Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. You are free to panic now.
At this point I am out of reasons, excuses or nice ways to look at this. This team is most likely NIT bound barring a huge turnaround. Winning the home games was supposed to be the buffer to keep them above water with hopes they could steal one or two on the road. Now that is out the window and you are looking at a team that even when they do not turn the ball over, cannot execute the offense well enough to score consistently. Even if they do get shots they don’t fall. It is bad mojo all the way around and I am not sure there are any answers for it in this season. Would Ed Davis had made a difference? I would like to think so but the rebounding was not that out of whack, UNC simply missed too many shots and on the defensive end allowed Wake to go 9-16 from three.
Now, I am not ready to cash in this season because there is still a ton of basketball left to be played and heck UNC could still win the ACC Tournament on some miracle run once everyone is healthy. That being said I also think it might time to shift most of the minutes to the players who will be on the team next season. And that is not as much about looking toward next season as you might think. For one, Marcus Ginyard and to lesser extent(tonight anyway) Deon Thompson just are not getting it done so giving more minutes to the freshmen might get you a higher level of play. I am also at a point of believing if UNC is going to lose like this I would rather them lose while getting guys experience.
Bottom line is at some point they are bound to get better. The problem is it will probably be too late though the SOS and two wins over MSU and OSU are Aces in the hole should they find themselves on the NCAA bubble.
So no need to stress out and get pissed. It is what it is people.
