That the number eight rhymes with “Oregon State” is no coincidence.
Maybe Mike Fox should lobby for baseball to be seven innings. Because, clearly, eight has not been a good number for his Tar Heels in the College World Series — and for long before that. In his eighth trip to Omaha as a player and coach for Carolina, Fox’s team was sent home by eighth innings he will never forget. If it wasn’t for Oregon State, the Tar Heels could have been playing for their third NCAA title.
If you recall in 2006 and 2007, they lost in the championship series to the Beavers. After beating their old nemesis Saturday, it looked like they’d do it again Wednesday night after — you guessed it — seven innings. But in the eighth, Carolina squandered a 6-3 lead by giving up four runs to Oregon State, and then four more in the ninth for a total of eight.
Ironically, the Diamond Heels were two innings away from getting another shot at Mississippi State, which blew open Tuesday’s game by scoring eight runs in the eighth. Fox may permanently retire that number, so no one can wear it ever again. Clearly eight is unlucky for the Tar Heels.
But it was more than Ouija board numbers and bad luck that bounced UNC out of Omaha, where the weather was more like Chapel Hill early in the game. Then the rain and mist came, and the Beavers thought they were back in Corvallis. That’s where the one element the Tar Heels lacked this season came back to bite them.
Teams with sketchy pitching can’t win it all, because by the post-season, every opponent is good and can hit the leather off the ball. UNC might have been rated as the third-best overall pitching staff in the ACC this season, but had no ace as a starter and no stoppers for the eighth and ninth innings.
Carolina pitchers barely showed up in the top ten of every ACC statistical category. What that means is the Tar Heels out-hit and out-hustled most of their opponents.
Fox had a bullpen full of arms, but no one – whether freshman or senior – he could rely on to put out a fire. Caden O’Brien had shut down OSU for two-and-a-third innings in the first game, and he was doing it again through seven Wednesday night. But after O’Brien gave up two singles, Fox pulled him and the entire bullpen imploded. An otherwise great season ended shockingly.
In the end, No. 8 felt far from great.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe:
Related Stories
‹
Chansky's Notebook: Monday Night Showdown?Is this the year for Duke-Carolina IV? Jay Bilas thinks so. Most college basketball fans cannot believe, with the schools going to the post-season virtually every year, that Duke and UNC have never met in the NCAA tournament. The Blue Devils and Tar Heels did play in the NIT semifinals back in 1971, with Carolina winning […]
Chansky's Notebook: Will The Chalk Hold Up?The real ACC tournament begins today — with an asterisk or two. The chalk has prevailed so far at the ACC tourney in Charlotte, with the top eight seeds playing in today’s quarterfinal games. Seems like the old days when there were only eight schools in the original ACC, not the current subway jam of 15. But for the […]
Chansky's Notebook: Greatest Of This TimeTodd Melet) Going to Charlotte, the Roy vs. K debate doesn’t seem close. The so-called GOAT arguments are always tinged by bias for your favorite team or sentimentality. Some people still think Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback of all time when Tom Brady now has two more Super Bowl rings. The […]
Chansky's Notebook: Beware The Blow ByTransition defense will be the key to the Carolina-Duke rematch. So many angles exist for Saturday night’s blockbuster on ESPN, which strangely chose the 6 pm starting time after Zion’s injury and conflicting prognoses from Coach K’s day-to-day diagnosis and word from the Duke medical center that it was a 4-6 week knee sprain. And […]
Chansky's Notebook: Oh, No, Not Again!Could you handle playing Duke three times for the third straight year? If the ACC tournament were this weekend, Carolina and Duke would in all likelihood be playing tonight in the semifinals – once again six days after their second meeting of the regular season. The tournament is still two weeks away, and things could change, […]
Chansky's Notebook: And Did I Mention…It was almost as if the Tar Heels knew that Duke lost. Those who could follow both the Duke-Virginia Tech and Syracuse-Carolina games saw the Blue Devils’ 77-72 loss to the Hokies end at almost the exact time the Tar Heels were tipping off against the Orange. Of course, it didn’t happen this way, but I could […]
Chansky's Notebook: Looking FinerSuddenly, Carolina can determine its own ACC — and NCAA — fate. When the basketball schedule came out, the unbalanced slate looked much to UNC’s advantage. Besides the four home-and-home series with Duke, State, Miami and Louisville, the Tar Heels had five single home games and five single road trips that appeared almost ideal. The […]
Chansky's Notebook: Bad But BeautifulFinally, Duke-Carolina failed to live up to its legendary hype. This one might have been over before it started when the Blue Devils’ Superman slipped, blew apart his shoe and left the court with a sprained knee not to return. Zion turned Zeron with no full minutes, zero shots, free throws, rebounds, assists, blocked shots […]
Chansky's Notebook: Kinder and Gentler?Two ways the Duke-Carolina rivalry has changed. When the Blue Devils and Tar Heels play, it is almost always a great game, tough and taut for most of 40 minutes. The common denominator making the greatest rivalry in college basketball is both programs have been national contenders for the last 60 years. The one obvious […]
Chansky's Notebook: Nine Common OpponentsIt’s Duke-Carolina week, so let’s start with common opponents. We’ll be hearing lots of statistics and metrics this week as the Tar Heels and Blue Devils tangle in the first of two contests this Wednesday night in Durham. Nine common opponents to date is one of them, and the results are fairly surprising. Duke has […]
›
