Sports Notebook Archives - Chapelboro.com: Recent Episodes
Sports Notebook Archives - Chapelboro.com
Mack Brown was a very good football coach.
His father was a high school coach in Tennessee, and his older brother Watson preceded him into mid-major positions. The peripatetic Brown held nine assistant jobs and one as a head coach in 15 years before he was 35. That included being the athletic director at Tulane after the AD was fired because of a point shaving scandal in basketball. He landed at North Carolina in 1988 for a school that wanted to sell tickets as much as winning championships.
Brown was injury plagued as a player at Florida State and Vanderbilt and was determined to follow his father into coaching. He benefited from moves that vaulted him from journeyman status to the College Football Hall of Fame. He settled down at North Carolina, where he talked his way into the job and began with two 1-10 seasons that created barely a peep from alumni and fans.
After eight straight winning seasons and six bowl games, Brown left for a much tougher job at Texas when UNC wouldn’t give him a $100,000 raise. He was succeeded by five head coaches in 21 years who didn’t win enough and lost popularity as the seasons passed.
In Austin, Brown inherited Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams in Mack’s first season with the Longhorns, and in 2005 he won the national championship on a touchdown run in the final minute by star quarterback Vince Young. While holding the trophy at midfield, Brown showed his recruiting chops by thanking all the high school coaches in Texas.
When winning only eight or nine games was no longer good enough at Texas, Mack resigned and returned to North Carolina when that job reopened in 2019. Brown continued his streak of coaching 12 straight bowl teams in Chapel Hill. He recruited future NFL quarterbacks Sam Howell and Drake Maye but could not come close to replacing either and was fired with about two years remaining on his contract. UNC hired former NFL Super Bowl coach Bill Belichick in what may turn out to be a disastrous move for the school and fan base.
Brown and his wife Sally immediately moved back to Austin where they were beloved once again, and he no longer had to coach football at age 73. He has any speaking engagement he wants, hosts a podcast and enjoys life as a retiree and the last Texas coach to win a national championship.
Meanwhile, the lucky guy who finished with the Tar Heels’ all-time winning record in football is better remembered now than ever. Yes, Brown often talked too much and occasionally said the wrong thing. But compared to what is happening now in the southern part of heaven he is considered the one who got away with his reputation mostly intact.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The One Who Got Away appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
One of Dean Smith’s favorite sayings was, “How you start is how you finish.”
New UNC athletic director Steve Newmark did not go to Carolina but was raised in Chapel Hill and is a lifelong Tar Heel fan with a bookcase filled with Smith bios and sayings.
Only a few months on the job, Newmark must be dusting off those books to make sure he reviews those homilies and words of wisdom as he faces what might be the most difficult decision of a (hopefully) long tenure. The year before inheriting the position from Bubba Cunningham, he was part of the search committee that interviewed Bill Belichick for the head coaching position, a search that turned into a fiasco as coaches suddenly showed little interest in succeeding Mack Brown.
Perhaps at that time, Newmark did not fully realize UNC would be inheriting a three-legged stool that included Belichick’s girlfriend Jordon Hudson and ordained general manager Michael Lombardi. While Cunningham was busy trying to lure coaches who had little interest in inheriting a dysfunctional situation, former UNC Board of Trustees chairman John Preyer inappropriately offered Belichick the job, a move that forced UNC System president Peter Hans to briefly suspend the board’s authority over athletics for Preyer and others overstepping their advisory bounds.
Preyer agreed to guarantee Belichick $30 million over three years, while Lombardi was relocating from New Jersey and Hudson was moving from New England. Belichick wrangled a $1.5 million salary for Lombardi — who had already established a sour reputation with NFL franchises — that turned out to be the highest compensation among any general manager in college football. Hudson was not a salaried employee of UNC, but her presence became an immediate distraction by showing up on the sideline before games, involving herself in program and media matters.
Belichick and Hudson spent one or more off weekends early in the season at his home on Nantucket Island when he should have been recruiting players. Meanwhile, Lombardi made a weird trip to Saudi Arabia where he was supposedly exploring fundraising possibilities for Carolina. It is unclear whether he was on assignment for the Rams Club, the Board of Trustees or himself.
UNC Football General Manager Michael Lombardi was put onto paid administrative leave by the university on Monday, July 27. Reports later surfaced that it stems from a (Photo via AP Photo/Aaron Beard.)
Another development that could be related is whether UNC faces investigation by the college sports organization that oversees compliance with college athletics revenue sharing and NIL rules. Public reporting have not identified any formal allegations or specific rules violations, and the scope of the inquiry has not been made public. Should Lombardi be involved in recruiting violations, his job would not only be at stake but so could Belichick’s, since coaches are responsible for knowing whatever assistant coaches do.
But: this story is about Steve Newmark, and what he must do in his first year as AD at UNC. We already know about Belichick. We already know about Hudson. And we certainly know about Mike Lombardi, who has grifted his way through college and pro football wearing fake championship rings, and occasionally shares inappropriate stuff on social media — from his account with a UNC Football helmet as a profile picture, no less.
Whatever he did to run afoul of UNC’s Human Resources department and land on administrative leave, it is more than enough to lose a job Lombardi never should have had…and for which he is grossly overpaid.
In his first year as general manager, he could not sign a single college player of the caliber to be drafted by an NFL team. He has been roasted and skewered by radio shows and TV talking heads across the country who accuse this bad actor of not belonging anywhere near a campus like The University of North Carolina. Don’t write off Lombardi as small potatoes: he is the kind of cancer that infects a university that has worked for 200 years to build a reputation as one of the best in the country.
Steve Newmark is one of us, and he needs to be here for the long haul to lead Carolina Athletics into a new era and repair a football program that badly needs fixing. Start with Lombardi, who needs to go. Now.
Featured photo via UNC-Chapel Hill.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Needs to Go…Now appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Whether Mike Lombardi gets a slap on the wrist or loses his job, the highest paid general manager in all of college football continues to create embarrassment for the oldest public university in the country.
After Monday’s unceremonious announcement that he is currently on paid administrative leave, it feels unlikely that Lombardi will continue his regular regimen substituting for Bill Belichick on media duties during the 2026 season, which includes a Monday morning radio appearance on 97.9 The Hill and his weekly syndicated show from Top of the Hill.
The release from South Building says Lombardi will continue earning his $1.5 million salary as long as he’s employed, but if the rumors that are already swelling within UNC are true, he may be on his way back to Cleveland before the season even kicks off. One of the reports says a complaint was filed by a former front office employee. Such an accusation these days is received even worse than cheating in recruiting.
I guess we should have known this was coming if we had checked the references from his years in the NFL, where Lombardi was among the most unpopular administrators across five teams. Not even the vaunted New England Patriots after three their Super Bowl championships could find a way to hide Lombardi despite his loyalty to Belichick. He didn’t have much more success with four other franchises and wound up as a podcaster before Belichick asked him to find out who Carolina was considering after it fired Mack Brown.
Then after the Tar Heels offered the Hoodie $10 million a season and introduced him with cut-off sleeves gracing the flabbergasted Rams Club ballroom — and with trustees John Preyer and Jennifer Lloyd basking in congratulations after pulling off the coaching coup — Lombardi capped it off with the stupidest scouting report in the history of football. Knowing very little of how the transfer portal and new revenue sharing model had changed college football, Lombardi declared Carolina’s goal would be the “33rd NFL franchise” during their first season on the job. And we all know how that turned out.
There was no subtlety to any chicanery from the beginning, with Belichick hiring his sons Steve and Brian to his defensive staff and Lombardi hiring his son Matt — who had never been a full-time college position football coach — to get the quarterbacks ready for the ACC. When Belichick and athletic director Bubba Cunningham found out that they were running afoul of UNC’s nepotism policy, they all came up with some way to skirt rules that are plain as day on paper.
After UNC finished their first season 4-8 against a pathetically easy schedule (and remember, Brown had coached his last 12 Carolina teams to bowl games), Belichick and Lombardi failed to have a single player picked in the 2026 NFL draft. Despite a slight uptick from recruiting, a 2026 schedule that seems three times as difficult could make getting four wins seem like a winning season.
And — for now — who knows what the plan will be for the general manager and recruiting players for 2027?
Featured image via AP Photo/Chris Seward.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Chicanery appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has released its salary structure for the 2026-27 men’s basketball season, and right now it has to be a game of wait and see.
Mike Malone is making $7.5 million in his first college head coaching season and his new top assistant Chuck Martin is making $500,000.
Here is where it gets interesting. The second new assistant coach Bryan Tibaldi is making $365,000; while former Tar Heel sharpshooter Brandon Robinson will earn $125,000 replacing Marcus Paige, who joined Wes Miller at UNC Charlotte. Sean May and Pat Sullivan, two holdovers from Hubert Davis’ staff, do not have updated salaries as of yet in the UNC database: May’s is listed at $344,659, while Sullivan’s is $390,143.
NC State released its coaching salaries last week, and the Wolfpack’s top three assistant coaches (Alvin Brooks, Matt Driscoll and Anthony Goins) make a combined $1,375,000. New head coach Justin Gainey earns $1.785 million. New basketball general manager Andrew Slater is making a reported $400,000. Four other State assistants (Bill Comar, Riley Collins, Ognjen Vasiljevic and Patrick Stacy) further bump the Pack’s payroll to more than the UNC staff is making. Stacy, the assistant general manager, makes $85,000.
The big discrepancy is with Carolina’s second year general manager Jim Tanner, who is hauling in $1.05 million in his second season after two years of bonuses kicked in from the contract he negotiated with retiring athletic director Bubba Cunningham and, perhaps, new AD Steve Newmark. All the assistant coaches participate in recruiting whether on campus or across the country and the world.
Tanner and UNC football general manager Mike Lombardi are among the highest paid general managers in college sports. And neither has had success or met expectations that their expertise has warranted. Tanner had his own agency representing pro basketball players in the USA and Europe. Lombardi and head coach Bill Belichick have mostly disappointed with their transfer portal hauls and recruiting of high school players.
The top two North Carolina prep football players in the class of 2026 are quarterback Faizon Brandon from Greensboro-Grimsley, who is going to Tennessee, and edge rusher Rodney Dunham from Myers Park in Charlotte, headed for Notre Dame. They are the only two five-star prospects listed by 247 Sports. UNC has promising prospects in defensive tackle Trashawn Ruffin (ranked as the No. 16 prospect in the state), edge rusher Zavion Griffin-Haynes (No. 19), offensive tackle J.B. Shabazz (No. 29) and linebacker Jayden Griffin-Haynes (No. 37, and Zavion’s brother). Their only other in-state signee is kicker David Green.
State’s lone in-state four-star recruit is WR Tyreek Copper. The Wolfpack has seven other 3-stars. Wake Forest boasts 4-star quarterback Grant Lawless and three three-stars. Duke also has three three-stars.
Carolina has had a dreadful start in the class of 2027, with no in-state commits among the top 64 prospects. State lists five three-stars; Wake Forest and Duke both have four. South Carolina leads the class of 2027 so far with three four-stars and one three-star. East Carolina has signed eight three-stars so far.
Tar Heel men’s basketball will be another wait-and-see affair with Malone returning to the college game for the first time in more than 20 years.
Malone could not convince Henri Veesaar to take a multimillion-dollar package and play another year in Chapel Hill, where he would have been an All-ACC candidate, shooting star and strong rebounder for the Tar Heels. He stayed in the NBA Draft and was selected late in the second round. He is getting used to pro basketball with a nice salary but probably could have done better staying in college basketball for one more year. Certainly, Malone and Carolina would have benefitted from that and will struggle with a revamped roster that is almost completely new in the frontcourt. How they all play out in the ACC is anyone’s guess.
The Tar Heels could be much better in the backcourt with Matt Able, a transfer from State, athletic transfer Terrence Brown from Utah and some highly touted transfers from Virginia Tech and other programs.
In both marquee sports, UNC has invested heavily in coaches and general managers to strengthen their rosters. So far, there are more questions than answers when it comes to their job performance.
Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Cost of Business appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
When he left Carolina as chancellor in 2024, Kevin Guskiewicz was dogged by policy confrontations with the UNC Board of Trustees.
Guskiewicz found himself in the same position after only two years at Michigan State despite strong support from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Spartans’ Hall of Fame basketball coach Tom Izzo. He visited Clemson back in the ACC and was announced as the university’s next president in May.
Suddenly, the situation became even more unusual: Guskiewicz has now decided to remain at Michigan State while athletic director J Batt (whom he hired) left for Kentucky, and even with that twist there has been no public reporting of a personal or professional rift between the two men. It was a controversial decision and topic of discussion among Michigan State observers. The timing of Batt’s move led to speculation of institutional conflict rather than a fallout with Guskiewicz.
Guskiewicz apologized for the period of uncertainty and the future of the university’s athletic director remains unclear. Clemson was to welcome its new president after every detail of his contract was agreed upon. At the very last moment, he decided to stay back with his former university despite what he called “an unsustainable situation” caused by internal conflicts among the Board of Trustees.
As he was in Chapel Hill, Guskiewicz was popular with the governor, the acclaimed basketball coach and in most circles at East Lansing, and both Whitmer and Izzo backed the slogan “We Heart Kevin G” and the popular retention campaign favoring the 60-year-old president.
