Chansky's Notebook: Accountability

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Maybe Hubert Davis should sit down all five starters for the Clemson game.

Sure, star Armando Bacot and best-all-around player R.J. Davis do not deserve it, but if Hubert wants accountability for the TEAM then the top five may be better off watching the opening tip from the bench.

After the losses to Pitt and Duke, which granted were a play or two away from victories that might have changed the narrative, how the Tar Heels began their third straight loss at Wake Forest demands accountability from a group underperforming in a number of ways. Bacot was distressed after the game but unspecific about the problems.

Had they played their buns off and still lost to a very well-coached opponent, such accountability might not be on the table. But perhaps not getting the hosannas that come with all the digital dynamics and the downbeat of the drum line will send a message that Carolina Basketball is bigger than any one person. Hubert Davis certainly knows it’s bigger than the head coach. His mentors Dean Smith and Roy Williams would not hesitate to sit anyone if he wasn’t properly representing teams and former players over the last 60-plus years.

There is an old coaching maxim that goes like this: “The best way to get a message into a player’s head is through his butt. Put his butt on the bench until he is willing to compete the way he is supposed to.”

Davis played in a different era, and he is clearly struggling with all the “noise” in today’s college basketball. After an unusually long meeting with the team at Wake Forest, he listened pensively to each question at the press conference like he was thinking about how to answer it.

He said he wasn’t just talking to his players, he was talking to their friends, families, agents and phones. When you put on that uniform there is no escaping the attention that comes with wearing it. During the Duke-Miami game Monday night on ESPN, the banner along the bottom of the screen that said “North Carolina-Wake Forest Tuesday at 7 pm” never went away.

North Carolina is a brand built over decades, like Duke and Kentucky and Indiana and Kansas and UCLA. If your team is not playing up to expectations, there is nowhere to hide. You watched the game: were expectations being met against the Deacons? Careless passes, hurried shots and defenseless defense.

It’s always a 200-minute game, five players for 40 minutes each. Those who play should be those who have earned it. The starters can certainly come in at some point, but right now accountability is more important than winning.

Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins

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6 Comments

BobLee Says on February 9, 2023 at 3:52 pm

Holy Cow! Sure, the Dean Dome Lower Level Gang is apoplectic BUT for “My Pal Art” to be fit to be tied is SERIOUS. Have Larry Brown or George Karl be told to “be ready”?
Laurie Thomas Vass on February 9, 2023 at 4:23 pm

I love it when Chansky chants, and I never think its over til I hear him chant. A couple of his most recent chants about the Heels were more like long loving sluuuurrps, but this one is getting dangerously close to saying it out loud.
Hubert is more like a loving daddy to this team than a basketball coach. He continues to play a defensive star that can’t shoot, leaving the opponent to double down of Mondo. He continues to play a ball hog who thinks he is a lot better in his head than he is on the court. Their concept of an Tar Heel offensive play is first guy down court shoots.
I absolutely hate watching the Carolina tradition being trashed by guys who don’t have the desire to represent the Tar Heels. After the Wake game, Mondo said the starting five were not playing up to Tar Heel standards. He omitted himself, and he did not include Nance. Who does that leave as the slackards? Sit their slack ass butts down Happy Hubert. Try something different. The current strategy is not working and it is horrible to watch
- Art Chansky on February 10, 2023 at 9:42 am
  
  Laura, thanks for sluuurp review!
Don 2020 on February 9, 2023 at 7:58 pm

Wes Miller
Paul Williford on February 9, 2023 at 8:33 pm

Prior to the Duke game, the announcers said Hubert had told the team to “play more aggressively” which was somehow understood to mean not being reluctant to take shots. So much of the time – for years now – I’m yelling at the TV, “Set up your shots!” Giving the players license to run-and-gun (if that was Hubert’s intent) is the wrong thing to do. Early in the first half of the Wake game, there was a beautifully executed play with the ball being touched by all five Tar Heels on the court, passed quickly and skillfully, no hesitation, no bumbling, then shot accurately through the hoop. Wake had no defense for it. I felt like we could do that same play every time down the court and score every time. I hate when our players get squirrelly and just throw up a shot as soon as they get a glimpse of the net.
Allowat on February 10, 2023 at 9:40 pm

We better circle the wagons or we’ll screw up the whole Clemson streak thing! Can’t let them win in chapel hill.

Chansky’s Notebook: Accountability

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