This Tar Heel team is a margarita on the beach one moment and a migraine the next. During the second half of their game against Maryland (who isn't very good), I kept waiting for the nine point deficit to snowball into thirty points, as it did against Florida State not too long ago, for these are the kind of expectations that rest like Jenga blocks on the rickety shoulders of Tyler Zeller and John Henson and glass ankle of Harrison Barnes. Those guys grabbed the rebounds, altered Maryland's shots, and got to pose after clutch baskets, but it's Kendall Marshall's vision that makes all of this team's manic depressive whims bearable.
"Minh walked under a gray sky, sorrow biting at his throat. He stepped into a banana grove and tore off three of the fruits and ate, tossing the peels in the water as he and Thu had done in a better world.
He imagined his brother burning--he often did-- Thu's body in the flame, dreadful pain outside, going up his nostrils and in. And then as a monkey holds two branches for an instant, lets go of the first and clings to the new one, he was no longer the body, but the fire."
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke
The ACC is on fire my friends, and I don't say this just because I'm a Carolina fan and the Heels are having a tough go of it. Okay, maybe that has something to do with it, but that does not change the fact that this mighty basketball conference is now nothing but flames performing alchemy on human flesh.
Think about it. Only two ACC teams have winning records against the top 25, and lowly Virginia started the season 3-0, gave Wahoos flashbacks of Junior Burrough, and had the whole conference remembering the days when the league was nine levels of Hell and not just one pile of shit. One pile. Twelve flies. Nothing distinguishable. Waiting to be burned. Perhaps already feeling the heat.
And guess who has the match. . . .
I'm a UNC fan. I view Duke and Carolina as a royal joust. Yes, one looks to knock his opponent off his horse, but one does have to look his foil in the eye and salute before charging. There are rules. Rewards. And consequences.
Maryland is into some cloak and dagger shit.
They hide in bushes and wear the shadows like a Green Beret.
Bay of Pigs.
You never see their faces. You only find ransom notes waiting in your children's beds: "I curse your Mother's womb for having bred you, so I'm preventing you from doing the same. F#$% Jon Scheyer!"
They thrive on scorched earth campaigns and throw bottles at human skulls like planes into buildings.
They're ninjas, not samurai. Desperate. Dangerous. And useful at times when morality disappears, hiding in their turtle shells as if they were the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as if their darkness offered truth.
And, God, damn them for being the only ones with the testicular fortitude not to wilt in front of the Devil, as blue as he is, himself. They drive a hard bargain. They're terrible to root for, like losing one's soul to the tide: grain by grain, and they probably enjoy the fact that I compared them to everything from terrorists to Communists to assassins to the CIA's biggest screw-ups. In fact, they're probably flipping cars over right now in celebration.
Does anyone understand what it means to be from Maryland? Or is that why we fear the turtle--its haunting, enigmatic grin that only comes out of its shell when the whole world is upside down, and the fact that all of us share a lust for the sound of crashing glass and wailing sirens, a fascination that comes not from sympathy but some place stranger and, perhaps, more revealing. At some point, don't we all give into extremes?
With bated breath, we here at LCB watched the beginnings of the fledgling ACC schedule with great expectations. For all we could tell, the out-of-conference tom-foolery and skullduggery was exactly that; upsets and upsetting early losses would be of no consequence come conference play. The rightful order and suprememcy of ACC teams would again come flying out of the ashes of early season missteps and the power players in the league would come out swinging.
Oops. Not exactly happening is it? UNC, taking by far the biggest fall of any team in the league, is now an 8 loss team and no longer in the top-25. This team is so stacked with young talent, it practically oozes upside, but the McD's AAs haven't gelled and consequently the Heels have suffered. Things are not quite so baby blue anymore on Franklin street.
Then lets focus on their 15-501 rival: Duke. Considered the league favorite, Duke can't buy a win on the road. They've lost to NC State and GA Tech, which are not in-and-of-themselves bad losses, but more a telling sign of the great fragility of Duke's offensive abilities in rowdy arenas. All of that aside, Duke has looked like a strong ACC team of old. That is, until this past weekend. Playing at Georgetown in a top 10 ACC/Big East showdown, Duke got thump, run out of the gym and deflated to the point that televisions around Durham began flickering off with more than 10 minutes to go in the second half. Before the game, certain analysts had been touting Duke as the savior of the ACC, that a big win over Georgetown would raise the rest of the ACC out of the dark hole into which it had plunged so quickly.