In a community letter with the subject line “The Work Continues” sent Monday afternoon, Guskiewicz raised important questions about his own commitment to Sparty.
“I regret that my decision-making over the past several weeks added to that uncertainty. For that, I am sincerely sorry,” Guskiewicz wrote.
Guskiewicz’s salary is $1,030,210 and will be bumped to $1.5 million in October. According to a press release sent out by the Board of Trustees, the raise will be funded by non-university resources. His starting compensation at Clemson was reportedly $1.216 million. His first salary at UNC was $657,743.
At Guskiewicz’s last meeting before resigning at MSU, the Board of Trustees voted to implement a revised code of ethics and conduct which has since been criticized for restricting the free speech of certain Board members. The efforts to retain Guskiewicz initially failed and he announced his departure for Clemson on May 27. In his departure letter sent the same day, Guskiewicz pointed to certain trustees.
The Board has since demonstrated a commitment to implementing a more robust governance structure including those recent improvements to the code of ethics and conduct.
Carolina should have been so lucky.
Featured image via UNC-Chapel Hill/Jon Gardiner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Code of Conduct appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Sure, Caleb Wilson went No. 4 to the Bulls as the new Michael Jordan. But the Tar Heels’ next best player got screwed along with the team.
If anybody truly knows what happened to Henri Veesaar, call me. The predicted number one value in the second round of the NBA Draft fell down the elevator shaft all the way to No. 52 to Atlanta after the Hawks traded with the Clippers for Veesaar.
The esteemed Jay Bilas looked as uncomfortable as he was playing for last place Duke in 1983 after calling Veesaar a top pick in the second round in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. So, what happened, big guy?
Everybody from Mike Malone to Jim Tanner have egg on their faces even though they likely had very little to do with it. Blame it on agent Jason Ranne or anyone else who seems to get involved in these players’ young lives when critical decisions are being made.
Wherever Henri wound up as the 52nd pick, he likely left $3 or 4 or 5 million on the table had he stuck with the Tar Heels for one more year. Granted, Veesaar wasn’t crazy about going to school for another year. But all he had to do was register for one semester and then cut class for the rest of the season.
Whether it was Ranne, Tanner or Malone, someone could not guarantee Veesaar at least a one year no-cut contract that would’ve paid him at least as much money as Carolina could to retain their All-ACC center. Now, his chances are as good for winding up back in Estonia as with a multi-year NBA deal.
He deserves more than that after transferring from Arizona and finishing in the top five for the 2025-26 Naismith Hall of Fame’s Kareem Adbul-Jabbar award as the top center in the country. He earned second-team All-ACC honors, the eighth-leading vote-getter. Veesaar averaged 17 points a game and 8.7 rebounds. He finished 17th in the country with 15 double-doubles, fourth in the ACC in rebounding and eighth in scoring.
Somehow, some way no NBA team could do better than a two-way contract that would leave Henri splitting time with the G-League until Atlanta agreed to a full ride at No. 52. Still, Veesaar does not stand to earn more than $1.5 million in his rookie year and will be under pressure to play well enough to get another contract.
As for the Tar Heels, they lose perhaps the best center in the ACC and will rely on unknown and unproven big men. Blame it on the muddled way the NBA Draft does business.
Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What Happened to Henri? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Of all the athletes who competed at Carolina over the years, there is no one in the same ballpark as Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez. His life-changing moment occurred when he was six years old and survived an attack from vicious chimpanzees in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The 18-year-old UNC prodigy who is on a wrestling scholarship told the New York Post after winning the national high school champion association title at 123 pounds, “I was with my family, and the animals came out of nowhere.”
The chimps killed his brother and cousin, and Dunia was left extremely disfigured. The primates mauled his face and lips, bit off his left middle finger and his right ear, destroyed a chunk of his left forearm and left other scars across the poor child’s body.
At the age of eight, Dunia came the United States for rare reconstructive surgery at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital in New York. The non-profit Smile Rescue Fund for Kids identifies children in resource-poor countries who need facial or cranial work at no charge.
“I’ve had about sixteen surgeries now,” added Dunia, who speaks softly, now due to lasting damage around his mouth. Life was hard enough before the tragedy, and his impoverished family struggled to make ends meet. Things got only worse after he became physically deformed.
“He was sent out to the street to beg to bring money into his house,” said Dunia’s adoptive father, Long Beach assistant wrestling coach Miguel Rodriguez. “Those are some of the things he had to do as a child.”
“I kind of had to go with the flow,” said Dunai whose birth parents have since died.
As if he wasn’t different enough, the young immigrant’s only native language was Swahili when he first came to America. He now speaks fluent English.
“It took a little while to fit in, meet new people and get people to like me,” Dunia admitted. That all changed when he visited the South Shore of Long Island more than a decade ago.
Dunia went to Long Beach as part of a program run by the local shop Skudin Surf, which teaches kids with physical and cognizant disabilities how to swim. It was the first time he had ever splashed in the water.
Miguel Rodriguez and his 18-year-old state champion heavyweight son, Elijah, were working at a deli when a friend told them that Dunai was down at the shore. The family spent time looking after another young wrestler, Isaiah Bird, who was born without legs and defied the odds to succeed on the mat.
They were all eager to meet Dunai after hearing of his plight. Isaiah said, “What happened to your face?” Dunai pointed back to where his legs were supposed to be and retorted “what happened to your legs?” They all went to the beach and started playing and surfing, and they became friends.
After living with two host families, Dunia was officially adopted by the Sibomana-Rodriguez clan in middle school and he has thrived in the same sport since fourth grade. He made the Long Beach Marines varsity roster as an eighth grader and has since won five Nassau County titles and three straight championships on top of his recent national achievement, which he said “meant a lot in his final year of high school,” after placing second in the 11th grade.
He committed to UNC as a junior and was named county wrestler of the year for the second straight time. He loved Long Beach, New York, and has fallen in love with his new home college town Chapel Hill.
“This is my dream school, and I’ve worked really hard for this college opportunity,” Dunia said. “I just felt right when I visited the school. They coaches were just great, and I felt right at home in North Carolina. It is where I want to spend the next four or five years of my life. I am blessed to be where I am. I wouldn’t be here without my family and coaches.”
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Dalton T. Wainscott
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dunia the Great appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Bill Belichick and Michael Malone have found themselves in the same undesirable dilemma: neither has any draft picks.
After his first season as a college football coach, Belichick did not have anyone drafted by the NFL. In seven rounds, the Tar Heels whiffed on the two hundred and fifty-nine players selected. The last time that happened to UNC was in 2016, the year before Mitch Trubisky went No. 2 overall.
The prospects don’t look any better for their new basketball coach after Henri Veesaar declared for the NBA Draft last week. Malone has some nice players coming from the transfer portal. But at this point, none of them is a surefire first-round NBA pick.
That leaves Caleb Wilson, a projected top five pick, and late-first rounder Veesaar as one-and-done, proven post men from the overall 24-9 and 12-6 ACC season.
After a disappointing 4-8 debut, Belichick does not have to dumb down the hype that will be nonexistent, considering a brutal schedule that begins with a rematch against TCU in Dublin, Ireland, and has gone from one of the easiest schedules in the ACC to among the toughest in power five football. Tar Heels will trade games against UCF, Stanford, Cal and Wake Forest for Notre Dame, Pitt, Miami, and Louisville.
Belichick and consigliere Mike Lombardi claim they have a much better roster after spring practice. But they are still breaking in more than 60 young players, including new quarterbacks, only one veteran wide receiver and so-so running backs.
The transfer portal lists Carolina at No. 50 overall, with something called a high adjusted rating – whatever that is – by 247 Sports. Lombardi is responsible for bringing in the transfers and freshmen, and so far he has been a miserable failure.
Belichick acknowledges that they got a slow start after taking the job and were late in scouting freshmen and later getting into the fray with transfers, despite the ballyhoo about the six-time Super Bowl champion coach.
Malone has won an NBA championship since the last of Belichick’s crowns. That has not helped his ability to squirrel away transfers and freshmen to join the program once coached by Hall of Famers named Smith and Williams.
The transfer portal is now closed but there are still players who have gone unsigned, which is good for the future but not an immediate run for this season. Malone may already see the writing on the wall for year one as he talks about the value of developing players and solid students.
Malone and new associate head coach Chuck Martin went to Spain and brought back a 7-foot teenager with talent and upside but who is so raw it may limit his immediate production. There is also big transfer from Northwestern with four years of eligibility left.
The barometer he acknowledges is Duke, which continues to load up on recruits and transfers and seems bent on tweaking the process with 5- and 4-star freshmen and veterans from established programs.
Belichick, meanwhile, seems more interested in biding his time with a program that is paying him $10 million a year and looks like a team with no names and no game.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Draft Dodgers? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Playing in a brand new, state-of-the-art basketball arena used to be more important than it is today.
The best players spend so little time in their home digs that they barely unpack their bags before moving on to the transfer portal or the NBA Draft. And the best of the best may not get there in the first place because they’ve been offered more money by pro teams or other schools.
So if you think it’s all about the money, it is. But where it goes is the conundrum. Players who once proudly wore the uniforms for three or four years are barely making pit stops and are forgotten by the fandom.
And it is especially heartbreaking for players like Caleb Wilson, who missed half the season and might have saved Hubert Davis’ job. He showed us how great he could have been without the injuries that curtailed his freshman year.
And if schools spend all of their money on a new arena, they may not have enough left to buy more great players to suit up in their new homes. Their opponents who spent more wisely will get the victory and laugh all the way to the locker room.
In the 1980s and 1990s, schools (except for Duke) that traded in their bandboxes for cushy courtside seats purchased by big donors are now left with the dilemma of downsizing for more students or upsizing with luxury suites.
It’s not a matter of money with most of the fat cats. Parking perks and pregame meals are all well and good, but once the ball goes up in the air and the team can’t compete to a standard that has been set by Hall of Famers before them, their tickets will be left on the dresser or given to friends who don’t support the program in substantive ways.
Virginia is a good example of the balance that is necessary in facilities and money to buy players. They found a piece of land on the edge of campus and erected a new building with two concourses that allow fans to move around easily. They have hired smart coaches who also found players from here and abroad.
Despite an NBA championship and a good gift for gab, the jury will be out on Michael Malone and his $8 million annual contract before his first two seasons are done. He is loading up with the transfer portal, but yet to sign a superstar in the making that can compete with Duke.
Malone was a convenient hire without a buyout from a former employer and so far, he is doing the same thing that Bill Belichick has tried to learn from his 25+ years in the NFL. Like the Hoodie, there is no question that Malone knows how to coach, but he is competing with savvy, creative college coaches who aren’t as well-known but can build programs with various component parts.
Like Belichick, who had a huge welcome for the opening game before the schedule turned against him, Malone will be greeted with excitement and curiosity. All indications are that he will be supported with money beyond what Davis got, and if he can convince Henri Veesaar to return for his senior year, the Tar Heels can be competitive.
UNC smartly put the Smith Center debate on the back burner until we can find out what washes with the new basketball coach. Will Malone stay long enough to build a program worthy of an arena with a nine-figure price tag, if not ten?
Can alumni and fans afford to support the team that takes the court in this ever-changing world of pay-for-play?
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Arena appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Michael Malone’s first season as a college basketball head coach is only one week old and he may be wondering what he got himself into.
Malone, 54, coached college basketball as an assistant almost 30 years ago, but the game has changed dramatically since then and turned unrecognizable. The biggest change, of course, has been pay-for-play with the advent of name, image and likeness sponsorships, and more recently revenue sharing that allows basketball and football programs to directly set salaries for their best players.
This is unlike where Malone coached for most of his career and won a championship, where contracts are pretty much determined by draft status and free agency is judged by performance on the court. And often, there are multi-year deals with those agreements — something that’s not (yet) borne out in college ball.
College has moved on from players getting the value of a full scholarship plus minor stipends arranged by prominent alumni and donors. In those days, the most highly coveted athletes were helped by gifts and payments (out of sight from the NCAA), but those are next to nothing compared to what is going on in today’s college climate.
In less than one year of revenue sharing, college athletics has become a world of professional agents who enter into bidding wars for the best and highest rated athletes. In order for coaches to field full rosters, almost every player gets dough to ensure stability before taking court and field. And the more money they can raise, the better. There are even contracts between some agents and some schools, but most of them are not worth the paper they are printed on other due to other lurking bidders who could swoop in with expensive offers for a player.
Malone has inherited general manager Jim Tanner and contracted talent evaluator Buzz Peterson from Hubert Davis’ staff. He is filling out the rest of his staff with assignments yet to be designated. For now, Tanner and Peterson are charged with not making serious mistakes on evaluations. As the best players continue to be gobbled up by other teams, UNC needs to land contributors while avoiding any overspending on players not worth the financial commitment.
Malone has already lost (or released) five-star Dylan Mingo, who committed to Davis in February. The 6-foot-5 Mingo was injured for much of his senior season in high school. Freshman Derek Dixon, UNC’s best backcourt signee of 2025-26, entered the portal and quickly found a landing spot in Arizona. Without those two young guard prospects, Malone cannot afford to make any mistakes with who to bring in as a ball-handler.
