Chansky's Notebook: Save The Streak

It’s becoming Carolina’s Year of Living Dangerously.

All those people who are agonizing over the Tar Heels’ basketball season, get a grip. Look at the stats. This sheet happens. The players aren’t playing the way the coach wants them to play, and the coach doesn’t know what to say about it.

How could he? He has 879 career wins (and holding), three national championships, nine Final Fours and a Hall of Fame induction. He’s been a great recruiter and coach for a long time. In his 32nd season, neither of those skills is working.

When he speaks, the national media writes it down or records it. After the disheartening loss to Pitt, Roy Williams responded to the press he got when he said he has the “least gifted” team of his college career. That’s what a coach whose teams rarely lose at home after his fourth defeat there says, and it’s early January.

This time, he added, “We have one McDonald’s All-American.” If that’s you, don’t raise your hand, because you are not playing like one. But remember, however poorly played, it’s still only a game. And whether or not this season continues to go south, there is always next year when five stud recruits are enrolling.

Look, opponents like Pitt that have never won in Chapel Hill and had lost 22 consecutive ACC road games aren’t feeling sorry for the dreadfully poor-shooting Tar Heels. By erasing a nine-point halftime deficit, the Panthers smelled blood in the water.

This was their chance, and they took it by following a 1-for-10 first half from the arc by draining 8 of 12 in the second, and some of those guys have never shot that well in their lives. Carolina could barely get a good two-pointer off, let alone match Pitt from 3.

The Heels are becoming easier and easier to scout. Crowd the paint, where Brooks and Bacot are UNC’s best options and let the gang that can’t shoot straight drive through traffic or fire from outside. With every miss, they get more tentative.

But wait, there’s hope.

Saturday afternoon comes this season’s Game of the Century. Clemson has lost all 59 times it has played basketball here since 1926, which covers the last century and the current one. So what to do?

Live dangerously. Fill the Dean Dome. And yell. Loud.

Save the streak.