tudor nails it

[moonpie23]

carlton tudor - N & O and a MAJOR hole (http://www.newsobserver.com/sports/college/unc/story/1026963.html)

[roywhite]

Surprising blast from Caulton, who is IMO the Digger Phelps of the newspaper set.

[Lavabe]

Thank you for the link. Tudor is right. It was a "flameout." "Carolina's flamboyant flop."

Can't wait to see the N&O comments to the Tudor piece.

[jgehtland]

Now, I relished the loss last night as much as anybody. However, I thought Tudor's article was well past over the line, and all the way out of the stadium. He heaps so much scorn on the players, he seems to forget that they are 20 year old amateurs who probably tried as hard as they could. If he wants to ridicule Roy, power to him. But, jeez, I almost feel like this article is so over-the-top denigrating that it might be purposeful bulletin board material for next year.

Man, you have to go WAY out of your way to make me try to defend the Heels. Congrats, Tudor! Now I feel dirty!

[davekay1971]

Now, I relished the loss last night as much as anybody. However, I thought Tudor's article was well past over the line, and all the way out of the stadium. He heaps so much scorn on the players, he seems to forget that they are 20 year old amateurs who probably tried as hard as they could. If he wants to ridicule Roy, power to him. But, jeez, I almost feel like this article is so over-the-top denigrating that it might be purposeful bulletin board material for next year.

Man, you have to go WAY out of your way to make me try to defend the Heels. Congrats, Tudor! Now I feel dirty!

I agree. I thought it was over the top. His comment that Carolina finally woke up midway through the second half made me question whether he watched the game. It was pretty clear that the momentum change, where Carolina woke up, came in the last 5 minutes of the first half. Everyone watching probably knew that, by whittling a 28 point lead down to 17 by halftime, this was still a game, and Carolina was in it. I agreed with Tudor that Williams did not have his team ready to play. In the game's first 12-15 minutes, they just didn't match intensity with Kansas at all, and that goes on the coach. He also was correct that Hansbrough got abused inside. But his repetitive slams that they just didn't show up at all and were looking to just escape were off the mark.

[pfrduke]

Now, I relished the loss last night as much as anybody. However, I thought Tudor's article was well past over the line, and all the way out of the stadium. He heaps so much scorn on the players, he seems to forget that they are 20 year old amateurs who probably tried as hard as they could. If he wants to ridicule Roy, power to him. But, jeez, I almost feel like this article is so over-the-top denigrating that it might be purposeful bulletin board material for next year.

Man, you have to go WAY out of your way to make me try to defend the Heels. Congrats, Tudor! Now I feel dirty!

Agreed - it's way too hyperbolic. "a game that will long be remembered as a low point in the school's rich basketball history." Really? Lower than the Arceneaux game? Lower than the 8-20 season? Lower than any of the early NCAA exits? Tudor needs a little perspective - yes it was a bad game for the Heels, but they were a) in the Final Four, and b) playing one of the best 4 teams in the country. If I was inclined to taunt Tar Heel fans about their historical shortcomings, this game would not be anywhere near first on my list.

[moonpie23]

tudor is a hole.....he was embarrassed last night and he takes it out on the team and their coach..

[arnie]

I thought the article was fair and accurate - I mean it's exactly how I feel and I'm certainly not biased.

[devildeac]

pretty amazing really. he is pretty much a homer for the holes and doesn't hesitate ripping Duke(see Shav article from a couple years ago or so) at any opportunity so it is actually quite nice reading this piece. i will just enjoy the schadenfreude while i can...

[Troublemaker]

Now, I relished the loss last night as much as anybody. However, I thought Tudor's article was well past over the line, and all the way out of the stadium. He heaps so much scorn on the players, he seems to forget that they are 20 year old amateurs who probably tried as hard as they could. If he wants to ridicule Roy, power to him. But, jeez, I almost feel like this article is so over-the-top denigrating that it might be purposeful bulletin board material for next year.

Agreed. My cynical side tells me he purposefully wrote that to play out a very minor role in trying to motivate Carolina's Big 3 to stay in school one more year. Dean probably asked him to write it :D.