As the portal remains in flux with transferring big men, Carolina is trying to ensure that Henri Veesaar returns for his senior year instead of entering the NBA draft or taking a higher offer from another school. So far, senior Jarin Stevenson is the only big man coming back. The only portal commitment so far (the 6-foot-9 Neoklis Avdalas) is tall, but is expected to play on the wing rather than in the post.
There are just no guarantees when it comes to building a roster in today’s college basketball — and coaches like Malone, who are trying to build a program, find themselves battling to maintain tradition against more money from more sources than ever before.
Editor’s Note: As Art continues to recover from an accident, this edition of Sports Notebook is only a written piece and not for radio.
Featured photo by Todd Melet/Chapel Hill Media Group.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs on 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro during football and basketball seasons.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Guarantees appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
If Michael Malone wants to learn how to utilize the transfer portal, he should look no further than Boshamer Stadium.
Scott Forbes and the Diamond Heels are in the middle of yet another strong season. And this year, following the departure of nearly all of his starting position players from 2025, Forbes has relied heavily on the transfer portal. Entering today’s ACC series at Clemson, each of Carolina’s top five everyday batters started their career somewhere else.
Owen Hull came to Chapel Hill after two years at George Mason, but he’s shown no ill effects of the transition by batting .355 through 34 games. Jake Schaffner, who transferred to UNC from North Dakota State, leads all qualified Tar Heel hitters with a 1.000 OPS. Erik Paulsen from Stony Brook and Colin Hynek from Georgia State are each also batting .300 or better.
But Forbes hasn’t just been raiding mid-majors. He plucked catcher Macon Winslow away from Duke after the Blue Devils’ head coach, Chris Pollard, left for the same job at Virginia in the offseason. Winslow hit the portal and didn’t have to travel far. This year, he’s hitting .313, and his .475 on-base percentage leads all qualified hitters.
In an interesting twist, Forbes seems to have employed the opposite strategy on the mound. UNC’s three weekend starters – Jason DeCaro, Ryan Lynch and Folger Boaz – all came to Chapel Hill via traditional high school recruiting. The same can be said for top relievers Walker McDuffie, Matthew Matthijs, Jackson Rose and Caden Glauber. As a former pitching coach, perhaps Forbes is more comfortable molding a young hurler out of high school rather than seeking an older prospect out of the portal.
In previous editions of this column, I praised UConn men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley for skillfully combining transfers and high school recruits on his roster. That’s imperative in the new era of college athletics, and Forbes is passing that test with flying colors so far.
Of course, there are a couple things Hurley has which Forbes would love to get his hands on: a pair of national championship rings. Forbes was despondent after the Diamond Heels dropped Games 2 and 3 in the Chapel Hill Super Regional vs. Arizona last season, clearly believing his team had the goods to win it all. But he got right back to work almost immediately following the end of the season, and so far that work is paying off. Once again, UNC appears to be a reputable challenger for its first-ever national championship.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/10/Sports%20Notebook%20041026%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Chance Bragg
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Blueprint appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Michael Malone may not come from the “Carolina Family,” but Hubert Davis made him feel like an adopted son.
In his interview with the Carolina Insider Podcast last October, which Tar Heel fans are now poring over like it’s the Zapruder film, Malone described what a positive experience it was to observe UNC’s preseason practices at the Smith Center. Initially, out of deference to the program, Malone took a seat high above the floor to watch. Davis noticed where Malone was and brought him down for a front-row seat.
Later, Malone recalled having dinner with assistant coach Pat Sullivan, who then conveyed to Malone what an honor it was for a perceived outsider to assume that seat.
Davis clearly valued Malone’s experience of building a perennial NBA contender in Denver and winning a title in 2023. In their conversations, Malone remembered telling Davis how much his Tar Heels had improved and how excited he was to watch them.
It should be noted that, though both men have extensive NBA experience, Davis and Malone did not have a prior relationship. Though Malone did serve as an assistant coach for the New York Knicks for several seasons, he got there five years after Davis’ time with the team had ended. Nevertheless, Davis invited the then-free agent into his practices. Hubert is an intensely private and protective person, and for him to bring a relative stranger into the holy sanctum of a closed practice is no small thing.
At his introductory press conference, Malone said he was disheartened to see his new friend lose his job last month, while acknowledging it’s simply a result of the business of basketball. Hubert still has his corner of loyalists who saw his ouster as a departure from the “Carolina Way.” They likely weren’t thrilled to see an outsider like Malone take his place. But the fact that there is a connection – and that Malone thanked Davis directly on Tuesday – hopefully can bridge the divide in the Tar Heel fanbase and begin a much-needed healing process.
In truth, though, nobody can know just how well Malone fits in with the program until November, when the Tar Heels take the floor again. Those seven months will be like nothing Malone, or any other hoops fan around here, has seen before.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/09/Sports%20Notebook%20040926%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Past and Present appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
The only person ever to win both an NBA championship and an NCAA championship as a head coach is a member of the world-famous Carolina basketball family.
Larry Brown, who played point guard for the Tar Heels in the early 1960s and served as an assistant coach under Dean Smith in the mid-‘60s, led the Kansas Jayhawks to the NCAA title in 1988, then immediately launched his lengthy NBA coaching career. In 2004, Brown led the Detroit Pistons to the NBA title, completing his unprecedented — and still unmatched — coaching double.
Brown long ago gained entry into both the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
Now UNC fans would love to see the newest member of the Carolina family join Brown in his exclusive club.
Michael Malone, introduced Tuesday as the Tar Heels’ new head coach, already has his NBA championship ring. That came just three years ago, when Malone led the Denver Nuggets to the franchise’s first and only championship during an impressive stretch in which he built seven consecutive playoff teams.
UNC signed Malone to a six-year, $50 million contract, meaning his average annual compensation of $8 million-plus immediately makes him one of the highest-paid coaches in college basketball. A school doesn’t make that sort of high-end investment unless it believes Malone can lead the Tar Heels to consistent high-level success, including — at some point — what would be the program’s seventh NCAA title. That number puts UNC behind only UCLA and Kentucky, two programs that have only one national championship between them since the start of the 21st century. In that same modern period, of course, thanks to Roy Williams, Carolina already has three NCAA titles.
When it comes to Xs and Os, Malone already has received the seal of approval from many members of the Carolina family, including Williams and long-time NBA player Danny Green. Malone drew raves for his offensive creativity as an assistant in Cleveland and as the head coach in Denver, and he also made a name for himself by creating a defense-first mentality with the Nuggets.
In what Carolina fans can hope is a sign of good things to come, Malone already has at least five things in common with Brown. Both are New York City natives, both are former point guards, each had an older family member who was a basketball coach, both sometimes communicate with an unapologetic, in-your-face, veins-bulging, Big Apple-style intensity, and — of course — each has an NBA championship ring as a head coach.
If Malone can eventually join Brown in just one more category — that incredibly rare NBA/NCAA championship double — the new guy clearly will be well worth the investment.
David Glenn is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/08/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20040826.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New York Fire appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
UNC’s hiring of Michael Malone came completely out of left field. Or did it?
When looking closer at the next Carolina head men’s basketball coach, there are a few factors which likely contributed to his candidacy. The first, which is of paramount importance in this era of college hoops, is that UNC does not have to pay a buyout to land Malone. He hasn’t coached since the Denver Nuggets dismissed him late in the 2024-25 season. If the Tar Heels had landed their top choice, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, they’d have been $9 million in the hole. That’s $9 million more that can go toward hiring staff and building a roster for next season.
Second, Malone has more familiarity than you might think with Chapel Hill. His daughter, Bridget, recently completed her freshman season as a member of the UNC volleyball team. Malone hung around town to support his daughter, and even observed several of Hubert Davis’ practices at the Smith Center. In an interview with the Carolina Insider Podcast from October, Malone remembered speaking to the team and praising their improvement. Players who were eyeing the transfer portal might be more willing to stay with a somewhat familiar face coming into the program.
And of course, the winning helps. Malone and superstar Nikola Jokic helped rebuild the Denver Nuggets into a perennial title contender, and the franchise took home its first ever NBA championship in 2023. Malone’s experience coaching up one talented seven-footer might help in attracting Henri Veesaar back to Chapel Hill and away from the pros.
But it all comes down to money, and that’s likely the most critical piece here. We’ve already mentioned the lack of a buyout, but Malone also likely won’t command a massive annual salary due to his being out of work for a year and his lack of collegiate head coaching experience. If things don’t work out, his salary certainly won’t turn into the albatross of a contract which has seemingly kept Bill Belichick in town for another year.
Speaking of Belichick, those comparisons are easy to make. Pro coach, no college experience, etc. But Malone showed up to his Carolina Insider interview clad in UNC gear and gushed about his love of all things Carolina. This was six months before his hiring. Compare that to Belichick, who couldn’t be bothered to wear a UNC shirt and instead wore a tattered Naval Academy sweater on his disastrous CBS Sunday Morning interview last summer, well after he joined the Tar Heels.
I am not predicting one way or another whether Malone will be a success. I am simply saying his hiring makes sense the more you think about it.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/07/Sports%20Notebook%20040726%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Godofredo A. Vásquez
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: They Like Mike appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
In the aftermath of either Michigan or UConn capturing the national championship on Monday night in Indianapolis, the biggest headlines in college basketball this week will be related to UNC’s ongoing coaching search.
The good news for Carolina fans is that, regardless of the identity of the Tar Heels’ next head coach, he will inherit a relatively strong foundation in a wide variety of ways, even if you ignore the program’s stunning success in the latter half of the 20th century.
For example, when critics suggest that Carolina’s brand has faded, the appropriate counterpoints include the fact that only four programs have claimed at least three NCAA titles since the turn of the century — UConn with five, then UNC, Florida and Duke with three titles each.
Similarly, if you narrow the timetable to just the past 10 years, only seven schools have won the Big Dance in that span, and UNC is on that relatively short list, too, along with UConn, Baylor, Florida, Kansas, Villanova and Virginia. If Michigan wins on Monday night, that exclusive neighborhood will grow to just eight members.
Meanwhile, although it’s true that UNC is no longer the #1 producer of talent for the National Basketball Association, as it was decades ago, it’s also true that the Tar Heels still rank in the top 10 in that regard, with more than a dozen former players competing in the NBA during that league’s ongoing regular season, which ends Sunday. Along with the program’s ongoing connection with Michael Jordan, one of the most iconic figures in basketball history, that fact remains impactful in the eyes of many recruits and their families.
Another very important factor in UNC’s favor is that the school already has displayed its willingness to continue to spend big on men’s basketball. When the NCAA allowed its member schools to pay athletes directly for the first time during the 2025-26 academic year, in the form of revenue-sharing connected to the recent House settlement, the Tar Heels immediately dedicated $7 million of that new $20-plus million budget to men’s basketball. When you add in external Name-Image-Likeness money, the Heels had a roughly $16 million roster overall this past season.
Although there is no single public database that tracks all of these budget-related numbers, the general consensus is that Carolina’s total investment in the sport still ranks among the top 10 nationally.
One question every coach asks himself when considering a new job is “Can I win there?” When Atlantic Coast Conference jobs opened this year at Boston College, Georgia Tech, NC State and Syracuse, many candidates weren’t sure of the answer at those schools.
In contrast, thanks to the much stronger foundation at Carolina, coaches don’t need to be talked into the idea that they can win there.
David Glenn is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/06/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20040626%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Firm Foundation appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Each team heading to Indianapolis for the men’s Final Four this weekend has mastered the new era of college hoops.
Any of the quartet of UConn, Illinois, Arizona or Michigan could conceivably cut down the nets Monday night, though it seems a bit unfair that the top-seeded Wildcats and Wolverines will have to go through each other in the semifinal round. In any case, all four of these squads have provided blueprints on how to build a contender.
Let’s look first at the Illini. Illinois has recruited heavily from the international circuit, bringing in European prospects such as David Mirkovic from Montenegro and Tomislav Ivisic from Croatia. It’s balanced that with experienced transfers like Cal’s Andrej Stojakovic and Arizona’s Kylan Boswell, then topped it all off with stud freshman Keaton Wagler. Illinois truly is a melting pot of a roster, and one which boasts one of the nation’s best offenses.
Arizona also utilizes international recruiting to its advantage. Of the 16 players listed on the Wildcats’ roster, eight have a hometown outside the United States. That includes center Motiejus Krivas from Lithuania and wing Ivan Kharchenkov from Germany, both of whom have started all 38 of Arizona’s games this season. The big three for the Wildcats is a deadly mix of youth and experience: Brayden Burries and Koa Peat are both top 10 freshmen, and they complement senior guard and Big 12 Player of the Year Jaden Bradley. It’s no wonder UNC is reportedly so set on poaching head coach Tommy Lloyd away from Tucson.
Then there’s Michigan, which has fully leaned into the mercenary ways of the transfer portal. None of the Wolverines’ five starters began their collegiate careers in Ann Arbor. Most of those transfers came from power conference schools, but the star is Yaxel Lendeborg, who somehow slipped through the cracks and ended up at UAB before heading to Michigan. The Wolverines were even able to flip a former archrival: guard Roddy Gayle played the first two years of his career at Ohio State.
Even UConn, which comes from the old school hoops haven of the Big East, has adapted to the times. Dan Hurley hasn’t hit the international front as hard as Illinois or Arizona, but he has skillfully meshed transfers with traditional recruits. The Huskies wouldn’t be here without the contributions of Silas Demary and Tarris Reed, who began their careers elsewhere. But they also have Alex Karaban, potentially one of the last players ever to spend four years at one power conference school. And of course, five-star freshman Braylon Mullins hit the shot of shots to get UConn to Indy.
