Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Tar Heels' exit diverts attention from 33-point loss

North Carolina players – or, really, anyone associated with the UNC basketball program – won’t soon forget the significance of “33.” Roy Williams wrote the number on a board inside the Tar Heels’ locker room to remind his players of the margin of defeat in their 90-57 loss at Florida State on Saturday.

What’s interesting to me, though, is that no one outside the team has spent too much time this week reflecting on that 33-point blowout. The topic of the week has been the final 14.2 seconds of the game, when Williams and most of his players and staff walked off the court to avoid the wild postgame celebratory scene in Tallahassee, Fla. Of course, five players – including three walk-ons – remained on the court for those final 14.2 seconds.

Williams spent nearly 12 minutes of his radio show on Monday night explaining how he could have left those players on the floor. I’ve written stories about it. It has been a popular topic on the local sports radio shows, and on Internet message boards. But you know what hasn’t been all that popular a topic? The actual blowout itself.

Here’s what Tyler Zeller had to say about walking off the court:

“That was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because it was to the point that I never thought I’d leave a game early because we’d lost by that much and they were going to storm the floor. It was something that I hope to never experience again.”

-- Andrew Carter

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this all you do for the Charlotte Observer?

Anonymous said...

Guess what? News Flash!!! The the Tar Heels got beat down by "33" to FSU. They'll take it out on VT tomorrow. Write that down. Let's talk about how the Boobcats lost again last night. Jordan needs to either sell or move this team to another city. This is college basketball country with the team that got beat down by FSU by "33" leading the way as the "FLAGSHIP" school...

Anonymous said...

Western Carolina won by "102" last night! That is a beat down.

Anonymous said...

3 losses already (2 blowouts and a squeaker) and it's still January? Biggest preaseason #1 flop I've seen in a long time.

Matthew Dougherty said...

Let's do talk about the 33 point blow out and the embarrassing way that Roy Williams led the team off the floor in two platoons. Perhaps Roy's medicines need to be revaluated now that this trend of paranoia and contempt for all things not UNC positive. Time for a new coaching search, and better meds!

Anonymous said...

UNC is the most talented team from top to bottom. The only other team in the country that is talented is Kentucky, and they lost to them by 1 point at Rupp. The FSU loss was due to 22 turnovers and 1 guy 8-10 from 3pt. range. Any team that turns the ball over 22 times will typically lose. UNC will win the 2012 NCAA Championship! Wait and see.......holla!

Anonymous said...

Hahahah no they won't dude. No team has ever lost by 30+ and won it all since the tourney expanded. The pundits got it wrong, plain and simple. Keep dreamin'!