[BCGroup]

I thought it was, by far, the most critical of all the articles (and Scott Fowler's at the Charlotte Observer wasn't that nice!). I have a lot of friends who are Carolina fans (not the obnoxious kind), and I hope they don't read it. I am just as thrilled as anyone for Davidson, but his comments in the first paragraph were rough. How would we feel is someone said Belmont should have gone to the Final Four instead of us? I'm not taking that much satisfaction in the loss.

[CrazyCat]

Now that is just down right rude. He needs to go pick on someone his own size. I detest the Tarholes just as much as everyone else, but man these are just kids.

[sagegrouse]

tudor is a hole.....he was embarrassed last night and he takes it out on the team and their coach..

If Tudor had written the same article about Duke and submitted it to this message board, would the moderators have allowed it?

sagegrouse

[TheDukeCreed]

Doubt it.

I think the whole ACC should be embarassed at last night's game. Most Duke fans relish the fact of UNC losing but the truth is last night's performance showed the state of the ACC. The ACC is in a bad shape.

[BoC]

Agreed - it's way too hyperbolic. "a game that will long be remembered as a low point in the school's rich basketball history." Really? Lower than the Arceneaux game? Lower than the 8-20 season? Lower than any of the early NCAA exits? ...

To be fair, he said it was a game that would be remembered as a low point, which I think is right on the money.

[slower]

Doubt it.

I think the whole ACC should be embarassed at last night's game. Most Duke fans relish the fact of UNC losing but the truth is last night's performance showed the state of the ACC. The ACC is in a bad shape.

Why should the WHOLE ACC be embarrassed? I've never understood the whole lemming-like mindset of people who always pull for ACC teams over non-conference teams. Personally, I could give a CRAP about the rest of the ACC. I root for teams and players that I like, not for some artificially-constructed sense of allegiance. I am a DUKE fan.

Mr. "I think I'll just 'Jason Evans' these things from now on and put my WHOLE post in my sig line." Slower

[Duvall]

I think the whole ACC should be embarassed at last night's game. Most Duke fans relish the fact of UNC losing but the truth is last night's performance showed the state of the ACC. The ACC is in a bad shape.

I think that's an overreaction. UNC isn't as bad as they looked last night - sometimes you just have one of those games.

On the whole, the league should be much stronger next year, regardless of what the main Heels end up doing. Virginia Tech and Wake should field strong teams next year, and Clemson and Miami should still be solid.

[sagegrouse]

Why should the WHOLE ACC be embarrassed? I've never understood the whole lemming-like mindset of people who always pull for ACC teams over non-conference teams. Personally, I could give a CRAP about the rest of the ACC. I root for teams and players that I like, not for some artificially-constructed sense of allegiance. I am a DUKE fan.

Mr. "I think I'll just 'Jason Evans' these things from now on and put my WHOLE post in my sig line." Slower

A couple of points:

I was at the Duke-UNLV debacle in Denver in 1990. The 30-point loss was humiliating, but LV was really a lot better than Duke that year. Hurley was sick and underdog Duke's effort and confidence were suspect in that one game, but that game was nothing like this: the overall favorite getting blown out of the gym 40-12 at the Final Four. Wow!

UNC is a special case, in that we are neck-and-neck in competition for being the leading b-ball program. But I tend to root for the ACC teams when they reach the FF. I certainly rooted for GaTech over Okla State in 2004. (You had to be there to appreciate the annoyance of the sickly orange t-shirts worn by the OSU fans, and the orange hordes everywhere on the San Antonio River Walk threatening to bump the inattentive into the water.)

The conference doing well at the NCAA's is good for Duke and certainly helps pay the bills.

sagegrouse

[pfrduke]

To be fair, he said it was a game that would be remembered as a low point, which I think is right on the money.

out of curiosity, do you consider the 1990 championship game to be a low point in Duke's basketball history? I find it difficult to describe any Final Four defeat as a "low point."

[jjasper0729]

in all honesty, i think it was "A" low point in duke's history.. certainly not a low like the years of the early 70s, but definitely a low point. if only because in that game, we didn't play nearly as well as we might could have and dind't put up much of a competitve effort. were there extenuating circumstances? sure, but it still was low. which was a HUGE motivating factor in the next year when the demons were exorcised.

[KandG]

Agreed. My cynical side tells me he purposefully wrote that to play out a very minor role in trying to motivate Carolina's Big 3 to stay in school one more year. Dean probably asked him to write it :D.