If UNC is to get back to where it wants to be in the college basketball pantheon, it could do worse than following in any of this quartet’s footsteps.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/03/Sports%20Notebook%20040326%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ashley Landis
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Bloods appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
While Tommy Lloyd appears to be UNC’s top choice for its next men’s basketball coach, Billy Donovan isn’t exactly the worst backup option.
There will likely be grumbling and grousing among the fans if Donovan comes to Chapel Hill. Some would see him as a cynical retread of the Bill Belichick hire, what with his recent pro experience and relatively elevated age of 60.
But there are several key factors which distinguish Billy D from Billy B. Younger fans may not remember it, but once upon a time Donovan was as connected to the Florida Gators program as Roy Williams was with UNC. His 19 years in Gainesville brought about the greatest run of success in team history, one which included historic back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007. Prior to Donovan’s arrival in 1996, Florida had only made five total NCAA Tournaments and one Final Four. His leadership transformed the Gators into an annual contender, which they remain today.
Having risen to the absolute pinnacle of the college coaching profession, Donovan likely won’t be cowed by the immense pressure which comes with being head coach of the Tar Heels. And if he brought Florida from relative obscurity into near-Blue Blood status, imagine what he could do in Chapel Hill.
The age factor is one which fans have latched onto as a reason to stay away. And yes, at age 60 Donovan is older than either Michigan’s Dusty May or Arizona’s Lloyd, who will face off in the Final Four this weekend. But maybe fans are still traumatized from Chapel Bill, because hiring an older coach is not always the death knell for a program. Take a look at Kelvin Sampson, who was 59 when he began his coaching renaissance at Houston in 2014. The Coogs are now a powerhouse, and Sampson has turned himself into a local legend. Rick Barnes was 61 when he began his first season at Tennessee, and he’s led the Vols to three consecutive Elite Eights.
Additionally, there are instances of successful college coaches going to the NBA, stringing together mediocre seasons and then coming back to win again in college. Look at Rick Pitino’s infamous tenure with the Boston Celtics or John Calipari’s ill-fated time with the New Jersey Nets.
So chin up, Tar Heels. If it is in fact Billy Donovan patrolling the sidelines next season, there’s no reason to think he won’t win plenty of ballgames.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/02/Sports%20Notebook%20040226%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Nam Y. Huh
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Credentials appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
With Hubert Davis dismissed, no seat will be hotter in Chapel Hill than Bill Belichick’s this fall.
After a debut season in which Belichick made more headlines off the field than on it, Carolina football may be in for another rough year. The Tar Heels went 4-8 against a relatively soft schedule last season, and now the level of competition will ramp up by leaps and bounds. Awaiting UNC are home dates with Notre Dame, Louisville and Miami, road trips to Virginia, Clemson and Pitt, and the second of their two-game series against TCU in Dublin. Those are all teams which will likely have significant talent advantages and will surely be favored in their matchups with UNC.
Finding even four wins on the 2026 schedule is difficult. We can probably pencil in East Tennessee State as a win. UConn on the road could be favorable, especially since the Huskies lost their head coach. Syracuse at home is reasonable, too. And who knows what Duke will look like next season after losing star quarterback Darian Mensah.
But all the talk about strength of schedule is overshadowing a bigger issue: fans have seemingly had it with Belichick. His perceived aloofness after the enthusiasm of Mack Brown has rubbed supporters the wrong way, and something tells me the program won’t sell out every seat this season as it did last season in the hype of Chapel Bill 1.0. The off-the-field distractions, too, have brought needless embarrassment to a program which wanted to graduate to the big-boy table by hiring Belichick in the first place.
UNC clearly learned its lesson from the Belichick hiring in the way it’s going about the men’s basketball coaching search. All reporting indicates there’s no interference from the Board of Trustees or anyone else, leaving athletic director Bubba Cunningham and protégé Steve Newmark to spearhead the effort. Is it a coincidence that John Preyer, who was reportedly instrumental in bringing in Belichick, is no longer with the Board?
If UNC football struggles again this fall, the administration will have a decision to make. Yes, the buyout on Belichick’s contract is steep, but in the long term, it may cost more to keep him than to fire him. A new head coach usually inspires a jump in ticket sales, and Carolina could signal it’s turning over a new leaf by cutting the old one loose and bringing in a young, exciting football mind.
The program swung for the fences when it hired Belichick, the perceived NFL G.O.A.T. And there’s no shame in cutting its losses early. But the biggest step is the first one: admitting it made the wrong choice.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/04%20-%20April/01/Sports%20Notebook%20040126%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Phelan M. Ebenhack
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dead Man Walking? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
For the second straight year, a Duke-UNC game served as an omen for the end of the Blue Devils’ season.
The comparisons between Duke’s all-time Elite Eight collapse vs. UConn Sunday and UNC’s all-time first round collapse against VCU are already being made. Both teams went up by 19 points and appeared to be cruising. Both fell victim to frenetic rallies and mental mistakes: Carolina’s five-second violation and Cayden Boozer’s ill-fated pass will both go down in Triangle infamy.
But it was another UNC game which came to mind after the Huskies’ epic win. When Braylon Mullins pulled up from near half-court and swished the go-ahead three-pointer, the clock in the arena read 0.3 seconds and was later corrected to 0.4. That’s exactly the amount of time that was left on the clock when Seth Trimble drilled his go-ahead three against Duke in the Smith Center in February. And how about this: Duke’s radio broadcast immediately complained of UConn players running onto the floor after Mullins’ shot, noting it should have been a technical foul. Remember the double court storming in Chapel Hill after the Trimble shot?
AS CALLED ONUConn Huskies radio by Mike CrispinoDuke radio by David ShumateWestwood One by Scott Graham
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog.xyz) 2026-03-29T23:31:46.515Z
UNC and UConn both were able to pull victories from the jaws of defeat after trailing nearly the entire game. The Tar Heels hadn’t led at all until the final 0.4 seconds, and Mullins’ shot gave the Huskies their first lead since the score was 2-0. In fact, each of Duke’s three losses this season came when the Blue Devils had controlled the majority of the game; they were up by as many as 17 against Texas Tech in December before losing 82-81.
And of course, it’s hard not to think about Duke’s meltdown in the Final Four against Houston last year. The Cooper Flagg-led Devils were seemingly waltzing their way to Monday night before the never-say-die Cougars willed their way back into it thanks to timely shotmaking and a ferocious full-court press. That, too, was previewed by a game against UNC. In the ACC Tournament earlier that month, the Tar Heels began to pressure the Flagg-less Blue Devils and nearly completed a miraculous rally. Only a Jae’Lyn Withers lane violation prevented what would’ve been the tying free throw.
Jon Scheyer’s meltdowns haven’t come as frequently as Hubert Davis’ did, but they have come on much bigger stages. That’s partly a credit to Scheyer for getting there in the first place — but also a reminder that, regardless of roster talent or coaching acumen, madness can happen to anyone.
Michael Koh is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/31/Sports%20Notebook%20033126%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Abbie Parr
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Déjà Blue appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
No men’s basketball program in America has more experience with the Final Four spotlight than the one at the University of North Carolina. The Tar Heels have competed in the national semifinals a record 21 times, with those appearances stretching all the way from 1946 to 2022.
The attention on UNC during Final Four week this year, however, is entirely because the university is in the midst of its first truly national coaching search in men’s basketball since way back in 1952.
Seventy-four years ago, amidst another set of conversations that ultimately led to the creation of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953, the Tar Heels hired St. John’s coach Frank McGuire, someone who had no prior connection to Carolina but was coming off a trip to the NCAA championship game. Since then, each of the Heels’ five head coaches — from Dean Smith through Hubert Davis — had previously played and/or served as an assistant coach in Chapel Hill.
Because of the enormous importance of the modern NCAA transfer portal, which this year opens April 7, UNC’s new coach would be at a massive disadvantage in building his 2026-27 roster unless he’s hired soon enough — meaning in the next few days — to build his staff, create a detailed portal plan, and handle countless other important decisions.
Among those at or near the top of Carolina’s original wish list, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Michigan’s Dusty May will be coaching in the Final Four on Saturday night … and one of them will be coaching next Monday night, too. Meanwhile, if the top choice is Billy Donovan or another NBA head coach, there is another set of complications, because that league’s regular season doesn’t end until April 12.
None of these hurdles is automatically insurmountable, but it’s worth pointing out that the most recent Final Four coach to leave immediately for another college job was Roy Williams, who left Kansas for UNC within a week of the Jayhawks’ loss to Syracuse in the 2003 NCAA title game. Twenty-three years later, because of the transfer portal, a similar timetable just wouldn’t work nearly as well.
That’s why, instead of simply celebrating the dominant weekend victories posted by UNC baseball coach Scott Forbes, men’s lacrosse coach Joe Breschi and women’s lacrosse coach Jenny Levy, Carolina fans also remained on pins and needles, wondering who the Tar Heels’ next basketball coach will be and how long it’s going to take to get that hugely important deal done.
David Glenn is filling in for Art Chansky today, as Art is temporarily out on a medical leave recovering from an accident.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/30/David%20Glenn%27s%20Notebook%20-%20033026.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jeffrey T. Barnes
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tricky Timetable appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Bubba Cunningham and UNC are confident they’ll have their pick of the litter for a new men’s basketball coach.
Cunningham and incoming athletic director Steve Newmark appeared on a special edition of the “Carolina Insider Podcast” earlier this week, and both detailed the decision making which led to Hubert Davis’ exit. Cunningham also described the thought process behind retaining the services of Turnkey ZRG to assist in the search. In Cunningham’s words, UNC will be “inundated” with interest in the days ahead, and needs a filter to find the best candidates.
All trustworthy local reporting indicates Carolina will be aiming high to find its next coach, prioritizing someone with high-level experience and success on the college circuit. Names which have been floated as potential candidates include Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger. The question is whether either of those men would leave their very stable positions, with a unified fanbase and top-notch facilities, to enter the hornet’s nest that is the Dean Smith Center debate.
Neither Lloyd nor Otzelberger are part of the mythical “Carolina Family,” and thus have no emotional attachment to the Dean Dome. Were they to come to Chapel Hill, they would likely just want the best facilities possible. That stance would draw some blowback from folks who have already made their voices heard about the Smith Center. Needless to say, this would not be an issue in Tucson or Ames.
Otzelberger and Lloyd have both been asked about the UNC opening. Otzelberger flatly denied any connection, and while Lloyd wasn’t quite as outright, he still called his position at Arizona one of the best in the country.
To be clear, a prospective candidate will never come out and say they’re interested in another job while still leading their teams through the postseason. Lest we forget when Roy was asked about UNC shortly after his Jayhawks lost the 2003 national championship game. Still clearly upset about the loss, Williams was in no mood to talk about his future and declared, I could give a… you know what about North Carolina.
Whether or not Otzelberger, Lloyd or other name brand coaches are actually interested in UNC will be worked out in the coming days or weeks. If Cunningham is to be believed, he, Newmark and Lee Roberts are practically drowning in job applications. And particularly after what just went down over in Raleigh, it’s critical that triumvirate pick the right one.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/27/Sports%20Notebook%20032726%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Pool appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Bill Belichick clearly believes last year was a mulligan.
The UNC football head coach spoke to the media Tuesday as his team opened spring practice at the Kenan Football Center. And one of the first things he addressed was how he feels more ahead of the game now than he did at this time last year. Belichick emphasized that he didn’t have enough time to recruit, either from high schools or the transfer portal, before spring football began. Now, Belichick believes having a year under his belt, and the relative roster continuity of this year’s Tar Heels, will be strong assets.
There is some merit to the point Belichick is driving at. One major change in the college football offseason cycle this year is the removal of a second transfer portal window after spring practice. It means, for the most part, the Tar Heels in uniform today will be the ones to take the field in Dublin this coming August against TCU. Hence Belichick saying, “We have our team now.”
Belichick also noted that the two UNC quarterbacks who took the most snaps in spring ball last year – Ryan Browne and Bryce Baker – didn’t play at all for Carolina in the fall. Browne returned to Purdue via the portal while Baker sat on the bench and has since transferred himself. This year, Maryland and Wisconsin transfer Billy Edwards should compete with returner Au’Tori Newkirk for QB1. Western Carolina transfer Taron Dickens, who is not currently on the spring roster, could have a say as well.
There are also holes in Belichick’s argument. Just look down the road at Wake Forest: head Jake Dickert was hired a week after Belichick, had doubtless fewer resources, and still put together a much better season. The Deacs’ 9-4 record included a win over 4-8 UNC.
There is a very real possibility that Belichick’s second Tar Heel team, from a pure football standpoint, will be of a higher quality than last year’s. And that is a low bar to clear. But because of a loaded schedule which includes Notre Dame, Clemson and national runners-up Miami, Carolina could still finish 4-8 or worse despite better play on the field. The ‘Canes, Irish and Tigers’ programs simply operate on a higher plane, and have for some time.
