2019 Selection Sunday

[bigperm13]

If he did, then he put more effort into getting a Carolina degree than most of their players did these past two decades.

True story. I just read a syllabus for an online course through the University of Phoenix so me too!

[arnie]

Just saw on the main page Stubhub selling txs for our Friday night game in Columbia against the South Florida Bulls. Guess neither play-in opponent really wants to play us.😎

[The Gordog]

Jason Williams has admitted that he had an extra chip on his shoulder for unc. Supposedly he was somewhat a fan when he was younger, but Guthridge didn't want him. Williams used it as extra motivation when playing against them, something along the lines "I would just see red every time I saw those jerseys."

JWill only lost once to UNC as wr swept them in 01 and 02. I count that more than any words anyone says to earn a paycheck.

The thing I dislike about Bilas is his INCESSANT talk about what is and isn't a foul.

[Utley]

Saw this on Twitter:

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[wsb3]

JWill only lost once to UNC as wr swept them in 01 and 02. I count that more than any words anyone says to earn a paycheck.

The thing I dislike about Bilas is his INCESSANT talk about what is and isn't a foul.

No sweep in 01.Lost at home... 2 out of 3..

[ns7]

No sweep in 01.Lost at home... 2 out of 3..

Yes, we lost when Battier "fouled" Brendan Haywood with ~1 second left, and Haywood sank both FTs (as a ~50% FT shooter). We were awful from the line that game.

There was another FT incident that game. Ron Curry got fouled at one point and faked an injury (awful FT shooter) so some bench player got to shoot both FTs for him. Ended up being the difference in a game that was tied with 1 second left.

We came back and beat UNC @ Chapel Hill in the season finale and absolutely crushed them in the ACC tournament final.

[Indoor66]

JWill only lost once to UNC as wr swept them in 01 and 02. I count that more than any words anyone says to earn a paycheck.

The thing I dislike about Bilas is his INCESSANT talk about what is and isn't a foul.

The thing I dislike about Bilas is his INCESSANT talk. FIFY

[brevity]

...Pretty sure I remember reading that Jason Williams was a Carolina fan growing up. And it's often been said that the rivalry is a much bigger deal for the fans than the players, who develop friendships in AAU, summer leagues, and pickup games.

Jason Williams has admitted that he had an extra chip on his shoulder for unc. Supposedly he was somewhat a fan when he was younger, but Guthridge didn't want him. Williams used it as extra motivation when playing against them, something along the lines "I would just see red every time I saw those jerseys."

If memory serves Gut had already landed, or was about to land, Adam Boone and considered UNC to be set at the PG position.

Gut supposedly didn't want to recruit over Ed Cota, so he didn't try to pull in an elite PG for the 1999-2000 season. He was targeting someone else for the 2000-2001 season to step in after Cota was gone. I don't remember who it was, but Gut didn't like something about that recruit's family (or there was some other off-court issue that caused him to back away), and then he was left scrambling for Boone.

I thought it was because UNC had Ron Curry?

That might have actually had something to do with it too, along with Forte. Either way, Gut spurned him, and I remember Williams saying later that it gave him extra motivation against them.

This part of the thread has been bugging me since yesterday, because I know Olympic Fan had written on the subject of Bill Guthridge and the recruitment of Jason Williams. A couple of DBR searches and I found it in the Kennard Declares for the NBA Draft thread.

If you remember, UNC was a six-man team in 1998. The problem was that Gut couldn't make a decision on who to bring off the bench, so instead of designating a sixth man, he rotated starters. Each of his top guys would sit out every sixth game. Five of the six guys accepted that ... one didn't -- senior guard Shammond Williams, who was the team's only consistent outside shooter.

Late in the season, Williams had a meltdown at Virginia. It was his turn to come off the bench and he threw a tantrum, left the team and returned to the locker room while the team was on the floor in the second half and generally made a you-know-what of himself. Gut essentially let him get away with it without punishment.

Well, Carolina sails through the ACC Tournament, and cruises through the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament, beating UNC Charlotte in OT, then taking down tough opponents in Michigan State and UConn in Greensboro. But they get to San Antonio and guess whose turn it is to come off the bench? No temper tantrum this time, but Williams missed 10 of 12 shots and Utah's zone shuts down Antwan Jamison and Vince Carter.

So I agree that Gut's coaching had a lot to do with UNC's failure in 1998.

He did get lucky in 2000, although UNC had to beat No. 1 seed Stanford in the second round. Other than that, it was an easy path to the Final Four.

BTW, don't downplay Ed Cota's career -- not only did he finished third in ACC history in career assists, he quarterbacked three Final Four teams.

Curry's career is kind of strange. He originally committed to Virginia on a football scholarship, then changed his mind and picked UNC on a basketball deal. The idea was that he would get a little taste of football as a freshman, then join the basketball team,. But UNC's top two QBs got hurt and Curry found himself starting as a true freshman on a team that finished 6-6 and went to the Las Vegas Bowl. That delayed his joining the bball team until December ... and he never got into the basketball rotation.

He actually had a pretty good junior year in hoops in 2000-01. He was the starting point guard on a team that beat Duke in Durham and tied Duke for the ACC regular season title. UNC was No. 1 in the nation in late February, but collapsed down the stretch losing five straight Sunday games to close the season (Clemson, Virginia, Duke, Duke and Penn State). Curry turned pro -- in the NFL -- and didn't play basketball as a senior.

The Jason Williams/Ron Curry dynamic illustrates what we mean when we say Mike Krzyzewski "doesn't have positions." I guess it would be more correct to say Mike doesn't force players into positions ... as opposed to UNC, which under Smith was a very structured system. Williams told me -- on the floor at the Smith Center, in between games at the Bob Gibbons Tournament -- that he had grown up as a UNC fan and wanted to play at UNC, but Bill Guthridge told him that they were set at the point with Cota and then Curry. He did want to recruit Williams as a wing guard. But Williams, who played wing for his high school team, wanted to be a point. K promised him that chance at Duke, even though as a freshman, Williams was projected to share the backcourt with Will Avery -- a natural combo guard who was trying to learn the point to help his NBA career.

The point is, K would have played Williams and Avery together -- two points -- as he played Dawkins and Amaker together, as he played Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones together, as he later played Williams and Chris Duhon together. At UNC -- under the system coached by Dean and Gut, you don't play two points together.

Anyway, we were very lucky that Dean wanted Kenny Anderson so bad that he passed on Bobby Hurley and Gut was so sure Jason Williams wasn't a point guard that he passed on JWill.

[pfrduke]

Yes, we lost when Battier "fouled" Brendan Haywood with ~1 second left, and Haywood sank both FTs (as a ~50% FT shooter). We were awful from the line that game.

There was another FT incident that game. Ron Curry got fouled at one point and faked an injury (awful FT shooter) so some bench player got to shoot both FTs for him. Ended up being the difference in a game that was tied with 1 second left.

We came back and beat UNC @ Chapel Hill in the season finale and absolutely crushed them in the ACC tournament final.

I believe it was Orlando Melendez who shot those FTs.

[subzero02]

I believe it was Orlando Melendez who shot those FTs.

The guy who reportedly played like an all American in practice but could never come close to that level of play in an actual game.