The Undefeated Express Derailed

Cue the overreactions. Carolina's no longer a shoe-in to win it all. They're way overrated. They don't have the heart. Any others people want to throw in? The Heels played a dog of a game, there's no disputing that, but having five e-mails and getting text messages from another seven over a regular season game is a tad bit excessive. At the very least, it's not college football, where every almost all games in November, December and January count. The chances of Carolina winning it all are no higher or lower today than they were before the BC game. As we detailed, there are plenty of reasons they won't win long before Tyrese and Co. played out of their minds.

I'll admit I was confident about Carolina winning, mentally fast forwarding to Wake Forest. Wake's one of the games I'd circled as a major trouble game for the Heels, and it appeared the team did the same thing. They weren't hustling or making shots, and were getting out physicaled. Anyone that's surprised hasn't watched this team get eliminated in the last two years. They had a late game meltdown against Georgetown and didn't emerge from the locker room against Kansas until they were down 28. Accuse me of being a spindcotor, but I'm prepared to call this a good loss. The team had not played well since they got back from exams and appeared to have begun reading their own press clippings. They were going through the motions as though regular season games were a necessity until they got to the tournament, where they would've tried to turn it on, probably unsuccessfully. The Heels have the potential to be one of the most dominant teams in the history of college basketball, but they have to be invested in each game, not assuming they can walk on the court and collect a W. My hope as well as other Carolina fans is that this will cause them to tune back into Coach Roy and into their game prep. Such abysmal shooting won't get it done, and if they play the way they did against BC against any other team in the ACC (maybe not Virginia) they'll walk out again with a loss. At the very least, the teams that emerges from this loss, should be more fun to watch, even if their air of invincibility has been shot, because watching a team give maximum effort is always more fun. It was a great win for the Eagles, and Al Skinner most known for his work in the Coming to America barber shop scenes, but Carolina's ability to win it all remains unchanged, as do the expectations.