But that is much too farsighted for spring football season. Belichick’s players haven’t even put pads on yet, and are simply looking to, as the head coach puts it, stack days together. We can worry about the on-field results in a few months.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/26/Sports%20Notebook%20032626%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/John Raoux
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘We Have Our Team Now’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
The ugliness and awkwardness of Hubert Davis’ exit should not overshadow the man he is.
Anyone who knows anything about the lofty standards of UNC knows the last few seasons in Chapel Hill have not been up to par. Carolina has not graced the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32 in three of the past four seasons — something that would’ve been unthinkable in the heydays of Dean Smith and Roy Williams.
Hubert earned what appeared to be a lifetime of grace from Tar Heel fans for his postseason run in 2022. But it turns out memories are short in these parts, especially when you end a season like this year’s group did. Carolina’s 19-point collapse against VCU wasn’t just historic, but it was also seen by the largest TV audience ever to watch a first-round tournament game. More than 10 million people saw what UNC fans had seen for much of the season: a lead built through electric play on both ends of the court, then frittered away by mental mistakes.
CBS Sports and TNT Sports Deliver the Most-Watched NCAA Tournament First Round Opening Day Ever
🏀Thursday’s games averaged 9.8 million viewers, the best opening day on record
🏀Primetime window averaged 12.5 million viewers, the most-watched First Round window ever pic.twitter.com/loEB0p4btd
— March Madness Men’s Basketball TV (@MM_MBB_TV) March 23, 2026
Those millions of viewers thankfully didn’t see Davis’ postgame press conference, in which the respectful man most of us knew was replaced by a snippy, snarky and clearly frustrated coach. When asked what went wrong in the latter part of the game, Davis asked, “What do you mean?” When asked why his substitution patterns were so tight, Davis responded like a parent sending a child to his room: “Because that was my decision.”
We should not throw stones in glass houses. All of us have gone through bad experiences and said things we later regretted in the heat of the moment. So we should give Hubert the benefit of the doubt here, and let the overwhelming majority of his life override this particularly bad moment.
Davis is a Tar Heel through and through, from his days idolizing his uncle Walter to his playing years as a sharpshooter, all the way through his time as an assistant coach and later head coach. He earned memorable wins on every level, and nobody who calls themselves a Carolina fan will ever forget those nights in March and April of 2022.
Davis said in a rare social media post that he wanted to continue coaching at his beloved alma mater, and that his goal is to coach again in the “very near future.” So imagine this: Davis takes a job at a mid-major looking to bring in a known name. That mid-major schedules a game in the Smith Center, bringing Hubert back to Chapel Hill. Any fan worth their salt should give the man a standing ovation when he takes the opposite bench.
Don’t get it twisted: it was time for UNC to make a change. The standard outweighs any one person. But Hubert Davis is a good man, and hopefully will be remembered as such.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/25/Sports%20Notebook%20032526%20HUBERT.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: You’re a Good Man, Hubert Davis appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Courtney Banghart has the pieces in place to take Carolina to the next level.
Banghart’s Tar Heels are headed back to the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive season after a 74-66 win against Maryland in Chapel Hill Sunday. It’s already quite the accomplishment for a program which some believed would be in rebuilding mode this season. Carolina lost three starters from last year’s Sweet 16 squad, including all-time leading rebounder Alyssa Ustby. When you add in the fact that Reniya Kelly has missed much of this season with an injury, that’s four starting slots Banghart had to fill.
She’s done that with a young, energetic group which can win in a variety of ways. Carolina is the leading three-point shooting team in the ACC, but against the Terps made only four shots from deep. Instead, Banghart implored guards Lanie Grant and Elina Aarnisalo to attack the basket against a Maryland defense which encourages 1-on-1 play. That they did, with the pair combining for 41 of UNC’s 74 points.
Grant and Aarnisalo are only sophomores, and Grant is a freshman by age, having reclassified to join UNC a year early out of high school. If Kelly heals properly in the offseason and freshman Nyla Brooks continues on her upward trajectory, Carolina could feature one of the most talented backcourts in the ACC next year. Oh, and don’t forget five-star recruit and National High School Player of the Year Kate Harpring, who’s fresh off winning a second consecutive state title in Georgia.
Banghart’s challenge will be filling out the frontcourt. Nyla Harris, who’s provided needed steadiness in the paint and has been playing some of her best basketball of late, is out of eligibility after this season. Ciera Toomey has improved in her redshirt sophomore season, but still isn’t as dominant as her five-star recruiting profile would have suggested. Expect Carolina to hit the transfer portal for a post presence or two in the offseason.
The border between the Tier 2 programs in women’s college basketball and the best of the best is notoriously difficult to breach. Many programs, UNC among them, have tried and failed to unseat the UConns and South Carolinas of the world. The dominance of those two, particularly the Gamecocks, have kept the Tar Heels from venturing past the Sweet 16 in more than a decade. And we’re coming up on two decades since UNC made the Final Four.
Banghart is surely aware of that hole on her CV, and her recent efforts on the recruiting trail seem to reflect that urgency. It’s been a long time since a prospect as heralded as Harpring joined the women’s basketball program. Carolina fans can only hope her arrival is the start of a new golden age for the team.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/23/Sports%20Notebook%20032426%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: On the Rise appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
Since leading North Carolina on a shocking run to the 2022 national championship game, in his first year as a head coach, Hubert Davis has failed to meet the program’s lofty standards over the past four seasons.
There was one other outstanding campaign, in 2024, when the Tar Heels won 29 games, captured the ACC regular-season championship, competed in the ACC title game, and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.
But Davis’ job status became a hot topic during this year’s version of March Madness because his 2023, 2025 and 2026 teams fell far short of the bar set over the past half-century-plus by Hall of Fame coaches Dean Smith and Roy Williams.
During his 36 seasons in charge, Smith led the Tar Heels to two NCAA titles, 11 Final Fours, 17 regular-season ACC championships, 13 ACC Tournament titles and countless other accomplishments.
Similarly, during his 18 campaigns at the helm, Williams led the Heels to three NCAA titles, five Final Fours, nine regular-season ACC championships, three ACC Tournament titles, and lots of other success.
Interestingly, Williams’ final four seasons as the leader in Chapel Hill looked a lot like Davis’ four most recent campaigns: one very good year (2019), one embarrassing year (2020), and two mediocre years (2018, 2021).
Williams’ 2019 highlights — 29 victories, an ACC regular-season title and a Sweet 16 trip — mirrored Davis’ 2024 season in many ways. Similarly, Williams’ 2020 disaster, which ended with a 14-19 record, ultimately served as a parallel to Davis’ 2023 debacle, when the Tar Heels became the first team in modern college basketball history to go from a preseason #1 ranking to missing the NCAA Tournament entirely.
At the end of his more-down-than-up stretch from 2018 through 2021, Williams unilaterally decided that those results weren’t good enough, and he opted to retire.
Five years later, after his extremely volatile past four years, Davis found himself waiting for others to make that decision for him.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/23/DG-Notebook%20032326mp3.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: In Others’ Hands appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
In the history of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which started way back in 1939, no team — from any school — had ever overcome a 19-point deficit to win a first-round game.
Until now.
VCU, the Atlantic-10 Conference champion and a #11 seed in this year’s Big Dance, rallied from 19 points down to defeat #6 seed UNC on Thursday night, sending the Tar Heels home from Greenville, S.C., in quick and inglorious fashion. In their final three games of the 2025-26 season, the Heels lost by 15 to archrival Duke, by one to Clemson in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals, and by four — 82-78 in overtime — to VCU in the NCAA round of 64.
Fifth-year UNC coach Hubert Davis, who led the Tar Heels to the 2022 NCAA title game and the 2024 ACC regular-season championship, now also has his signature on one of the biggest postseason collapses in Carolina basketball history. Previously, the Heels had been 48-1 in the Big Dance when leading by double digits at halftime.
The Tar Heels’ devastating loss to the Rams included the continuation of some of UNC’s most alarming regular-season themes during an otherwise solid 24-9 season.
After playing the worst 3-point defense in the ACC during the regular season, Carolina allowed VCU to shoot a sizzling 42 percent from long range, with most of that damage coming in the second half, when the Tar Heels squandered an 11-point halftime lead.
VCU’s offensive resurgence was led by guard Terrence Hill Jr., who scored 34 points and made seven of 10 3-point shots against UNC. That continued a familiar trend in which the opponent’s leading scorer, despite assumedly being circled on Carolina’s scouting report, far exceeded his season average. Michigan State’s Jeremy Fears, SMU’s Boopie Miller and Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie were other star guards who did something similar in three of the Tar Heels’ regular-season losses.
Finally, UNC — one of the worst free throw shooting teams in ACC play, at approximately 69 percent — repeatedly missed key opportunities from the charity stripe down the stretch against VCU, ultimately hitting just 12 of 20 free throws, for a woeful 60 percent.
Everyone realizes that the 2025-26 Tar Heels’ biggest dreams ended weeks ago, when two injuries to star freshman Caleb Wilson derailed any realistic hopes of a long postseason run. One-and-done exits at both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments, though, represented an embarrassing ending to the season for one of the most prominent programs in college basketball history.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/20/DG%20Sports%20Notebook%20032026.mp3Featured photo via AP Photo/Brynn Anderson.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Collapse appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
If Hubert Davis is to be believed, UNC is recapturing its toughness at the right time.
The Tar Heels exuded toughness in three rugged wins against Louisville, Virginia Tech and Clemson in the final homestand of the regular season. But those good vibes dissipated quickly once the team got the news of Caleb Wilson’s second injury, which would keep the star freshman sidelined for the rest of the season.
With the wind taken out of its sails, Carolina fell flat in a loss at Duke in the final regular season game, and then again against Clemson in the ACC Tournament. Davis said the Tar Heels didn’t match Clemson’s physicality, and they paid the price.
But after Selection Sunday, Davis struck a different tone. In his weekly radio show and again at a media session Tuesday morning, Davis described UNC’s most recent practice as one of its most competitive and physical of the season. The head coach switched up teams to inject some life into his players, and even said things got a little chippy. But Davis, who played for some famously scrappy New York Knicks teams in the 1990s, said he didn’t mind that at all.
The players confirmed Davis’ report Wednesday in Greenville. Zayden High noted the players held an impromptu meeting following the Clemson game and laid bare the stakes: every game now is win-or-go-home.
Davis is no stranger to the stakes of NCAA Tournament action, and said he’s been careful to not let his team get too wound up. Last week, he took his team away from the basketball court and brought them to a driving range. It served two purposes: one, to let the team relax, and two, to marvel at the variety of golf swings produced by his players. Derek Dixon drew praise for his swing, while Davis described Jonathan Powell as Adam Sandler-esque.
Perhaps it was that release of tension which contributed to Carolina’s rugged practice. With the setbacks of the regular season and the ACC Tournament now blasted down the fairway, Davis hopes the Tar Heels can focus on their new season. UNC, VCU and all the other teams in the tournament effectively have a blank slate. Taking after Dean Smith, Davis breaks down the tournament into three equal parts. Should Carolina win two games in the “Greenville tournament,” it will be invited to the “Houston tournament.” Repeat that in Houston, and the Tar Heels will go to the “Indianapolis tournament.”
Regardless of Davis’ declarations, though, plenty of people across the country see UNC as vulnerable. VCU has become a popular upset pick since the bracket was released Sunday. The Rams have built a brand of toughness since their days under Shaka Smart, and will bring that blue-collar brand of ball to Greenville today. Carolina will need to bring its attitude from practice if it hopes to make it to the weekend.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/19/Sports%20Notebook%20031926%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Recalibrating appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
UNC’s late-season slide may have lucked it into a shorter road trip.
With the Tar Heels dropping their most recent two games to Duke and Clemson, they slipped from potentially going as high as a 4-seed down to a 6-seed in the NCAA Tournament. But by doing so, they now only have to travel to Greenville, South Carolina for the first and (potentially) second rounds. Had UNC been a 4 or a 5, it could have gone as far away as Oklahoma City, San Diego or Portland.
This is the third time Greenville will have hosted tournament games since 2017, which is the result of an interesting ripple effect. South Carolina had normally been passed over for hosting duties in the tournament in favor of its northern neighbor, but North Carolina governor Pat McCrory’s controversial House Bill 2 made the NCAA relocate games in 2017 from Greensboro to Greenville.
That’s where No. 1 seed UNC went that spring, and the Tar Heels very nearly saw their season end there. After a breezy win against No. 16 Texas Southern in the first round, Carolina got all it could handle in the second round against No. 8 Arkansas. The Razorbacks led by five with three minutes to go, but UNC ended the game on a 12-0 run to advance on its way to a national title.
With the trip to Greenville being just 3.5 hours from Chapel Hill, the Tar Heels bused down yesterday afternoon. The relatively short drive and likely strong contingent of Tar Heel fans in tow is an encouraging sign for a UNC team which has struggled in hostile environments. Carolina put together its best home record in program history this season with 18 wins and zero losses, but is only 6-8 away from the Smith Center. Of course, a close-to-home neutral court did Carolina no good last week, when it came out flat against Clemson at the ACC Tournament in Charlotte.
