Wear Twins to Transfer and other UNC woes

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Originally Posted by Chris4UNC

ACC Tournament titles are great, yes. Duke and UNC have won 34 or so (17 each I think.) of the things!

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Actually, Duke's championship this season was No. 18 -- one more than UNC at No. 17. N.C. State is third with 10 ... nobody else has more than four.

And ACC Tournament titles are more than nice -- since they are the official ACC Championship and that's pretty significant (not to re-start an old argument, but for all the logic that the regular season champion is a better guage of greatness -- an argument that held more weight when we had a balanced schedule -- the tournament champion is THE ACC champion).

We have been dumping on Roy on this thread, so maybe for a change we should say something good about our favorite bumpkin. As Dan Wiederer notes in the Fayetteville Observer column linked on the DBR headlines,

"...accepting early commitments from the Wear twins plus Henson in 2008 gave Carolina a loaded stable of standout big men but consequently helped squeeze the Heels out of the recruiting races for a pair of in-state McDonald's All-Americans named Ryan Kelly and Mason Plumlee, who both ended up at Duke."

Thanks, buddy!

http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/...530?sac=Sports

A couple of interesting developments. Kentucky becoming involved with Kadeem Jack. With their NBA defections, they have enough room under their salary cap to build a barn.

Some of my UNC friends are hearing that the Wears may have transferred because of mis-diagnosis by the UNC medical people on David Wear's hip injury. Supposedly their father had him checked out at some clinic in Colorado. There is worry that the injury could be career ending, and that it might be genetic, meaning that Travis could be at risk. The story goes that Mr. Wear wants his sons closer to home and if they play again, to play in a slower paced system.

A number of my friends have been griping about the UNC sports medicine department for more than a few years, so I don't know if this rumor has any truth to it, or if they are just projecting their dislike of the department onto what has happened. Maybe a little bit of both, I suppose. These guys are usually pretty level headed, which is why I bother to talk to them at all about basketball.

The Duke medical center is pretty accomodating (they did try to help the WVU point guard) perhaps UNC can send their players to Durham for treatment. ;)

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Originally Posted by sandinmyshoes

Some of my UNC friends are hearing that the Wears may have transferred because of mis-diagnosis by the UNC medical people on David Wear's hip injury. Supposedly their father had him checked out at some clinic in Colorado. There is worry that the injury could be career ending, and that it might be genetic, meaning that Travis could be at risk. The story goes that Mr. Wear wants his sons closer to home and if they play again, to play in a slower paced system.

A number of my friends have been griping about the UNC sports medicine department for more than a few years, so I don't know if this rumor has any truth to it, or if they are just projecting their dislike of the department onto what has happened. Maybe a little bit of both, I suppose. These guys are usually pretty level headed, which is why I bother to talk to them at all about basketball.

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Hmm. Misdiagnosis is a tough reason to leave. Grant Hill lost most of his NBA career because of misdiagnosis...post-Duke, but still. Brian Zoubek might have re-injured his foot because of a too hasty judgment by the Duke team docs. Apparently his parents were none too happy about it. So it happens. It's hard to get this stuff right all the time. Duke does it as well as anyone but still makes mistakes.

If the wear twins' problems are that severe, I feel really bad for them. A newly discovered genetic condition or a career ending injury at this stage in their lives is tragic. All the horrible stuff carolina fans have been writing about them lately would sound pretty tacky if that turns out to be true. can't believe some of the stuff i'm reading!

It's gone already, but a UNC fan had posted in response to the Weiderer article something to this effect:

"Roy, fix your program! Coach K is the only one recruiting players that at least pretend to represent the program well. Roy is just recruiting these afro-studies (!!!) majors. Also, Roy, do NOT recruit muslims. We will NOT support you in this".

I'm guessing this is in reference to Shabazz Muhammad?

The post was deleted, then the guy posted that we were all going to lose our freedom of the press.

Scary to think this person exists. Not surprising, though, I guess.

I think its weird that both the twins can't go to different programs (technically we don't know this for sure yet). It's unhealthy. They are grown. They shouldn't be a "package" deal. What if one likes it at UNC and the other doesn't? Who knows what went down. I hope it wasn't some weird scenario where one twin wasn't enjoying it and then it was a family decision for both to leave.

