hubert battling Maryland, NC State, Syracuse and I guess Duke next year. FSU, Virginia, and Pitt will be a little down next year after losing key seniors, with Clemson, Miami, Wake, Georgia Tech, BC and I guess Virginia Tech still another year away.
• One of if not THE saddest parts of ending this season is saying goodbye to classy and successful Tar Heel seniors Tyler Zeller and Justin Watts. It would have been fantastic to have them leave with book ended national championships. But they leave with a great legacy nonetheless. I think Zeller will be a very successful pro. You put him on a team like Phoenix or Oklahoma City, teams that like to run and he could really thrive.