Then there’s the Duke factor. The No. 1 Blue Devils will also be in Greenville this week, and though Duke and UNC play in separate sessions Thursday, you can bet some Devil fans would love nothing more than a front-row seat to the end of their rivals’ season. The reverse happened in 2017, when after the Tar Heels’ great escape from Arkansas, No. 2 seed Duke took the floor against No. 7 South Carolina. Feeding off the friendly Greenville crowd, the Gamecocks thumped Jayson Tatum and the Blue Devils on their way to the Final Four. The UNC fans who stuck around after the Arkansas game loved every minute of it.
So the Tar Heels do have good memories from playing in Greenville. But if they play VCU like they did Clemson, this season will be no more than a memory by Friday.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/18/Sports%20Notebook%20031826%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Back to Greenville appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
As it turns out, UNC women’s basketball fans will get at least one more look at the Tar Heels on their home floor.
Carolina was revealed as a top 16 seed and a host site of the NCAA Tournament Saturday, then found out its first-round opponent Sunday during the selection show. The Tar Heels will face No. 13 Western Illinois in the first round, with the winner facing either No. 5 Maryland or No. 12 Murray State in the next round.
Courtney Banghart’s team may not have had flashy advanced metrics, but the committee clearly valued the Tar Heels’ recent performances. UNC has won 13 of its last 15 games, including wins over tournament teams such as NC State, Virginia and Duke. Banghart met with the media Monday morning and was rightfully proud of her team getting into this position for a second straight year despite losing more than 70 percent of its production from a year ago.
That brings us to this weekend, where Carolina will have to work hard if it wants to advance to the Sweet 16. Western Illinois is 26-5, having won both the regular-season and tournament titles in the Ohio Valley Conference. Star Mia Nicastro is the fourth-leading scorer in the nation at 24.2 points per game, and the Leathernecks also rank 12th in the country in free throw percentage.
Maryland will likely be fired up for a potential showdown with UNC in the round of 32. The Terps felt they should have been one of 16 host sites and will want to prove it on the court. And of course, the history between the two old ACC rivals is rich. It was Maryland which denied maybe the best UNC team ever a shot at a second national title in 2006, beating the Tar Heels 81-70 in the national semifinals in Boston. Carolina ended that year with 33 wins and two losses, both to the eventual national champion Terps.
But that’s not to discount Murray State, which ran roughshod over the Missouri Valley Conference and enters the tournament with a 31-3 record. The Racers have won 15 consecutive games and are 17-3 away from home. It should be a more competitive pair of first round games than last year, when both No. 3 UNC and No. 6 West Virginia won big on their way to the round of 32.
For those reasons, local basketball lovers should find plenty of entertainment value at Carmichael Arena. And as Banghart said, her team has done more than enough to earn vocal fan support this weekend.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/17/Sports%20Notebook%20031726%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Reward appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
When the Atlantic Coast Conference averaged exactly five NCAA Tournament invitations per year way back in the 1980s, that number was considered a stunning success story. Because the ACC included only eight universities at the time, five teams in the Big Dance represented more than 62 percent of the league’s membership, and that marked the best ratio of any league in college basketball.
When the ACC averaged roughly five NCAA Tournament invitations per year for the first half of the 2020s, however, that number was considered an unmitigated disaster. Because of multiple rounds of expansion over multiple decades, the conference had grown to nine, then 12, then 15 and most recently 18 members, such that an average of about five teams in the Big Dance in modern times represented only an extremely disappointing 28 percent of the league’s membership. Somewhere along the way, the ACC lost its long-held reputation as the best college basketball conference in America.
With that stark then-versus-now contrast in mind, the 2026 edition of Selection Sunday brought very good news for the ACC. Eight league members received NCAA Tournament invitations this time, including bubble teams NC State and SMU. That marked the conference’s largest representation in the Big Dance since it placed nine teams on the ultimate March Madness platform in both 2017 and 2018.
When considering a blend of both quantity and quality, the ACC’s all-time modern apex may have come in 2019.
That year, among the league’s seven NCAA Tournament participants, coach Tony Bennett led Virginia to the national championship, and four additional conference members joined the Cavaliers on the second weekend of the event. Coach Mike Krzyzewski led Duke to the Elite Eight, and UNC’s Roy Williams, Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton and Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams led their teams to the Sweet 16, meaning a whopping five of the final 16 teams standing were carrying the ACC banner. Four of those coaches since have retired, of course, and the other now works in another league.
Since the COVID pandemic led to the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament in 2020, the ACC hasn’t had either a national champion or — prior to this year — a large number of NCAA Tournament entries, although coach Hubert Davis led UNC to the national championship game in 2022, Miami went to the Final Four in 2023, NC State advanced to the national semifinals in 2024, and Duke made it there under coach Jon Scheyer last year.
This year, the ACC champion Blue Devils have the #1 overall seed in the Big Dance, ACC runner-up Virginia looks like a dangerous three seed, Louisville and UNC will compete as six seeds, Miami as a seven, Clemson as an eight, and both NC State and SMU as 11 seeds.
Along with fellow #1 seeds Arizona, Florida and Michigan, Duke is considered among the favorites to win this year’s NCAA title. The Devils most recently won the national championship in 2015, under Krzyzewski, before Williams led UNC to the NCAA crown in 2017 and Bennett helped UVa cut down the nets in 2019.
Now the ACC hopes its eight participants maximize its chances of another banner postseason for the entire league seven years later.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/16/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20031626.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Alex Brandon
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bucking the Trend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
In North Carolina’s four previous trips to the ACC Tournament under coach Hubert Davis, the Tar Heels hadn’t claimed a conference championship, but they had never gone home without one or two victories, either.
In fact, in three of those four years, Carolina ultimately fell to the team that went on to capture the ACC title — Virginia Tech in 2022, NC State (in the championship game) in 2024, and Duke in 2025. The 2026 Tar Heels, though, went one-and-done at the ACC’s crown-jewel event this year, falling 80-79 to #5 seed Clemson in Thursday night’s quarterfinals before a heavily pro-Carolina crowd at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte.
Less than two weeks ago, when UNC defeated Clemson 67-63 in Chapel Hill, junior guard Luka Bogavac lifted the Tar Heels to victory with his best shooting performance of the season. Bogavac hit six 3-pointers and posted a career-high 20 points as the Heels captured a low-scoring grinder of a game after trailing 30-27 at halftime.
This time, Carolina faced an even bigger halftime deficit — 39-31 — and, in the end, there weren’t quite enough perimeter sharpshooters to save the day. Bogavac missed his first four field goal attempts and his first three 3-point tries, and even after a late flurry, the Tar Heels collectively made only 11 of their 30 attempts from long range.
Meanwhile, on a night when Clemson’s reserves provided a huge lift in the absence of injured starting center Carter Welling, UNC’s second-team players simply failed to meet the moment. Led by 17 points from backup center Nick Davidson and 10 from backup guard Jestin Porter, Clemson posted 29 bench points to Carolina’s five.
Whereas UNC starters Henri Veesaar, Derek Dixon, Jarin Stevenson and Seth Trimble all scored in double figures, and Veesaar posted a stunning double-double with 28 points and 17 rebounds, the Tar Heels’ second-team quartet of Kyan Evans, Jonathan Powell, Jaydon Young and Zayden High collectively managed only five points in 36 total minutes.
As Clemson moved on to face Duke in Friday night’s ACC semifinals, UNC was left to contemplate its quick and painful exit from the event — and perhaps consider its shaky seed in the absence of out-for-the-season star Caleb Wilson — once the NCAA Tournament Selection Show arrives on Sunday afternoon.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/13/DG%27s%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20031326.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet. For a full photo gallery of the game, click here.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: One-and-Done in Charlotte appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
With no Caleb Wilson for the remainder of the season, it’s up to UNC’s supporting cast to carry the water for the Tar Heels.
Eagle-eyed Carolina fans may have noticed something peculiar at the beginning of the season. Normally, UNC’s roster splits in two in pregame warmups, with one group stretching out at midcourt and the other going through shooting drills. The big men shoot while the guards stretch, and then vice versa. The unusual thing this year was that Jarin Stevenson, standing at six-foot-ten, would be grouped with UNC’s backcourt.
Stevenson is truly a unique player, with the body and build of a big man but someone who entered this season with the tendency to play on the perimeter. That can make him a matchup problem at times, but only if he’s making his shots. Early on this season, Stevenson wasn’t doing that: in UNC’s non-conference games, he was shooting a paltry 17.6 percent on three-pointers.
The outlook of Stevenson’s season changed radically with the injuries to Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar. Suddenly the six-foot-ten wing was needed under the basket. After starting several games at the 3 this season, Stevenson has migrated to the 4 to accompany Veesaar. And that has seemingly unlocked a new version of the player we thought we knew.
Stevenson has embodied the “superutility” role for the Tar Heels, using his varied skillet to do whatever Hubert Davis asks of him. If he needs a pick-and-pop three, Stevenson can oblige. After his ice-cold non-conference performance, Jarin is up to 37.8 percent from downtown in ACC games. If Davis wants Stevenson to be physical in the post, Jarin has shown that’s in his bag, too. He’s averaging more than six rebounds per game in his last seven outings, including a career-high 10 in a rough-and-tumble win against Clemson.
Stevenson’s collegiate odyssey is well-known to UNC fans plugged into recruiting news. The son of a UNC women’s basketball player and a star at Pittsboro’s Seaforth High School, Stevenson was viewed as Carolina’s prospect to lose. But he spurned the Tar Heels by reclassifying up a year and signing with Alabama, then added insult to injury by helping the Tide beat UNC in consecutive seasons.
When Stevenson came back home to Chapel Hill in the offseason, he spoke of fitting in better with Davis’ system, as opposed to Alabama’s unique brand of offense. But it’s hard to imagine Stevenson saw himself filling this particular role in March, with a thinning roster and a battered and bruised frontcourt.
In a season where multiple contenders have suffered devastating injuries, no one will shed any tears for the Tar Heels, especially when they have a former five-star prospect waiting to fill in. And if Carolina is to accomplish its goals in the next month, Stevenson will have to live up to those lofty expectations.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/12/Sports%20Notebook%20031226%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The X-Factor appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
The notion that Miami Ohio could potentially miss the NCAA Tournament with anything less than a MAC title is a farce.
College basketball’s obsession with the NET and other analytics has affected the RedHawks more than any other team this season. Though Miami enters the MAC Tournament at 31-0, their rankings in the NET and on sites like KenPom do not reflect that record. That could have something to do with Miami’s poor strength of schedule, as the RedHawks did not play a single power-conference foe this season. And as the NET takes high value from the mythical Quad 1 games, Miami still languishes at No. 53 in its rankings.
That’s 13 spots below No. 40 Auburn, which enters the SEC Tournament with a 16-15 record. But the Tigers know how to game the system, and their top five strength of schedule is somehow keeping them in NCAA Tournament bubble conversations. Multiple outlets describe this year’s bubble as one of the weakest in recent memory, filled with teams who seem dead set on torpedoing their own tournament chances right at the finish line.
Let’s take a look around. CBS lists Cal as one of the first four teams out of the field. The Bears have 21 wins and appeared poised to make their first tournament appearance in a decade, but a brutal home loss vs. Pitt will be hard to overcome. Oklahoma is also listed, even though the Sooners at one point lost nine consecutive games. Like Auburn, OU’s best attribute is the conference patch on its jerseys.
The mediocrity of these teams is one of the main reasons another struggling power-conference school, NC State, still retains a tenuous grasp on its bid. The Wolfpack have lost four games in a row and six of their last seven, and have gone from a potential 6-seed in the field to still nervous entering the ACC Tournament.
And don’t even get me started on Boise State, which lost a home game to a Division 2 team earlier this season but somehow still finds itself within range of the bubble. As does New Mexico, which hasn’t done anything that egregious… but did lose to Boise State twice.
In stronger bubble years, all of these teams would be disqualified by now. But with college basketball’s rich only getting richer in the NIL era, it’s left exposed a soft “middle class,” one which can skate by with poor on-court results but a solid brand name and OK advanced metrics. Just ask Tar Heel fans how Carolina got in last year.
That brings us back to Miami Ohio. The RedHawks aren’t exactly a college hoops mainstay, but their odyssey of a season has fascinated fans across the nation. Even if they don’t win the MAC Tournament – and bettors are favoring 2-seed Akron – they deserve a shot to test their mettle against the nation’s best teams. Leaving them out would be a betrayal of everything March is supposed to represent.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/11/Sports%20Notebook%20031126%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Butch Dill
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pop That Bubble! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
North Carolina will once again be punching above its weight this March.
The Queens University Royals pulled off a big upset in the ASUN Championship during the weekend, beating top seed Central Arkansas in overtime to clinch a trip to the NCAA Tournament. It’ll be the first ever dance for Queens, which only made the move to Division 1 four years ago.
Many were surprised to learn that Queens University is not actually located in Queens, New York, but rather in the “Queen City”: Charlotte, North Carolina. The small, private university with fewer than 2,000 total students is one of 19 NCAA Division 1 programs in North Carolina. And thanks to the Royals’ ASUN crown, 18 of those 19 teams will have experienced the NCAA Tournament at least once.
Only three states have more schools than North Carolina which play Division 1 men’s basketball: California, Texas and New York. North Carolina also ranks second in total NCAA championships with 13, and it and California are the only states with at least three different national championship schools. And when you consider that California’s population is nearly triple North Carolina’s, it’s no surprise this area has earned the moniker “the Hoop State.”
