UNC will not seek to have Hairston reinstated.
The University of North Carolina will not seek reinstatement from the NCAA for men's basketball junior guard P.J. Hairston. The Greensboro, N.C., native has already sat out 10 games this season due to eligibility issues.
"Unfortunately P.J. made a number of mistakes that placed his eligibility at risk and the University's joint review with the NCAA made it clear that seeking reinstatement for P.J. would not be possible," says director of athletics Bubba Cunningham. "The University thanks him for his contributions to Carolina Basketball."
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...... SEEEEEEE - YA!!!!
Well, and IC faithful rejoice as they now have a built-in excuse for when the team falls short again...
So time to move in to Roy's "rental" crib?
PJ got what he deserved, but in all honesty, I'm not sure that it's going to make all that much difference in terms of how Carolina's season plays out. And I know, he'd have been their best outside shooter, but still. With or without PJ, it sure seems like Carolina is/was going to be a very inconsistent team, a team capable of impressive highs and humiliating lows. They're playing a lot of guys, trying to find combinations, trying to figure out roles, and I just don't think PJ's presence would have changed much of that. McDonald can shoot it, Paige can shoot it, so sure PJ would be another shooter, but most of Carolina's issues -- on both ends of the floor -- would remain even were he to have been reinstated. They're still a team that if they get their heads together could make a run (not all the way, but a solid run) in March, or they could go the other direction and be a marginal NCAA team. And that would've been true with PJ as well.
I hear they might have a video coordinator position opening up soon
I disagree. With Hairston, UNC has two 1st/2nd All-ACC caliber scorers in Paige (shocking, but it appears to be true) and Hairston, along with X-factor types like McAdoo, Johnson, and McDonald. So on any given night there are two guys on the floor that you absolutely have to account for defensively.
Without Hairston, they really need those X-factors to move into a more leading role. If you handle Paige and don't hand them easy scores inside, they are a pretty pedestrian team.
They would have been inconsistent even with Hairston. But without Hairston, their ceiling drops substantially.
IIRC, Hairston was not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team all-ACC last season. I seriously doubt had he come in cold in the middle of the season that he would've played at an all-ACC level this year either. He's a one dimensional player, and while I'm not denying he's a solid shooter, Carolina's offense seems to me to be pretty similar regardless of his presence. You still have to worry about Paige, McAdoo, Johnson, and McDonald, as well as a couple of other x-factor types, so Hairston would've been one more of them, that's all.
I completely agree with CDu here. PJ was UNC's best player. It's like saying Hood, Cook, and Sulaimon are good, slashing scorers, so Duke wouldn't play any better or worse whether Jabari Parker played or not. And, no, I'm not saying PJ is as good as Jabari; I'm saying that you can't take away a team's best player and say the team will perform the same whether he's there or not.
I was trying to think of a gun related pun but I kept drawing blanks.
Well, other than McAdoo, nobody currently in the ACC was first or second team all-ACC last season. Of returning players, PJ would have been the fifth-leading vote-getter in last year's all-ACC voting.
Also, he's been practicing with the team, hasn't he? He wouldn't have really been coming in cold.
It's not unexpected at this point, but it's a big loss for Heeldom.
Hairston was only off the All-ACC team last year because Williams inexplicably kept him out of the starting lineup (and limited his playing time) until midway through the season. It wasn't until the Duke game that Williams committed to "small ball", moving Hairston into the starting lineup for good. From that time on (nearly half the season), Hairston averaged 18.2 ppg and 5.5 rpg in 30.5 mpg. Once Williams woke up and starting playing Hairston, it was clear that Hairston was UNC's best (or at worst second-best) player. And he was without question their best returning player.
And he's not one-dimensional. Yes, he's a terrific shooter. He's also a terrific slasher and finisher off the dribble. He's a fairly decent rebounder as well for a perimeter player. He would have been one of the 5 best offensive players in the conference. He's the type of guy you can hand the ball and he can score in a variety of ways without help from a PG. That's a HUGE loss for a team that lacks capable playmakers.
And he wouldn't have been "coming in cold." He's been practicing with the team for months.
So we'll never get the full story. Figures.
We won't even get to find out how many games he would have been suspended and the "value" (de-value?) of the impermissible benefits he was CAUGHT receiving.
With PJ safely under the bus, and Leslie "freed" after 8 games - with no consequence for endorsing or using at least one custom ($1500) mouthguard - the inquiry into any connection between Fats and other heels is OVER.
ol' roy is disappointed for poor PJ, at least I think that's what he said, the grinding of the bus gears was pretty loud.
unc won't even TRY to get PJ back into uniform, why not even try???????
Link: www.northcarolina.scout.com/2/1358892.html. ole roy says that pj was called a perfect teammate by one of our other players. That player must have been McDonald. GoDuke!
Wonder if he'll move in with Will Graves?
"We first learned of this situation back in the summer and getting to this point took a great deal of time because the University, the NCAA and P.J.'s family took great care to learn as many of the facts as were possible to learn."
Of course, unc probably had advised PJ to say nothing so that few of the facts would be learned.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013