Oops. That didn't happen either. Duke lost big, getting stomped in the process. But how about the supposed dark horses in the league? Virginia, NC State, Maryland? Surprise of surprises, if there was ever a year that scrappy veteran teams could make a play for an ACC title it would a year like this, when the rest of the league cannot seem to tie their shoes correctly without picking of a foul or getting injured.
Maryland, per the usual Gary Williams magic, has jumped out to lead the league in conference wins and has looked like the big kid on the block. But sadly, in this year's ACC, the big kid is a 98 pound weakling, visciously pounding its fists into other 98-97-96 pound weaklings around it. Sounds like College Park doesn't it?
Virginia, on the other hand, was considered to be the weakest of the bunch, a virtual speed bump come ACC play. But despite LCB's pre-season prediction that Virginia would be terrible, they haven't been. In fact it's been just the opposite, they've been prowling the eastern seaboard like a ravanous wolf, tearing into the flesh of already haggard UNC, NC State, and Georgia Tech squads. Be on alert basketball fans, UVA continues to lurk around corners, waiting for their next surprise victim to come stumbling up the block.
Now, you may presume that I am only speaking to the woes of the "power programs" and inferring that they are the woes of the conference in turn. Perhaps I am regarding the newly found parity in the ACC with a sneering sense of elitism. But this isn't my point. Congrats to UVA, NC State, and Maryland for exceeding expectations. But the real issue that concerns me the most is that the prestige of the ACC is slipping this season. The Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12 are all more talent laden conferences full of dangerous teams. And not surprisingly, the ACC's performance against them this season is scary. Duke, the supposed leader of the conference, got slammed by Georgetown, a good, but not fantastic Big East team on Saturday. UNC has now lost to College of Charleston, Texas, and Syracuse. Oh and remember the surprising Maryland squad? They've now been squarely beaten by Villanova, Cinncinati, Wisconsin, and William & Mary.
In conclusion, I'm going to do something I don't often do; I'm going to quote Roy Williams in a non-sardonic manner:
"How can you go any lower? Be honest: How can it be any worse than it is right now?"
Very true, Roy, Dag-snake-it and dog-gone-gummit, you're right. I'm not sure it could be much worse, short of Boston College going on a monster run and winning the conference tournament, I don't think the ACC could sink any lower. The ACC of old, gleaming with the pride of powerful teams, it's sails full of tournament bound winds, now lays in disrepair, in a foggy haze where not so much as a breeze comes flittering past. I for one hope the crews of the respective vessels can find the NCAA waters before the sharp rocks of the offseason come crashing into the hull, but only time will tell.
LCB believes that while teams have been playing games since the start of November the real college basketball season does not begin until conference play is in full gear. Over the next couple of weeks, we will preview each ACC team by remembering some of the conference's past players that may have gone forgotten in some circles.
Season Outlook: What the hell was this guy? Trapped in eternal basketball limbo as neither guard nor forward, neither Steve Francis nor Len Elmore, Nik Caner-Medley was more Terrance Morris than Len Bias and happily pulled off Maine's scrap heap by Coach Williams for four years of scowling, grunting, and bar fights. Nik once even claimed in a fit of passion, "I am from Maryland, and no one can beat me." Under Coach Gary Williams, Maryland has perpetually snagged unknowns from the recruiting world and turned paupers into princes of a rag-tag college town, College Park. At any one point in time Caner-Medley could vasilate between all-out baller and all-out bawler, giving opposing fans as much reason to hate his brash antics as they did his clutch threes. Given that MD is sporting an '09-10 team comprised almost completely of scrappers between 6'4" and 6'8", they will be channelling their inner-Medley's all season. Unfortunately, while I'm sure this team is from Maryland, I'm not so certain they can't be beaten.