It feels safe to say North Carolina will send at least five teams to this year’s NCAA Tournament: Duke and UNC are locks, and NC State, despite the Pack’s best efforts recently, seems in good shape for an at-large berth. We already mentioned Queens winning the ASUN, and then there’s High Point, which dominated the Big South this year and is making its second straight tournament appearance. Watch out for the 30-4 Panthers as a trendy upset pick.
You might be wondering who the lone North Carolina school to not reach the tournament is. That would be the Elon Phoenix, currently of the Coastal Athletic Association. Elon moved to Division 1 in 1999 and hasn’t ever gotten particularly close to the Big Dance. But here’s the tricky part: Elon and Queens recently announced a merger of the two schools which is set to be complete this summer. While initial reporting indicates the athletic programs will remain separate, it’s unclear what exactly that will look like.
All that is to say that nearly every North Carolina school, big or small, has had its day in the sun. Charlotte, believe it or not, made the Final Four in 1977 and was oh so close to meeting Phil Ford and UNC in the championship, losing by two points to eventual champions Marquette. Western Carolina very nearly pulled off the first ever 1-16 upset in 1996, falling 73-71 to Purdue in the first round after missing two shots in the final seconds. UNC-Asheville also gave a No. 1 seed a scare, testing Syracuse in 2012 before losing by seven.
Around this time of year, the Old North State always stands tall. Here’s to the land of the long leaf pine.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/10/Sports%20Notebook%20031026%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Queens University Athletics/Todd Drexler
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The State of Basketball appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
With Selection Sunday on the horizon, the UNC women’s team is on a different kind of bubble.
Courtney Banghart’s Tar Heels bowed out in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament for the second straight season Saturday. Now, all Carolina can do is wait and see where it’s headed for the NCAA Tournament.
The Tar Heels currently project as either a 5-seed in the tournament or a 4-seed. That may not sound like much of a difference until you consider a 4-seed gets to host first- and second-round matchups at its home gym, while the 5-seed has to travel. If the seeds hold, that 5-seed has to play a true road game to reach the Sweet 16.
UNC has been in this position before. In 2022, Carolina had hopes of hosting until it received a 5-seed in the tournament. The Tar Heels showed how foolish that was by blasting 4-seed Arizona in Tucson on their way to the Sweet 16. UNC finally earned a host spot last season as a 3-seed, beating No. 14 Oregon State and No. 6 West Virginia to advance. It was the first time Carmichael Arena had hosted NCAA action since 2015.
This year, the bracketologists can’t seem to agree on what to do with Carolina. There are things to like on the Tar Heels’ CV: a third-place finish in the ACC, 14 regular-season conference wins, and 13 combined Quad 1 and 2 wins. But it might be a questionable home loss vs. Stanford and a blowout loss at Notre Dame which hold UNC back.
Should Carolina be sent on the road, it’s not exactly a death sentence, The Tar Heels’ 13 wins away from home are tied for the fourth-most in the nation this season. That includes wins in road environments which typically have haunted Carolina, including Raleigh and Blacksburg. But there’s something to be said for Carmichael hosting big-time basketball games and energizing a program which deserves more attention than it currently receives.
Because the ACC women’s tournament is played a week before the men’s event, the Tar Heels have an extended break before their next game. It could be two weeks before we see Banghart’s team again. That gives plenty of time for pundits like me to present Carolina’s Carmichael case, but also plenty of time to remember that the Tar Heels have reached the second weekend the hard way before.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/09/Sports%20Notebook%20030926%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Case appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Editor’s Note: The UNC men’s basketball program announced on Friday afternoon Caleb Wilson is out for the rest of the season after breaking his right thumb.
The most-talked-about left hand in Chapel Hill may be out of its cast, but it’s still shrouded in mystery.
As we approach UNC-Duke Part II in Cameron Indoor Stadium Saturday night, all anyone can talk about is a player who hasn’t suited up in nearly a month. Almost as soon as Hubert Davis sat down for a press conference at the Smith Center Thursday, he was asked about the availability of freshman star Caleb Wilson. Wilson had apparently told ESPN his goal was to return to action for Saturday’s game after fracturing his left hand in February.
The first of two ACC-mandated injury reports for the Duke game is due at 8 p.m. Friday night. With Davis speaking to the media Thursday, he was not about to commit one way or another to Wilson’s status. All he divulged was that Caleb would be doing “more” than he had in recent workouts, but that the freshman still hadn’t been cleared for 5-on-5 drills — usually the last hurdle for a player returning from an injury.
This shouldn’t completely snuff out the possibility of Wilson suiting up, as Henri Veesaar only had one limited practice before playing at Syracuse after missing the previous two games. But Veesaar’s absences seemed more precautionary than anything, whereas Wilson’s injury has been enough to sideline him for six contests.
One fact that might tilt the scales toward Wilson sitting is that UNC has already locked up a double bye in next week’s ACC Tournament. The Tar Heels can’t move up or down from their No. 4 seed — in fact, all four of the top seeds, including No. 1 Duke, have already been decided. With the Blue Devils already clinching the outright ACC regular-season title, Saturday’s showdown has suddenly turned into an oddly low-leverage game. Of course, both teams will be fired up to win; Duke wants to avenge its lone conference loss, while Carolina would love nothing more than to sweep its rivals. But as far as postseason implications go, not much is on the line.
If UNC was going into Saturday needing a win to secure that double bye, perhaps Davis would be more apt to hurry Wilson back. Now? It seems like the odds favor him not playing.
Whenever Wilson does return, the risks will be obvious. The freshman stud will have rust to shake off, and opponents will no doubt target that left hand. Then there are the teammates who will need to get used to having him back on the court. Not the worst problem to have, but something to monitor regardless. UNC would probably like to get those kinks out of the system in the less-stressful environment of the ACC Tournament than in the Big Dance a week later.
One thing appears to be certain, though: whenever and wherever UNC plays its final game of the season, No. 8 will be on the court to say his piece.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/06/Sports%20Notebook%20030626%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Return of the King? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
There are no more games at the Smith Center this basketball season, but the arena is still top of mind.
Seth Trimble, Carolina’s beloved senior guard who played his final home game Tuesday night, provided a viral mic-drop moment at the end of his senior speech. As he was about to sign off, Trimble said he hopes to see the Smith Center here for a long, long time.
The crowd let out a loud cheer. The reaction from athletic director Bubba Cunningham, who was in attendance, likely wasn’t as enthusiastic.
Cunningham appeared on a special podcast with UNC’s Jones Angell, Adam Lucas and Chancellor Lee Roberts last week to detail the discussions around the future of Carolina Basketball and its home arena. Cunningham and Roberts both provided their reasonings for shopping around; namely, aging infrastructure at the Smith Center and new revenue opportunities elsewhere. Specifically, Cunningham noted a $20 million delta between staying at the Smith Center and leaving, which he and his staff found compelling.
That delta was put out in the open Wednesday, when financial statistics for a number of different arena options were published. UNC presented seven categories: a repair of the Smith Center, a renovation, and new arenas at the Bowles Lot, Odum Village, the Smith Center footprint itself, the Friday Center and Carolina North.
UNC’s numbers clearly lay out why the university is so keen on Carolina North. The school estimates a Carolina North arena could net it more than $26 million annually, as opposed to around $4 million if it stays at the Smith Center. UNC is also bullish on Carolina North’s mixed-use potential, which it says is nonexistent at the Smith Center.
Much of the blowback from fans on the Carolina North option is due to its off-campus location. The Bowles Lot and Odum Village options could appease that sect of the fanbase, and UNC estimates both could net the school more than $24 million a year. However, both have their drawbacks. Should UNC decide to build on the Bowles Lot while continuing to stage games at the Smith Center, an already strained parking situation would get even worse. The Odum Village option is interesting due to its vacant location, but its close proximity to UNC Hospitals could lead to some uncomfortable discussions about which venue takes precedence on the limited space.
Whether in a new arena or a renovated Smith Center, UNC envisions a seating capacity of around 16,000, a downsize of more than 5,000 seats from the current arena. UNC also sees a new student section layout at its new digs, with students seated behind both baskets. The school compared student seating at the Smith Center with peer institutions such as Duke, UConn and Indiana. In nearly every case, the Smith Center fell short.
Is there a move Cunningham could make that would please every fan? I don’t think so. And that’s the main reason why this discussion is still ongoing.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/05/Sports%20Notebook%20030526%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Man in the Arena appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
Since the Dean E. Smith Center opened in January 1986, the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team now has played 40 seasons there.
With their Tuesday night victory over Clemson, a program that once infamously went 94 years without ever defeating the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, on any of the Heels’ various home courts, this year’s Carolina squad finished off a perfect 18-0 record at the Smith Center this season.
While that may sound like just an intriguing piece of trivia, or another impressive line in UNC’s history books, Carolina fans can hope that the accomplishment is a sign of more good things to come for the 2026 Heels.
As it turns out, only five previous Carolina teams went unbeaten at the Smith Center, and each of those squads ultimately proved to be varying degrees of sensational when it mattered most in the NCAA Tournament.
Coach Dean Smith’s 1993 team went 12-0 in the building that bears his name before going on to capture the national championship that year. Similarly, coach Roy Williams’ 2005 and 2017 squads, which each finished 15-0 at the Smith Center, also went on to claim the NCAA title.
In the only other previous examples of a UNC team posting a perfect record at the Smith Center for an entire season, the 1987 Tar Heels (under Smith) and the 2011 Tar Heels (under Williams) each advanced to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight. Not bad.
Now fifth-year UNC coach Hubert Davis has added his signature to a perfect season on the same court he last played on himself 34 years ago, in 1992.
Several details behind the 2026 Tar Heels’ stellar 18-0 record at the Smith Center make the accomplishment even more impressive.
For starters, their victims included highly regarded Kansas and Louisville teams, as well as Duke, which now is ranked No. 1 nationally. In addition, six of their home wins came without previously injured star guard Seth Trimble, and four more came without currently injured star forward Caleb Wilson.
None of these “fun facts” guarantees success in the Big Dance, of course, but history suggests that Smith Center perfection is a really, really good sign for the Tar Heels.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/04/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20030426.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Good Sign? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
It’s appropriate that Seth Trimble and R.J. Davis will both be honored at the Smith Center together.
UNC will celebrate Senior Night against Clemson tonight, hoping to close out what has so far been a spotless home slate. Seth Trimble and Elijah Davis will both make their final Smith Center appearances as Tar Heels, and both will start in what has become an eternal Carolina tradition.
An already festive atmosphere will get an additional jolt at halftime when R.J. Davis makes his return to the Dean Dome to see his No. 4 jersey raised to the rafters. The former ACC Player of the Year and first team All-American is the first Tar Heel to have his jersey honored since Joel Berry.
R.J.’s ceremony was originally scheduled for UNC’s game against Louisville last Monday, but a severe winter storm in the northeast crippled travel and forced the Davis family to postpone. But with Trimble also being honored tonight, it’s only right that R.J. will be there for his teammate and friend.
Davis and Trimble share a bond that goes back to Seth’s freshman year. Back then, the kid who was simply known as J.P. Tokoto’s little brother asked if he could follow Davis everywhere he went. Still basking in the afterglow of UNC’s run to the national title game, R.J. nevertheless agreed to mentor Trimble, and the pair’s connection grew so strong that Seth openly wept at the NCAA Tournament dais last season when reflecting on the end of Davis’ career.
Now a senior himself, Trimble has emerged as the leader this group of Tar Heels needs. And while Davis and Trimble’s player profiles are fairly different, they will be forever linked not just because of their friendship, but because they may be the last of their kind. It’s impossible to predict when UNC will graduate its next four- or five-year senior who spent his entire career in Chapel Hill. Davis undoubtedly could have gone somewhere else after a rocky junior season, but stuck around and made All-America the next year. As for Trimble, he did enter the transfer portal after his sophomore season, but almost immediately thought better of it. To hear Seth tell it, he simply couldn’t imagine putting on another jersey.
That’s the type of devotion to a community that Hubert Davis searches for in recruits, and that’s why so many fans have gravitated toward the two players being honored tonight. R.J. and Seth are throwbacks to a different time in college hoops, when fans could predict the roster year-by-year and anticipate a player’s growth. As Trimble prepares to say his last goodbye, it’s worth wondering how many more players like him are waiting in the wings.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/03/Sports%20Notebook%20030326%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Throwbacks appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
The North Carolina men’s and women’s basketball teams took important steps forward on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, as both head into an even higher-profile March Madness week where they will be showcased on two of the sport’s biggest stages.
The UNC men continued their winning ways with an 89-82 victory at the Smith Center over a talented and desperate Virginia Tech team that needed a high-profile victory to bolster its NIT-caliber resume. Junior center Henri Veesaar led the way against the Hokies with 26 points, seven rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot for the Tar Heels, who now have an impressive 4-1 record without injured star freshman Caleb Wilson.
If the Heels can defeat Clemson on Tuesday night in Chapel Hill, they are guaranteed to finish among the top four in the ACC standings this season, regardless of what happens during their trip to No. 1 Duke on Saturday night, when ESPN’s popular College GameDay program will be in Durham.
That top-four ACC finish is important, both because it would enable a double bye for Carolina into the ACC Tournament quarterfinals and because the ACC champion has come from among that event’s top four seeds almost 90 percent of the time historically.
