The 2010 season is officially over
2010 Season Concludes
And so last night the bumpy journey that was UNC Men’s Basketball came to an end at Madison Square Garden. North Carolina (20-17) was not able to find one last win this year and fell to Dayton (25-12) by the final of 79 to 68. In the end you could say that what did in the Heels in the NIT Final is what did them in many other games this year, the turnovers. We can also blame it on the poor free throw shooting and the fact that UNC got outrebounded in this one by a team that was not supposed to do that to them. The first half was not half over and head coach Roy Williams’ team had given up the ball seven times, and that was just a no-no against a team that seemed to have the speed to out run the Tar Heels. It was sad, at least for me, to see the two starting seniors, Marcus Ginyard and Deon Thompson (who has the most starts of any Heel ever with 152), go out like this. On the other hand, even if it ended in a loss, even if they could not get history made by winning first the NCAA title and then the NIT one, these two young men accomplished something. They were part of a team that had its struggles but finally was about to put them aside and gel for the post season run.
Some fans will choose to put blame on these two seniors, I choose to remember them as players that don the Carolina Blue. Some will think of Ginyard as the one that should have been benched this season to let other players grow. I choose to see him as a player that was a great defender before he got hurt, that unselfeshly decided to red shirt last year so he could be back this season to help, and that played for many games not being 100%. Some will talk about Thompson saying he was not strong enough and that he needed to slam it down and not go for lay ups. I choose to remember him as the front court partner of Tyler Hansbrough in a magical run in 2009. A guy that when PsychoT was out definitely picked up the slack and when he was in knew his role as the “other guy” down low.
I have read the web boards, gotten the emails, read the text, seen the tweets, most of the Carolina faithfuls are already awaiting the entrance of the trio coming in. Maybe it’s cause I am old, maybe because I would not want to be kicked to the curb, I choose to still pay homage to these two seniors, who like it or not, are and always will be part of the Carolina Family. So, from this humble blogger, thank you for your jersey at Chapel Hill, and the best of luck in the next chapter of your life, whatever that will be.
As far as the game went, it was fun watching Will Graves hitting from the outside, but just as much it was a reminder of what could have been. Once again echoing that phrase of mine when it comes to this year: “it is what it is” and last night it was that the Flyers just were better than the Tar Heels, end of story. Carolina went to the locker rooms at half time trailing by double digits, , and when they came out in the second half, between not turning the ball over and playing a smarter type of basketball they crawled back into the game. What they could not do, even though they had chance after chance of doing so, was to tie or take the lead. Each time the Tar Heels got within 2-3 points of the Flyers it seemed they would take a shot that could have gone in but didn’t and the opponents would come back down the court and score 1-2 baskets (mostly three pointers) and put the lead back up to six, seven or even eight points in a matter of 30 seconds or less. That happened over and over in this game, until time ran out on coach Williams’ squad.
In what could be the last ever NIT Tournament there was no history made, there was no magical end, there was just a lot of thinking on how this season went and how the next ones should go. They say that you don’t know what you had until it is gone, well Tar Heels fans, we didn’t have the NCAA Tournament this year and I sure hope we have it back next year!
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