Puff Johnson entered the transfer portal Wednesday, joining former four-star UNC recruits Dontrez Styles and Tyler Nickel, plus senior Justin McKoy. Four Tar Heels in the portal already, and Caleb Love looks likelier than not to follow. With Leaky Black and Pete Nance seemingly out of eligibility (I’m not going to say anything confident about eligibility until 2030), that leaves a thin, thin crew in Chapel Hill. As I understand it, at the moment it’s Armando Bacot, RJ Davis, Seth Trimble, D’Marco Dunn, Jalen Washington, and two incoming freshmen. That’s at the moment.
UNC will throw bags upon bags at the transfer portal, and many seem convinced that those, accompanied by, “Brady Manek won us eleven of twelve games one time and Caleb Love isn’t here anymore,” are going to be an effective argument. But here’s the question for UNC:
Why would anybody want to play there? Right now, I mean.
Over Hubert Davis’s two seasons at the helm, UNC has only successfully made the postseason once, and that once was a near miss. Davis’s teams, if we’re going statistically, are about 50% likely to play past the ACC Tournament, and no matter who comes in, they’re all going to be built a lot like this one: Bacot will be the focus, Davis will run point. It’s one thing to build around guys who’ve been successful for you. It’s another to build around guys who’ve led you to an average KenPom finish of 31st in the country.
I can hear you, “31st in the country can win the ACC.” And it can! But winning the ACC isn’t enough to keep you safe from the bubble anymore. Pitt almost did it, and Pitt was on the bubble. We are no longer living in 2009. There’s also the awkward question of…Why exactly are Styles and Nickel leaving? Because watching UNC play, and looking at the roster at hand, it’s hard to believe the competition for playing time is going to be that fierce.
This is a program in disintegration, and it’s been brought on by its own hubris, and it’s been accentuated by its own decision to show up the basketball gods. As we’ve said for a long time: This all wouldn’t have happened under Dean Smith or Roy Williams, and it didn’t. In 2010, UNC nearly won the NIT. In 2011, they made the other tournament’s regional final. They paid their dues, retooled, and got the result they expected. Now they’ve tried to skip the pay–their–dues part. They’re doubling down on the things that don’t work and hoping to patch enough holes to fix a broken culture. It’s hard to believe that’s going to work. Good luck earning another NIT invite, Carolina, and I don’t mean because you’ll be finishing above it.
Tennessee Chose Hate
Tennessee could’ve been a likable basketball team. Scrappy, disciplined, playing under a hard-luck coach. Instead, their ouster last night from the exhibition tournament was met with unmitigated glee from every corner. Tennessee was the dirtiest college basketball team in recent memory, and we are living in the embers of the Grayson Allen/Brad Davison era.
One funny piece of this is that Tennessee’s baseball team did the exact same thing last year. They were an awe-inspiring collection of talent, the best the school had ever seen, and they managed to not only choke in the Super Regional but do enough scummy stuff that every college baseball fan danced on their grave. And they lost to *Notre Dame.* It’s not like this was to a lovable underdog.
The obvious takeaway here is that if Tennessee football gets as good as it thinks it’s going to get, it’s going to make Georgia and Alabama look like the most morally sound institutions in the country. I can’t wait.
Utah’s Got a New State Flag
Utah approved a new state flag this week. Let’s take a look:
It’s great.
Utah’s old state flag, if you recall, was a seal on a blue background, the same as something far too close to half of other states’ state flags. This is distinctive, it sticks with the beehive/industry theme, I don’t know what the star means, the mountains are self-evident and the red at the bottom is said to be in honor of the state’s red rocks, which is beautiful. Love the flag, great work, does look a little modern but that’s kind of how it goes. This should proudly be hung on the dorm room walls of kids who go to school out of state, and I’d expect it to challenge for a spot in the Round of 16 in this summer’s state flag bracket here at The Barking Crow.
Oh Yeah, NASCAR’s in Austin
It breaks my heart that you can’t tell NASCAR’s in Austin when you walk around the streets here. But alas, we’re in the middle of restoring the NIT to glory. March just isn’t the time for us to also save NASCAR.
Bulls
The Bulls are in Portland tonight and down in LA on Sunday to play the Lakers (they’ll play the Clippers Monday, but we’ll talk before then). One nice thing about the NBA trying to force everyone to play in the playoffs is that .500 ball is usually good enough to make it, so with a two-game lead in the loss column, let’s just see a split, fellas.
Sens
The Sens punked the Lightning last night (powerful entity to punk, Ben Franklin would be impressed), winning 7–2 in Ottawa. The Penguins lost to the Stars, so this closes the gap back to five points with ten to play. The guys go to New Jersey tomorrow to play the Devils (what a great team to be located in that state). Big underdogs, but for a while there that traditionally meant good things for the Sens. Or at least silly things. We would take either right now.