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Originally Posted by ElSid

All the horrible stuff carolina fans have been writing about them lately would sound pretty tacky if that turns out to be true. can't believe some of the stuff i'm reading!

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Although I agree with this point, the crap on IC re Wears is much worse than tacky, no matter what the inside story. I'm pretty sure that kind of stuff over here would result in mod-sanctions. A noticeable % of I[diot]C posters are idiots, as a noticeably tiny % of IC posters themselves remark, with some embarrassment.

DBR is just different.

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Originally Posted by ElSid

Hmm. Misdiagnosis is a tough reason to leave. Grant Hill lost most of his NBA career because of misdiagnosis...post-Duke, but still. Brian Zoubek might have re-injured his foot because of a too hasty judgment by the Duke team docs. Apparently his parents were none too happy about it. So it happens. It's hard to get this stuff right all the time. Duke does it as well as anyone but still makes mistakes.

If the wear twins' problems are that severe, I feel really bad for them. A newly discovered genetic condition or a career ending injury at this stage in their lives is tragic. All the horrible stuff carolina fans have been writing about them lately would sound pretty tacky if that turns out to be true. can't believe some of the stuff i'm reading!

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Injury in sport has been an issue of mine for more than 20 years. Style of play in the modern game, you name the sport, often make injury--ankles, knees, shoulders, concussions, most prominently--much more likely. The coaching "profession" in high schools and colleges are so far behind the curve on this as to laughable. The conflict of interest in the profession, where success in coaching can mean millions, or hundreds of thousands, verses a normal teacher's salary, is palpable.

The press reports injuries like they are assists. Just listen to Sunday evening on ESPN during the football season. You'd think you were listening to a body count from Iraq.

The pressure does not just come from coaches. It comes from players who see a star pro or college player do it and they want to replicate it, and do. Their bodies break down it is in their minds (I've been there believe me) a tempory road block. What teenager views an injury to his or her body as being as a potentially life-changing event (most are, just wait) that needs to be treated as such, and often should cause adjustments in style of play? None.

If this report about the Weirs and their father is correct, they have not just my best wishes in dealing with this issue but my respect.

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Originally Posted by greybeard

Injury in sport has been an issue of mine for more than 20 years. Style of play in the modern game, you name the sport, often make injury--ankles, knees, shoulders, concussions, most prominently--much more likely. The coaching "profession" in high schools and colleges are so far behind the curve on this as to laughable. The conflict of interest in the profession, where success in coaching can mean millions, or hundreds of thousands, verses a normal teacher's salary, is palpable.

The press reports injuries like they are assists. Just listen to Sunday evening on ESPN during the football season. You'd think you were listening to a body count from Iraq.

The pressure does not just come from coaches. It comes from players who see a star pro or college player do it and they want to replicate it, and do. Their bodies break down it is in their minds (I've been there believe me) a tempory road block. What teenager views an injury to his or her body as being as a potentially life-changing event (most are, just wait) that needs to be treated as such, and often should cause adjustments in style of play? None.

If this report about the Weirs and their father is correct, they have not just my best wishes in dealing with this issue but my respect.

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true. this is especially disturbing in football. see recent malcolm gladwell article in the new yorker. it's a bit sensationalist, comparing vick's dog fighting practices to how the nfl treats its players, but it raises great points. especially in football, athletes don't appreciate how much damage they're doing to their bodies. sacrifice for glory...but, you don't hear as much as you should about the ones that sacrificed, got no glory, but have such serious problems.

i respected tiki barber for getting out while he still had his health.

as for the risk / reward scenario, the same can be said for people that risk their health with PEDs, like A-Roid, to get these huge contracts. It's all worth it if you can just get that contract. So many people do these PEDs and don't make it and end up as beat up as hulk hogan.

As much as I enjoy sports, I'd like to see society value it a bit differently. I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far and it's maybe a bit too important for its and our own good. Like, a gallon of gas costs $3 but the true cost is so much higher. Or a Big Mac is $2-3 but we have to deal with the effects of the industrialized food system to get that price. Not necessarily great analogies, but the point is there are hidden costs to everything and we'd all be better off under a different system of accounting.

