In Wednesday night ACC action, Florida State handled Virginia, 69-50, while Maryland knocked off State 67-58.
State led Maryland by 10 at the half, but Greivis Vasquez led the Terps back in the second as the Pack went nine minutes without a basket. It's hard to win if you go nearly 25% of the game without scoring.
At the beginning of the season, Virginia's Tony Bennett said his team had no margin for error. Their remarkable early season performance may have lulled their fans into a false sense of entitlement as some boos rained down as FSU rolled over the 'Hoos with ease. Virginia has now lost five straight and both coach and team are sounding frustrated.
That's nothing compared to what is happening in Chapel Hill, of course. Roy Williams is growing increasingly testy over his team's performance, and now seems to an extent to be distancing himself from the train wreck:
"I didn't say in the locker room, 'Win this, or we're not going to do that,' " Williams said, according to the News & Observer. "I believe in doing the best you can every day.
"But if I'm desperate, I'm going to dive on the dadgum floor for the ball. If I'm desperate, I'm not going to turn it over on a handoff. If I'm desperate, I'm going to sprint back. If I'm desperate, I'm going to know who I'm guarding."
Just so you're clear on whose fault this all is: it ain't Ol' Roy's. Ol' Roy after all has more passion in his little finger than all of UNC-dom combined.  If Ol' Roy was desperate, well, you see what he would do.
Compare Ol' Roy's pronouns to those of Bennett, who was quoted thusly in the Post:
"I can handle losses, but the manner in which we lost the last couple games has been frustrating. Our limitations are there. You can see that. We struggle to score. But I don't think it's one or the other. I think when we get down, or adversity strikes, we aren't able to muster enough to rally from it. That's a concern. The mental toughness was lacking today."
Roy: I. Tony: we. Both teams may be going down hard, but only one coach is trying to shift the blame.
No more games until Saturday.
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