Chansky's Notebook: Last Gasp

Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

Pick your poison why Carolina is (likely) not going back to the Big Dance.

Unless the NCAA tournament bubble explodes due to global warming, the Tar Heels took their last gasp at trying to reach a second straight Final Four with the ACC Tournament quarterfinal loss to Virginia Thursday night.

You may not find these choices on social media, which is ready to fire the UNC coach after the subpar 2022-23 season failed to meet almost every expectation. But let’s give you four more reasonable opinions.

Tony Bennett is in his 17th season as a college head coach, the last 14 in Charlottesville, where he has turned the program into a national power that rivals the Ralph Sampson era 40 years ago. By comparison, Hubert Davis is in his second year in the same job and the difference shows.

Or Virginia twice beat a more talented Tar Heel team with Armando Bacot playing sparingly in both defeats due to sprained ankles. In what may be Bacot’s last season of college basketball, his last two last chances to win the national championship ended with him hobbling around the court.

Or, for goodness sake, admit last year was lightning in a bottle after four months of being slightly better than the first four of this season, where the larger sample sizes are of teams perpetually on the bubble. And Roy Williams’ last two teams had a combined losing record and included his first NCAA first-round ouster ever.

Or the “noise” Davis talked about since last summer was a serious sign of distraction in everything from trying to replace a Brady Manek with a Pete Nance to none of the subs getting enough playing time to help out in the crunch of important “one or two possession” games late in the season.

So pick your poison, but forget firing a coach who everyone knew lacked head-chair experience to match his love and devotion to his alma mater.

Bennett comes from coaching royalty and his mastery of recruiting players to fit his style and their detailed execution of his system was self-evident in how they outfoxed UNC in Greensboro.

The one time Bacot was healthy for the Cavaliers, Carolina won rather easily and might have done it twice more with Mondo on two good legs.

If you think last year’s run to the title game was more than just a hot month, review how the Heels shocked ranked Duke twice, Baylor and UCLA and luckily avoided a Purdue team that had beaten them earlier in the season.

The “noise” is far more about what college athletics is today than who’s talking and who’s listening. Assuredly, Davis will try to rebuild his program with all carefully selected freshmen and transfers.

And if he can’t replicate a standard that mentors Smith and Williams set, UNC won’t have to fire him.

Featured image via Todd Melet

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Chansky’s Notebook: Last Gasp

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