ACC Roundup!

We have to admit, we didn't think that Georgia Tech had it in them to humiliate Carolina. Yet the  signs were probably there even though we didn't take them seriously.

Well, at least for Carolina. As was noted after the game, this is the third straight game that started off sluggishly for the Heels and they just beat Virginia by six and Virginia Tech by three -- and had to come back in both games to do it. Georgia Tech has now beaten Carolina four straight times.  This one though might've been the strangest.

The Tar Heels shot just 27.6% and you have to back to the 50s to find a similar performance, according to Woody Durham, anyway. Making things worse is the fact that Georgia Tech came into the game ranked 12th in the ACC in field goal percentage and field goal percentage defense.

Justin Knox and Kendall Marshall were 2-4 and that was the high point of offensive efficiency. John Henson was just 3-9, Tyler Zeller was 2-6, Dexter Strickland 1-4, Leslie Donald an abysmal 2-10 and Harrison Barnes and Richard 3-13.
As he has in the past, Roy Williams went a bit off the deep end in his press conference. In previous seasons, bad games have led Williams to make references to suicide including on one occasion saying he wished he could jump out of an airplane.

Sunday night's gem?  Williams said that he was so mad he would fight a man with a chainsaw.

Pretty clearly, this is not just a man who takes losing poorly but a man who handles himself poorly in public under stress.  And while unlike last season, after this game he made a point of assuming some blame, he also expressed a high level of irritation with his players.

“My coaching stunk and we stunk. I’m tired of saying ‘We’ve got to build confidence.’ It’s easy to build confidence; by God, play better. You get some confidence from that...At the half I was just dumbfounded, I thought we would really come out and play with some intensity...This is the third straight game we just walked through the motions,.  And we were fortunate enough, twice in a row, we were able to come from behind. And I really thought we were going to tonight. I thought, at halftime, because I felt so lucky at halftime to be down one. We shoot 33 percent in the first half, and we’re down one. So they showed me, we shoot 20-something percent in the second half.”

This is sort of out of the Rick Pitino school of press conferences, where you blame the team instead of the coach. Pitino, on more than one occasion, has absolved himhim him himself of responsibility for his team's poor performances.  Most coaches don't do this at least not publicly.  It's poor form and counterproductive.

Needless to say, practice Monday should be interesting.

On Tuesday, UNC hosts Clemson and the Tigers, who have the longest most bizarre losing streak in the ACC, having never won in Chapel Hill, not once, might be forgiven an unusual bit of optimism. They will come to that game with a lot of confidence, having won eight straight, and the notion that UNC may be vulnerable.

On the other hand, the Tar Heels are going to get it good from Ol' Roy between now and then, and it is Brad Brownell's first trip to the Dean Dome. But who knows: a new coach is a fresh start and his players seem to believe in him. So we'll see.