Record at Time of Posting: 6-3 Teach's Prediction: 5th in the regular season Langston's Prediction: 5th in the regular season Iceman AD's Prediction: 6th in the regular season
Key Games: L Cincinnati 69-57 L Wisconsin 78-69 W Indiana 80-68 L Villanova 95-86 Florida State 1/10 @ Wake Forest 1/12 @ Boston College 1/16 North Carolina State 1/23 Miami (FL) 1/26 @ Clemson 1/31 North Carolina 2/7 Virginia 2/10 @ Duke 2/13 Georgia Tech 2/20 @ Virginia Tech 2/27
Yesterday, Carolina rolled into the ACC Tournament on an ox like Mongo in Blazing Saddles, and Psycho-T saved the game by forcing a jump ball on Virginia Tech's last possession. In other words, Psycho-T punched a horse in the face, which prompted Seth Greenberg to complain, "Holy @$!%!" and "Tyler! Santa Maria!"
Today found Carolina a little more subdued, like a drunken Waco Kid, waking up from a stupor. Without Tywon Lawson, the ACC Player of the Year, playing for the second day in a row, the team's best days were behind them, and the present left us all saying things like "No thanks, food makes me sick" and responding to news of our demise with a melancholy "when."
When Gene Wilder's character gives his backstory in the film, he says, "I used to be called the Waco Kid," and the sheriff responds, "He had the fastest hands in the West," which prompts the Waco Kid to correct the sheriff, "in the World." Without Lawson, this team can steal a chess piece or two, but our shooting hand is a bit shaky, as shown by our inability to create good shots down the stretch and our inability to get Danny "MF" Green going in both games this week. We had the fastest team in the World.
In other words, today Florida St. played the role of some "piss-ant prairie punk who thought [they] could shoot a gun...to try out the Waco Kid....[Today, Carolina] was just walking down the street when [they] heard a voice behind them say, 'Reach for it, mister!' [They] spun around... and they were, face-to-face with a six year-old Toney Douglass. Well, [they] just threw their guns down and walked away. Little bastard shot [them] in the ass. So they limped to the nearest saloon, crawled inside a whiskey bottle, and have been there ever since."
The good news for this Carolina team is that the Waco Kid never stayed inside that whiskey bottle, and this team will get its steady shooting hand back for the NCAA Tournament. Rockridge, here we come.
Other Lessons to be learned from Blazing Saddles about the ACC:
Here a typical day at one of Duke's practices...
Clemson on its way to anything meaningful...
A conversation between Wojo and Coach K...
Mel Brooks impersonating Gary Williams since his national championship...
A game with Boston College...
A preview of tomorrow's championship game between Florida St. and Duke...
PS Lawson's absence in the ACC Tournament can only help Carolina. It forced us to play in the half court, it gave Bobby Frasor some time running the point, and I think it gave Larry Drew a boost of confidence. I'm excited to watch Drew develop over the next four years. I don't think he'll always have a jumpy trigger finger. Congratulations, Tyler on pulling with 3 points of Redick's scoring record and on setting the school rebounding record.
This song goes out to all the Tyson Chandler's in the league, who just wanted to hang out with a team that mattered, collect a check, and not get traded to the Thunder.
Sorry, Tyson, I guess the Hornets didn't share your emotions, and how could they? It's hard to be an NBA franchise in these dire times and have one's two highest paid players be you and Peja Stojakovic. Of course, the Thunder apparently have no problem paying you twice as much as they paid Chris Wilcox, which means they are paying roughly $2 million per rebound you average more than him. Chandler averages 8ppg and 8rpg. Wilcox averages 8ppg and 5rpg. I guess that proves Tyson Chandler's upside at 26 is more than Chris Wilcox's upside at 26.
Still, the most interesting aspect of this trade for me is that it features not only Wilcox but Joe Smith. These two guys, plus Steve Francis and Len Bias, may he rest in peace, represent the underachieving that has become synonymous with Maryland Terrapins basketball. I remember when Joe Smith was better than Rasheed Wallace and Tim Duncan. I remember when Joe Smith did things on a basketball court that made one forget he had the most bland name in sports. His nickname should be John Doe, except it would take too much effort for that to become part of anyone's vernacular. Just like, it would have been too much effort for Joe Smith to ever enter a weight room. Maybe Stan Yuengling can solve the conundrum that is Maryland basketball for us.
