Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Hoops fans come to terms with disappointing season

Posted on February 18, 2010 by Staff

Beth Mechum
Staff Writer

“Three more wins until UNC has 2,000,” Woody Durham exclaimed at the Celebration of a Century Alumni Game last Friday night at the Smith Center. Add in that win against N.C. State Saturday night, and now it’s two.

That sounds impressive – and Woody certainly said it in a way that made it sound impressive – but you’ve got to imagine that for the planners of this year-long 100-year celebration of Carolina basketball, 2,000 wins by this point in the season was a foregone conclusion.

That game against College of Charleston was probably already checked in the win column, and at least one more ACC win seemed likely, if not a sure thing.

But players, coaches and fans alike have had to adjust their expectations. It hasn’t been easy.

Newspapers are reporting that Deon Thompson won’t leave his room and Marcus Ginyard’s once-vibrant and positive twitter feed, chock-full of inspirational quotes, has been quiet of late. Roy Williams’ unfortunate Haiti comments are fodder for blogs, and even the women’s basketball team is unranked for the first time since 2001.

Fans, both young and old, grew accustomed to the Carolina way of at least being competitive year after year, and are now coming to terms with what almost all are calling a disappointing season.

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton, a former UNC student, puts things in perspective.

“It’s definitely not as bad as Haiti, but it is bad,” Chilton said. “When you win the national championship, you’re going to get cleaned out by the NBA.

“I still have a lot of confidence in the coach and in the players that we’ve got. I’m optimistic, but it’s not going to be a season we’re going to look back and boast about.”

Heather Hall, a UNC senior and avid Carolina fan since birth, said she’s tried to stay confident all season, but that confidence took a big hit during the Maryland game, when she heard Maryland’s fans’ shouts of “NIT, NIT.”

“I’ve always loved Carolina basketball and I’m really one of those people who sticks with the team through thick and thin, but this season something feels amiss, something’s not right,” she said.

That’s a common question among UNC fans – what exactly is wrong? This year’s recruiting class included one of the top five players in the nation, John Henson, and three other All-Americans.

“I’m excited to continue to watch them grow and continue to become better basketball players over the next three years,” Hall said. “I think we have another national championship in the near future.”

That’s the kind of optimism that comes with the afterglow of a 2009 NCAA Championship season to look back on.

Katie Payne, a 2009 graduate still living in the area, was expecting a letdown anyway after a whirlwind 2009 season with players she considered her peers.

“I felt like the players who were here during the majority of my four years here were my team, which is why I have such strong ties to Marcus Ginyard,” Payne said. “It makes me sad that people are being so hard on them. It’s not like they are not trying; they are just a young team trying to get their feet and trying to find themselves.”

Local sports columnist and Cat’s Cradle owner Frank Heath has years of experience with the up-and-down nature of college basketball and sounded quite serene about it all.

“I guess I’m just sort of taking each game as a journey in and of itself, as opposed to looking at it from a point of view that Carolina fans often do, which is, ‘Are we going to win the national championship this year?’” Heath said. “It’s a hard transformation to make, but my goal as a fan is to be a fan in the moment.”

And of course as the saying goes, there’s always next year. It’s a cliché most sports fans have grown to live by, and now Tar Heel basketball fans are no different.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme