In Chapel Hill, Dick
Baddour's job performance is under review, and his colleagues in the
athletic department are evaluating him. There are mixed signals in the
media about this, with some accounts hinting of serious issues and others
presenting it as a standard procedure, even though AD's aren't normally reviewed
by their subordinates at UNC.
One of the issues is bound to be hiring coaches, since UNC has gone through
revenue coaches at a pretty high rate lately. Among the biggest concerns
might be the Matt Doherty saga. Doh says
he's past it and looking forward to coaching again. Sean May has some
interesting comments in this article which hint at Doherty's locker room
persona.
Ol' Roy Williams has
some concerns about UNC's ability to fend off injuries, which is exactly the
reason why we're somewhat dubious of their long-term prospects this year.
There's no question that the top tier of players are very talented, but when you
get past them, there's not much there there.
That link is from the Asheville paper, and they
also have a State preview up.
In Tiger Town, Oliver
Purnell is ready to take on the mammoth challenge of Clemson basketball, a
sport which has chewed up and spit out a lot of pretty good coaches. The
arguments are old and have the musty smell of lore: Clemson is a football
school, it's isolated, race is a problem.
Race is much less of an issue when the coach is African-American, Clemson's
football status is not what it used to be, and urban sprawl is making the
isolation much less of an issue. Purnell might be exaggerating a bit when
he calls Clemson a "sleeping giant," but
there is potential there.