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Originally Posted by gumbomoop

Although I agree with this point, the crap on IC re Wears is much worse than tacky, no matter what the inside story. I'm pretty sure that kind of stuff over here would result in mod-sanctions. A noticeable % of I[diot]C posters are idiots, as a noticeably tiny % of IC posters themselves remark, with some embarrassment.

DBR is just different.

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Fair. Tacky is a gross understatement.

See my above comment about the racist post that I saw in response to the wiederer article in the fayetteville observer. almost feel bad re-posting it here. just thought it illuminating. bad news brings out all sorts of characters.

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Originally Posted by ElSid

true. this is especially disturbing in football. see recent malcolm gladwell article in the new yorker. it's a bit sensationalist, comparing vick's dog fighting practices to how the nfl treats its players, but it raises great points. especially in football, athletes don't appreciate how much damage they're doing to their bodies. sacrifice for glory...but, you don't hear as much as you should about the ones that sacrificed, got no glory, but have such serious problems.

i respected tiki barber for getting out while he still had his health.

as for the risk / reward scenario, the same can be said for people that risk their health with PEDs, like A-Roid, to get these huge contracts. It's all worth it if you can just get that contract. So many people do these PEDs and don't make it and end up as beat up as hulk hogan.

As much as I enjoy sports, I'd like to see society value it a bit differently. I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far and it's maybe a bit too important for its and our own good. Like, a gallon of gas costs $3 but the true cost is so much higher. Or a Big Mac is $2-3 but we have to deal with the effects of the industrialized food system to get that price. Not necessarily great analogies, but the point is there are hidden costs to everything and we'd all be better off under a different system of accounting.

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If they have archives of it here, you will see that I wrote quite a bit about the brutality built into the rules of football, the viciousness of the game that Vick had been subjected to his entire life--a game that for most of his life had been run by adults making money off of the play kids, at least since his high school years. What I particularly wrote about was about the hypocracy of the press for failing to write about the vilence that infused Vick's life, that made it the price he had to pay to make use of his talent since he was probably 12 years old or younger, while crusifying Vick for his cruelty to animals.

I happen to believe that what is done to human life on a massive scale in big time football is at least as bad from a moral perspective as what is done in dog fighting. We are talking about human beings here, human beings whose passion for a sport cultivated at an early age is interwined in identity. The people who make the rules that permit such violence leave these young men with no real alternative but to live with it, to live in it, to perpetrate it, to be victims of it.

I always wondered through the period in which Vick was made the poster-child of the animal rights folks whether there wasn't a part of Michael Vick who screamed inside, "What about me?" Or, is it that the violence was so inurred in him, so much a part of the world that he had to live in to be the athlete that he loved, that he didn't even notice the hypocracy that he was enshrowed in. Either way, I thought it a sorry commentary on the world of sport, and sorrier still on the world who demonized Michael Vick because they oh so love their dogs and then sat down on Sundays and screamed, "What a hit," after some guy got knocked from Sunday into next month by a member of their favorite team. Sadder still to me at least were those who would vilify Vick and then clap when they carted those injured guys off the field, as if getting injured was some badge of honor, or clapping somehow made their own complicity in the injury-riddled spectacle okay because, hey, they really did wish the fallen well.

Not to worry, I suppose, they do pray after the games. As the Great Bard put it:

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred

Later.

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Originally Posted by greybeard

The press reports injuries like they are assists. Just listen to Sunday evening on ESPN during the football season. You'd think you were listening to a body count from Iraq.

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I totally agree with what your saying about injuries in sports but this is not a fair comparison at all. It is offensive to me personally and I'm sure many others on here who have served or have family serving and dying in the Middle East.

Let's try to stay away from things like this.

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Originally Posted by ElSid

Scary to think this person exists. Not surprising, though, I guess.

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The poster may be offered an official recruiting visit to CatsPause!!

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Originally Posted by Big Pappa

I totally agree with what your saying about injuries in sports but this is not a fair comparison at all. It is offensive to me personally and I'm sure many others on here who have served or have family serving and dying in the Middle East.

Let's try to stay away from things like this.

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Point well taken.

