'There Was Barely Any Accountability' - New Report Shows Exactly Why UNC Had The Biggest Failure Of A Team In College Hoops History
[The Athletic] - “I would say there was probably like, 5 percent out of 100 of accountability, in and out of practice and games,” a person close to a player said. “There was barely any.”
Alright, here we go. We've reached the point of the offseason where we start getting reports about what went wrong at certain places and here we have the biggest failure ever. That's just a fact. That's not me just hating on UNC. No other No. 1 team in the history of college basketball missed the NCAA Tournament. Say what you want about Virginia in 2018 or Purdue this year who lost to 16 seeds, they at least made the NCAA Tournament.
It's also why you don't only talk about the NCAA Tournament when discussing teams. In fact, this is what happened with UNC. So many dummies wanted to declare them the No. 1 team in the country (not a genius like me who put them 5) even though history said to fade them. Shout out that Miami and San Diego State prediction tbh. But UNC shows exactly why you don't just say 'oh hey, look at what we did in March.'
In fact, this report even addresses it!
People act like we were this team last year that really bulldozed and ran through people,” said Dennis Love, the father of junior guard Caleb Love. “That’s not who we were.”
“He impressed upon them a lot at the beginning that they had gone from the hunter to the hunted,” one parent said, “and that they needed to know what that was.” But awash in positive coverage for the first time in their college careers, the Tar Heels either didn’t hear him or didn’t heed him. They were intoxicated by the attention.
Side note - I love that Caleb Love's dad is the only one who didn't speak anonymously. Just openly said whatever was on his mind. But back to these quotes. Dennis Love is right! UNC was an 8-seed for a reason. They were very average. They adjusted a little bit - mostly just hot shots, Brady Manek was awesome and Caleb Love hit daggers - in March. Then you get the No. 1 ranking and everyone becomes soft as shit. You get caught up in the attention.
Now it's not just the players. Hubert Davis needs to figure shit out. He was a mess this season. The report addresses his lack of bench - he had a bunch of 4-stars, just never used anyone. The report addresses basically how he didn't have the players ready to be a good team. Yikes. You're UNC. You're supposed to always be good or at least relevant. How do you not have guys ready?
“You’ve gotta have leadership, man, that really can prepare those kids to insulate themselves,” Dennis Love said, “on what the mindset is that is required. Because the team really had enough talent.”
Now I disagree the team had enough talent. They still can't shoot. They still struggle defending 1-through-5. They had enough talent to be decent, but not enough talent to be the No. 1 team in the country, even in this weird year. You immediately limited your ceiling by thinking Pete Nance could just plug in and do what Brady Manek did. You have overlapping players in Caleb Love and RJ Davis. In fact, shockingly, this was addressed!
Wait not the cuckolding.
One parent told The Athletic that before Christmas, their son commented that the team needed to care more about every aspect of the game. “You’ve got to care about the scoring,” that parent recalled, “but you’ve gotta care about everything else, too: defense, passing the ball.”
Publicly, UNC’s two starting guards got along fine. And even behind the scenes, sources maintain they were friends. But their positional overlap was real, and complicated to juggle, which led to on-court confusion and off-court frustration. “It felt like,” a person close to one player said, “they didn’t know who was supposed to have the ball in their hands at the end of the game, throughout the whole year.”
Yep, that'll do it. Again, that falls on Hubert Davis as much as anyone else. You need to be able to have a plan, especially with two guys who are 'similar' on the roster. But this? This might be the most damning part of the report as to what happened. The fact you have guys who didn't know who was supposed to have the ball in their hands? Call me crazy but that's some day one shit.
Next year you now have a shit on of pressure on Davis. Bacot's coming back, Love is transferring. You need to have a good regular season and decent showing in the Tournament. Otherwise be ready to hear 'Davis hot seat' following the season. Biggest failure of a team in college hoops history and it ain't close.