Art
Chansky has his latest head-scratcher out, still trying to figure out what
has happened to UNC, and now he is thinking maybe it's talent, goshdarn, maybe the
talent's not good enough. He dares to obliquely criticize He Who Can't Be
Criticized, aka El Deano, for "backdoor maneuvering, which is tantamount to criticizing the Pope for not praying hard enough, at least in the traditionalist UNC world view. He also
trots out the old chestnut that " [a]s written here before, the Tar Heels retain the philosophy of not
'recruiting over' prominent players, " which will come as a relief, no
doubt, to Max Owens, Vasco Evtimov, and Brian Reese, who memorably complained
that "being a senior around here used to mean something," or words to
that effect, anyway.
Just to further confuse you, Dear Reader, and since it already feels like you
are in Gulliver's Travels where you washed up on island full of very small, very
light blue people who are acting like they have a 40 year hangover, he says this
about Max Owens, who, as you now know, wasn't recruited over: "Owens' minutes have dwindled with the emergence of Forte. The coaches don't think Owens has great savvy, especially on defense, and that Forte does. End of story."
Ok, whatever. The fact that they play the same position in a system which defines positions fairly precisely, we'll overlook that. Anyway, from the subtle suggestion that Smith is a
problem, to the cataloguing of problems with the current player, it's pretty
clear that, in Art's mind anyway, the party's over. His conclusion? The players
just aren't that good. He also uses this line as an example of an
alternative approach to UNC's, which will sound familiar to fans of a team clad
in darker blue:
"We don't recruit by position, we recruit basketball players, and the best five guys will play."
Clearly, we live in curious times.
Next
challenge for the boys in baby blue: Maryland, who brings a pressing,
trapping team to the Dean Dome, not on Wednesday, as this article suggests, but
on Thursday, when we thought the game was rescheduled. Did we miss something?Or
did the writer?