Lucas: Flashback

By Adam Lucas

DURHAM—So this is what they mean about March.

Every year around this time, we hear about how great conference tournaments can be because they allow everyone to start over. And this year, it's finally happened—the only problem is that it's the Tar Heels that need to start over.

After an 89-76 loss to Duke, they'll go into Greensboro as the 14^th seed in a 14-team tournament. In the past decade, the ACC Tournament has mostly felt like a dress rehearsal. Starting Tuesday, however, it will feel imperative.

Would it be strange for Carolina to win five games in five days? Absolutely. But it wouldn't be any stranger than a dozen other things that have happened this season.

While Saturday night was also yet another example of Garrison Brooks' terrific junior season, it was also very much a reminder of a variety of factors that have contributed to the disappointing overall campaign: poor team defense, lack of consistent perimeter shooting, and the consistent parade of injuries.

Right now, on March 7, Carolina is not the 14^th best team in the league. But the problem is that for the better part of the month earlier in the year—largely against other teams that have occupied the bottom of the standings—they played very much like a cellar-dwelling squad. It's not a loss at Duke that's the problem. It's two losses against Pittsburgh and a home defeat to Boston College and another home loss to Georgia Tech and a home defeat to Clemson and a listless blowout at Wake Forest and a head-scratcher at Notre Dame.

That's the season right there. That's seven league losses. Give the Tar Heels just four of those victories (say, the four that were played at the Smith Center), and you're looking at 17-14 and making a case for postseason play.

Unless things change in Greensboro, that's largely what this offseason will be. It will be a very, very long eight months until we get to see Carolina play a basketball game again, because most of the time will be passed with some variation of, "If this injury/bad play/mistake hadn't happened, then the season would have been different in this way."

You thought it was bad in the spring of 2019 when you had to wonder what would have happened if the flu hadn't limited Carolina on the exact same day that Auburn decided to catch fire? This offseason will have even more what-ifs.

And here we sit, on Saturday night, learning some new facts about March. For example, did you have any idea that tickets for the Tuesday ACC Tournament games are general admission? It's true. So spend a few dollars and come watch postseason Carolina basketball on Tuesday evening starting around 7 p.m.

This might be foolhardy and certainly it's from a biased perspective, but nothing that happened on Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium dissuades me from this opinion: as of today, Carolina is one of the best 64 college basketball teams in the country. They're not the best team, certainly. About the best you can say about them is that in a down year in the league and possibly across the country, they've found a way to be competitive. But because of that dismal stretch in January and February, it won't matter unless they put together a miraculous run in the ACC Tournament.

"It's frustrating," Williams said Saturday night in a perfect way of summing up both the loss to Duke and the last six months. "But that's what it's been quite a bit this season."

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Garrison Brooks

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