Wheels Fall Off Heels Despite Snapping Unlikely Three-Game Skid To Open Acc, North Carolina Appears To Be In Trouble

North Carolina’s Tar Heels are a long way from great, a long way.

But Wednesday night, when they were about as far from great as a Tar Heels team has been in say a couple of decades or three, they found a little bit, just enough, of what made their program great. That saved them from making some history of their own - unwanted history.

Playing under what coach Dean Smith described as “huge pressure,” the Tar Heels couldn’t buy a basket in the second half, scoring only 11 points in 18 minutes, and were within 2 minutes and nine points of losing their fourth straight ACC game, something they had never done to start the league schedule.

But then they turned on some old fashioned North Carolina pressure, forced fierce old rival North Carolina State into a flurry of mistakes and rallied for a 59-56 win.

Three straight losses to open the ACC season had exposed the Tar Heels as something less than the high ranking they enjoyed early and laid a blanket of pressure over them to put a stop to it. Smith said he told them, “If we lose, we lose, it’s not the end of the world. There are a lot of people in China who don’t care.”

But there are a lot of people in the ACC and across the country who do. When most teams lose three in a row, it merits a shrug or two, but when the Tar Heels lose three in a row, it’s far bigger news than when they win three. Media slugs roust themselves and scramble for record books, looking for The Last Time.

Well, there was no Last Time for this aberrant behavior by the Tar Heels. Never since the ACC was formed in 1953-54 had they lost their first three league games.

The Tar Heels needed a quick fix. This looked for the world like one. A Wolfpack without any Ron Shavliks or David Thompsons or Chris Corchianis, at home.

Had it not been for the rivalry, this game would not have been much if a draw. These two former NCAA champions dragged some stats into this game their great and near-great teams of the past would have dropped gingerly into the nearest garbage can.

N.C. State played valiantly but didn’t bring enough help. Herb Sendek, the new man on the sidelines, has won eight games with coaching, some wicked defense and an early schedule full of cream puffs.

The Wolfpack scraps, delays on offense to burn clock and gets in your shorts on defense, but it lacks height, depth and talent.

North Carolina is not very good, either, not by North Carolina standards. OK compared to most teams today but not compared to those North Carolina teams that went to all those Final Eights and Final Fours.

The presence of Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace and Jeff McInnis stunted the Tar Heels’ recruiting, then they left early for the pros and North Carolina was left young, extremely shallow (they go one deep in quality subs) and not anywhere near as talented as in days past. Smith will win his 20 games, but it will rarely be easy.

Smith had suggested that the Tar Heels should put their first 13 games behind them and start a new season but they couldn’t shake those losses.

The team had held a players-only meeting to talk out their troubles and had followed with some excellent practices, but they couldn’t bring it to the floor Wednesday night.

Smith looked for a rainbow. “We got a little better,” he said. “Maybe this will be a step forward, and we’ll be a better basketball team.”

When did you ever hear him talk that way? When did you ever hear him say throw out what’s behind you and start a new season? This is not one of his typical teams, and he is searching.

The Wolfpack proved to be a much tougher test than it reasonably should have been, given the place and the circumstances. Sendek is doing some of the best coaching that’s being done in the ACC right now.