It's funny...after Duke lost by 30 to UNLV, which was not only humiliating for the margin, but continued a string of Final Four appearances with no championship...John Feinstein wrote a scathing column for the now defunct National (an everyday sports newspaper attempting to be the print equivalent of ESPN before the web got big).

Feinstein's editorial was more bitingly sarcastic than Tudor's (though similar in its tone and degree of contempt for Duke's futility), and I remember being quite ticked reading it. But it wasn't hard to see that beyond the withering, sarcastic criticism, Feinstein was hurting to see Duke get labeled as the program that flopped on the big stage every year. (I probably still have a copy of that column in a folder in my basement somewhere).

There was also a cartoon with several guys at a bar crying with different team names on the shirts -- one had Red Sox, one had Cubs, one had Rangers, one had Duke if I recall correctly. All teams that could "never win the big one". Nice to see how things have changed since. :)

[Duvall]

Tudor's column was pretty terrible. Carolina may have been knocked back by an outstanding effort from Kansas last night, but they are still a good team that had a great year.

[BoC]

out of curiosity, do you consider the 1990 championship game to be a low point in Duke's basketball history? I find it difficult to describe any Final Four defeat as a "low point."

I think at the time it was (in my lifetime) the low point; now it's merely a 'lowish' point that I'm fine with, considering what the Devils did the next two years. 'Time heals all wounds' and 'hindsight is 20/20' and all that.

But as sagegrouse above pointed out, there is a bit of a difference between the heavy underdog Duke against the pro UNLV in '90, and this UNC team that was clearly one of the top teams in the nation, getting blown out twice in the same game.

Anyway, I was just pointing out that you apparently thought Tudor said it was the low point for the Tarheels, when he actually said it was a low point.

[Kdogg]

Doubt it.

I think the whole ACC should be embarassed at last night's game. Most Duke fans relish the fact of UNC losing but the truth is last night's performance showed the state of the ACC. The ACC is in a bad shape.

If the ACC is in bad shape with one Final Four team, what does that say about the Big Ten, Big East, and all the other conferences with no teams?

[billy]

I read the N&O daily. Tudor's articles are frequently negative in tone but it's been interesting the last couple of weeks how positive his articles about the heels were. It was therefore shocking how quickly his tune changed in today's piece - I guess he didn't have enough time between the end of the game and his deadline to think twice about it.

That being said, hopefully he'll write an article this week about how much UNC has let down the entire ACC (to mirror the one he wrote about Duke after the WVU loss a couple of weeks ago....)

[captmojo]

I suppose Tudor has never been off his game. I wasn't pulling for the holes but if I were I'd be sore at this drivel.

[BCGroup]

The podcast isn't much better:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/accnow/index.php?title=acc_now_the_podcast_17&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

[kinghoops]

out of curiosity, do you consider the 1990 championship game to be a low point in Duke's basketball history? I find it difficult to describe any Final Four defeat as a "low point."

well anyone who doesnt think that "low point " wasnt an imputus to the national championship in 1991, well the thought it wasnt is just ludicrious

[roywhite]

I think at the time it was (in my lifetime) the low point; now it's merely a 'lowish' point that I'm fine with, considering what the Devils did the next two years. 'Time heals all wounds' and 'hindsight is 20/20' and all that.


And now we learn that, eventually, time wounds all Heels.

[duketaylor]

I didn't think the Tudor article was anything but accurate, unc stunk up the Alamodome twice last night and I'm glad they did. Screw them, couldn't have happened to a nicer fan-base, IMO. Complete meltdown today on IC, I LOVE IT!!! GTHC, GTH!!!!!

9F9F9F9F9F9F9F9F!!!!!

[KandG]

Screw them, couldn't have happened to a nicer fan-base, IMO. Complete meltdown today on IC, I LOVE IT!!! GTHC, GTH!!!!!

9F9F9F9F9F9F9F9F!!!!!



Oh god, it is pure comedy over there. My favorite thread is the "It's time to go back to the Doh Styled Recruit", arguing that Roy is falling short because he doesn't have enough long, big time athletes that "create mismatches".

The "Doh-styled Recruit" surely trumps the "big man coach" as my favorite quick fix of the internet age these days. ;)

[BCGroup]

No, they did not say they wanted to go back to anything from Doh!!!