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Originally Posted by Chris4UNC

"The Heels will be fighting to finish in the middle of the pack in the ACC."....of course you would think that. Hey, thanks for the unbiased assesment. "....which is really their only hope to overachieve."...now I really liked that one. So anything good they do would be an overachievement? You know, this past season I took up for your Devils when I heard others say, "Oh they are good but they won't win it all." There was an argument out there about the "overachieving" Blue Devils this year. Of course Duke managed to throw a pie in all their faces. UNC was expected to win in 2009 and did so winning every game with little drama. 2005 was not such a given. Duke's 2010 title was not exactly a given but I would not say they overachieved. They were much to my dissappointment a great team.

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Well, as to your second point, Duke did overachieve this year. And it was great. Overachievement is not a bad thing. It means you worked harder than everybody else, even if the other guys had more "talent."

As to your first point, I was teasing with the "middle of the pack" statement. I think UNC will finish 3rd or 4th in the ACC, with a shot at 2nd, if NCSU and VPI underachieve.

Predicting where a team will finish at this point in the season or off season is very difficult. However it is fun to do. Last year when UNC was predicted 5th in the country I raised an eyebrow, but waited. Then I watched them play against FIU, Gardner Webb, Syracuse, Nevada... and I said that there was no way they were a top five team. At the time, I remember saying Syracuse who I believe was unrated at the time was a much better team than the heels after they beat California. I argued with many posters on this board that their front court was not only NOT one of the best in the nation, but not even one of the best in the ACC. I got a lot of disagreement for those statements. My point is that we need to see how they play first before making any kind of meaningful projections. Now having said all of that I predict UNC will finish 4th in the ACC, get a 5 seed in the NCAAT and go out in the first round... :D

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Originally Posted by oldnavy

Predicting where a team will finish at this point in the season or off season is very difficult. However it is fun to do. Last year when UNC was predicted 5th in the country I raised an eyebrow, but waited. Then I watched them play against FIU, Gardner Webb, Syracuse, Nevada... and I said that there was no way they were a top five team. At the time, I remember saying Syracuse who I believe was unrated at the time was a much better team than the heels after they beat California. I argued with many posters on this board that their front court was not only NOT one of the best in the nation, but not even one of the best in the ACC. I got a lot of disagreement for those statements. My point is that we need to see how they play first before making any kind of meaningful projections. Now having said all of that I predict UNC will finish 4th in the ACC, get a 5 seed in the NCAAT and go out in the first round... :D

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I remember thinking they were overrated at #5, and were probably more a 15 or so. That is probably where they'd have finished if they had not had so many injuries. It was fun to watch their slide, and to rub it in a little on my UNC friends, but truth is, they were snakebit last year with injuries. They would have suffered from erratic shooting and poor perimeter defense, but the injuries took away their depth and neutralized their strength, which was in the frontcourt.

I just hope we never have a season with that many key injuries. We've had injuries enough, but I can't think of one like that. And I'm generally not superstitious, but when I consider how often our two programs mirror each other, it makes me nervous.

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Originally Posted by oldnavy

Predicting where a team will finish at this point in the season or off season is very difficult. However it is fun to do. Last year when UNC was predicted 5th in the country I raised an eyebrow, but waited. Then I watched them play against FIU, Gardner Webb, Syracuse, Nevada... and I said that there was no way they were a top five team. At the time, I remember saying Syracuse who I believe was unrated at the time was a much better team than the heels after they beat California. I argued with many posters on this board that their front court was not only NOT one of the best in the nation, but not even one of the best in the ACC. I got a lot of disagreement for those statements. My point is that we need to see how they play first before making any kind of meaningful projections.

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Really? It's not to show off? :D

But you were spot on and I had the same opinion of UNC at the time (now I'm the one showing off ;)), though I didn't expend much energy to argue it.

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Originally Posted by jyuwono

Really? It's not to show off? :D

But you were spot on and I had the same opinion of UNC at the time (now I'm the one showing off ;)), though I didn't expend much energy to argue it.

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Well maybe just a little I told you so thrown in there. :) Truly though, UNC's biggest problems last year were the five inches between their heads. They had the talent, despite the injuries to do much better, but the chemistry was way off, and now it seems that this was due to division in the locker room. Next year they will have more talent than this past year IMO, but the issue with chemistry is still an unknown. Watching them play and seeing how they work together will be interesting. I think they will be better, no doubt, but not overpowering or scary good... The Wear transfer is a big hit IMO. Not that they lose a bunch of talent, but the loss of depth, and what it says about the health of the program is meaningful.