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What does a “deep, deep dive” into Carolina Basketball mean, exactly?
Bubba Cunningham said this week that is what he and his administrative staff intend to do after a bitterly disappointing season that set several infamous statistical records internally as well as in the game’s historical lexicon.
Who among the dozens of people working for UNC, in and out of the basketball program, is qualified and willing to participate in that deep dive? What questions do they ask and what kind of answers do they get?
Who is asking Hubert Davis, “What went wrong with the flow of our offense?” And “why did you play your bench less than 300 other teams?”
Hall of Famers Dean Smith and Roy Williams would be insulted by those inquiries because they knew more basketball than every employee in the athletic department combined, plus members of the media that cover the team and each alumnus and former player who have strong opinions.
If Davis answered those questions by blaming bad ball screens, poor shot selection and not good player movement, the next question would be, “What are you going to do about it?” Hubert’s answer might be so far over their heads, how could such a deep, deep dive give Cunningham and his cohorts any confidence that those problems would get solved during the summer or next season?
Would Bubba approach Williams, who backed Davis as his successor and has supported him loyally ever since? That might require Hubert’s okay.
Mack Brown may have been asked why his 9-1 team finished 9-5. Brown isn’t going to the whiteboard in front of deep divers who don’t know a gap blitz from the mechanics of a run-pass option. So Mack would say what he has said publicly, “We’ve got to fix it.” Basketball has more urgency at UNC.
A “deep, deep dive” by administrators might include assistant ADs who are “direct reports” to Bubba and his senior staff from 28 different sports, or operations managers, media and marketing directors. In a close fraternity, coaches will almost never criticize each other even if they could help.
Those inside the basketball program who might know, or have good ideas, are not going to say anything critical of Davis and his coaching staff.
So, will Bubba be content with answers that range from “we’re going to play our bench more next season” to “we have to recruit better players”?
UNC had highly-recruited reserves who rarely played long enough to get comfortable and show what they could do. The deep dive may need to include trusted basketball outsiders who know what a second-year head coach should do better than he does.
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
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