Meanwhile, the UNC women scored their biggest victory of the entire season, a 74-69 triumph over No. 12 Duke at Carmichael Arena, achieving a number of memorable milestones along the way.
First, it was the Tar Heels’ fifth straight home win over the rival Blue Devils, who are this year’s ACC regular-season champion. Second, the game marked the 150th career victory at Carolina for seventh-year UNC coach Courtney Banghart. Third, the win helped the Heels commemorate a special occasion for starting guard Indya Nivar and starting forward Nyla Harris, who were able to celebrate their Senior Day in style. With 19 points and seven rebounds, Harris was one of Carolina’s star performers against the Devils.
Perhaps most importantly, whereas the UNC men already know they can beat any team in the country (witness, for example, their wins over Duke, Virginia, Kansas and Louisville earlier this season), the UNC women hadn’t shown that same capacity until Sunday afternoon against Duke, which became their first nationally ranked victim of the entire season.
Next up for the UNC women is the ACC Tournament in Duluth, Ga. The Tar Heels are the #3 seed — their highest position at the event of the entire Banghart Era — as they pursue what would be the program’s first ACC title since they won four in a row under coach Sylvia Hatchell from 2005-08.
The Heels’ opening game at this year’s tournament will come Friday night, in the event’s quarterfinals.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/03%20-%20March/02/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20030226.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bigger Challenges appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
The Milan-Cortina Olympics were a welcome return to prominence for the Winter Games.
Some of my fondest sports memories are watching the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver on TV with my mom. A massive blizzard had blanketed my hometown, so my mom and I both got to stay home day after day to watch the Games.
The Vancouver Olympics were a smashing success, with record attendance numbers and broadcast figures. But after that, the Winter Games went through an awkward phase. The 2014 Games in Sochi, which was more known as a summer beach resort in Russia than a winter destination, ran over budget and were marred by revelations that Russian athletes were involved in state-sponsored doping.
The 2018 and 2022 Winter Games were in South Korea and China, respectively. Both events saw their broadcasting numbers take a dip due to the massive time zone difference between east Asia and the United States. The 2018 Games finished as the least-watched on record, until 2022 broke that ignominious mark.
When also considering the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo, which were un-attended due to the COVID pandemic, it was fair to speculate whether the Olympics had lost their cultural impact. But Paris 2024 did away with any of that doubt, and Milan-Cortina this past month sealed the deal: people will still turn out for the Games.
NBC is reporting outstanding viewership numbers from Italy: an average of 23.5 million viewers, up 96 percent from four years ago. A more favorable time zone certainly helps, but the network clearly upped its coverage prior to Paris, with the Peacock streaming service and the newly-minted Gold Zone whiparound coverage providing wall-to-wall action. In Italy, viewers were treated to incredible camera shots via drones, which showed breathtaking action in sports like alpine skiing and the bobsled.
Also bumping up those numbers is an historic performance from American athletes. Team USA won a winter-record 12 gold medals, including dramatic wins for men’s and women’s ice hockey and a stunning figure skating performance from Alysa Liu. In a time when many American viewers are desperate for good news, the action from Italy clearly hit the spot.
Now, the hope is the Games can keep the positive momentum going. Los Angeles is next up to host the Summer Olympics in two years, which promise to be one of the biggest spectacles in our country’s sporting history. And ironically, the next Winter Games won’t have to travel far: the French Alps won the bid to host in 2030.
It’d be folly to try and predict what the world will be like by then, but we can be sure of one thing: the Olympic flame will burn on.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/27/Sports%20Notebook%20022726%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Andrew Medichini
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Winter Wonderland appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
UNC is still riding high after its win against Louisville, but one glaring flaw could be its downfall.
The Memphis Tigers were infamously a few plays away from a national championship against Kansas in 2008. John Calipari’s star-studded team, featuring future No. 1 pick Derrick Rose, led by nine points with two minutes remaining. But because of some clutch Jayhawk buckets and missed Tiger free throws, Kansas rallied to force overtime and eventually won the title.
Memphis ended that season ranked 329th out of 341 Division 1 teams that season in free throw shooting at 61.4 percent. It’s quite simple, really: if Rose or any of his other teammates had made a few more foul shots, the Tigers would’ve raised a banner — then seen it taken down for NCAA violations.
It was hard not to think about that fateful night in San Antonio as the Tar Heels nearly frittered away a 16-point lead against Louisville by coming up empty more often than not at the foul line. UNC was just 9-19 Monday, which extends its poor run at the stripe to 24-47 across its last two games. That’s just a shade over 50 percent, well worse than the woeful Tigers of yore.
Maybe this is just an example of the mathematical pendulum swinging back in a negative direction. The Tar Heels have been mediocre at the line all year, but were shooting 77 percent across their last six games prior to visiting Syracuse last Saturday. For the season, Carolina is shooting 68 percent on free throws, good for 14th in the ACC and 319th nationally.
Hubert Davis, himself a career 84 percent free-throw shooter in the NBA, knows this position is untenable. Postseason basketball is simply too random to leave precious points at the line. After the Tar Heels survived Louisville by the skin of their teeth, Davis was asked what he can do to help his team improve its foul shooting. The famously devout Davis said one word: “Pray.”
After that got a laugh from the assembled media, Davis clarified that free throw shooting is difficult to teach. If he sees something mechanically wrong with the shooting form, Davis will say something. But most of the time he prefers a hands-off approach; Davis says he doesn’t want a player thinking too much at the line.
There was always going to be a drop off after the departure of R.J. Davis, whose career free throw percentage of 86.1 is a program record. But Carolina couldn’t have counted on Seth Trimble dropping 14 percentage points from 82 percent last season to 68 percent this season. Or that Henri Veesaar would drop from 68 percent at Arizona to 61 percent at UNC. Free throws are more mental than anything, and the Tar Heels need to get their minds right before it ends their season earlier than expected.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/26/Sports%20Notebook%20022626%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Free Throw Follies appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Mack Brown and UNC were able to turn lemons into lemonade Monday night.
Brown’s exit from Chapel Hill a little over a year ago can be described as awkward at best and acrimonious at worst. The Hall of Famer had expressed his intention to return for at least one more season, but UNC didn’t give him that chance when it dismissed him prior to Carolina’s final game. He was allowed to coach that game, which the Tar Heels promptly lost.
In his postgame press conference, Brown went back on previous comments and claimed he knew all along it was time to go. The displeasure in the room was easy to detect, and not just from Brown. John Preyer, then the chairman of UNC’s Board of Trustees, voiced his intense disagreement with how Brown’s dismissal was handled. And while some fans may have been eager for a change, the controversial hiring of Bill Belichick a few days later and his disastrous first season seems to have swayed some opinions.
Brown quickly moved back to Texas following his exit and wore the Longhorns’ famous burnt orange whenever he got the chance. Never mind that the Horns themselves had dismissed Brown a few years before. It seemed obvious that Brown bore ill will toward UNC, which put the football program in an uncomfortable position. Despite everything, the man is the program’s all-time winningest head coach.
Which made it all the more surprising when UNC announced Brown would be honored at midcourt during Monday night’s men’s basketball game against Louisville at the Smith Center. But there he was, with not a touch of orange (or Carolina blue, for that matter) on his ensemble. The Tar Heel fans gave Brown a rousing ovation, then voiced some boos when Belichick joined him. Up on press row, several reporters noted the convenient timing of the ceremony, with athletic director Bubba Cunningham still on his way back from the Winter Olympics in Italy.
For the time being, it appears Brown’s standing in Chapel Hill has been somewhat repaired. No one will ever be able to undo his underachieving seasons with Sam Howell (in attendance Monday), Drake Maye, Omarion Hampton and other future pros. But there’s no doubt last year’s 4-8 season cast Brown in a bit of a softer light.
Who knows when Brown will be back? Maybe never. He seems happy in Texas, where he’s even started a podcast with Longhorn legend Vince Young, the pair forever connected thanks to their national championship win. It made Monday’s ceremony feel especially important — not only to bury the hatchet with Brown, but also to give appreciative fans a chance to send him off on their own terms.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/25/Sports%20Notebook%20022526%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mack is Back (Again) appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
Entering the 2025-26 season, senior guard Seth Trimble already had endeared himself to the UNC basketball community.
Even as the NCAA was setting new records for major college transfers every year, Trimble became the modern-day rarity — a four-year player for the Tar Heels. Only two other seniors, in the entire 18-team Atlantic Coast Conference, are on track to graduate this year from the same universities they initially chose as high school prospects.
About two weeks ago, Trimble further cemented his place in Carolina history with one of the most unforgettable, game-winning, last-second shots in the world-famous Carolina-Duke rivalry. His 3-pointer from near the right corner at the Smith Center, directly in front of the UNC bench, gave the Tar Heels a 71-68 win over the now-No. 1 Blue Devils, meaning their most valuable resume-builder of the entire regular season.
Now Trimble, who is most famous for his stunning athleticism, intense defense and electrifying dunks, has added an opening tip-to-final buzzer, two-way masterpiece to his Carolina storybook, as well.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound slashing driver from Wisconsin scored a career-high 30 points and spearheaded a passionate defensive effort as No. 18 UNC edged No. 24 Louisville 77-74 Monday night in Chapel Hill.
Matched against an extremely talented Louisville backcourt led by superstar freshman Mikel Brown Jr., veteran wing scorer Ryan Conwell and senior sharpshooter Isaac McKneely, Trimble nevertheless proved — for one night, at least — to be the best both-ends performer on the floor, at any position.
Trimble played a game-high 37 minutes, converted a highly efficient 11-for-16 from the field, grabbed four rebounds, distributed a game-high four assists and made seven of his 11 free throw attempts, including all four in the final two minutes to help hold off a late Louisville surge.
While Louisville’s guards often settled for long-range jumpers, Trimble never stopped trying to get to the basket. Meanwhile, as the Tar Heels pounded the paint and attacked the rim offensively, they also — led by Trimble — were relentless with their pressure on the 3-point line defensively.
In the end, Carolina’s inside-out approach led to 54 percent field goal accuracy, whereas the Cardinals connected on only 39 percent. Inspired by the consistent aggression of Trimble and junior center Henri Veesaar, the Heels dominated the points-in-the-paint category by a whopping 40-24 margin.
With only two home games remaining, against Virginia Tech and Clemson, UNC has a chance to finish the season 18-0 at the Smith Center. The Tar Heels haven’t been perfect on their home court since 2017, which also happens to be the last time they won the NCAA title.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/24/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20022426%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Endearing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
Among the seven teams at the top of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings heading into Saturday’s games, only one — North Carolina — had a massive disparity between its home and road records during league play this season.
The #16 Tar Heels and #3 Duke were the only ACC teams with perfect records at home, but UNC was the only league contender with a losing record on the road. As the Heels headed to Syracuse, they were just 2-5 in their conference road games, and they had been blown out at SMU and, more recently, at NC State.
At Syracuse, where the Tar Heels once again were without injured star freshman Caleb Wilson, they won largely because their three most experienced players — redshirt junior center Henri Veesaar, junior guard Luka Bogavac and senior guard Seth Trimble — provided both the poise and the production teams need, especially from their veterans, to win in hostile environments.
Veesaar, who will turn 22 years old during March Madness, continued his All-ACC-caliber campaign with the Tar Heels by proving he was the best player on the court at Syracuse, despite the imposing presence of Orange center William Kyle, the league’s top shot blocker. After missing the Heels’ previous two games with a lower-body issue, Veesaar scored a team-high 19 points, grabbed three rebounds and blocked three shots in Carolina’s much-needed 77-64 victory.
Bogavac, a 22-year-old from Montenegro who played the past two seasons in the professional-level Adriatic Basketball Association, posted 13 points and a season-high six rebounds at Syracuse. Importantly, he often sought out the ball offensively, ultimately getting to the free throw line seven times while compiling two assists and zero turnovers in front of an announced crowd of 23,606 spectators. That number, which marked the largest crowd in college basketball this season, is roughly 10 times the average attendance in the Adriatic League.
Last but not least, UNC’s senior leader and top perimeter defender, 21-year-old Seth Trimble, battled through some offensive woes early to finish with another well-rounded stat line — 13 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals — as the Tar Heels limited the Orange to a 42 percent field goal success rate, including just 18 percent from 3-point range.
While Carolina would love to finish a perfect 18-0 at the Smith Center this season — Louisville, Virginia Tech and Clemson are the Tar Heels’ final three visitors, all in the next nine days — they know that any postseason success will come away from home. In that sense, the Syracuse victory, especially without Wilson, was an important step in the right direction.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/23/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20022326.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Adrian Kraus
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Veterans’ Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
One of the most unique series on the college baseball calendar gets underway today.
Carolina and ECU open their three-game, three-ballpark series tonight in Greenville. Game 2 will be played at Durham Bulls Athletic Park tomorrow, and Game 3 will be played here in Chapel Hill at the Bosh Sunday.
This arrangement, with two games played on campus and one at a neutral site, is now entering its third season. UNC head coach Scott Forbes and ECU skipper Cliff Godwin are both North Carolina natives, so both know the importance of these three games to their fanbases and to neutral baseball fans around the state. One can argue no school in the state cares about baseball as fiercely as the Pirates do, with the imposing Clark-LeClair Stadium seating more than 6,000 fans at its fullest. And then there’s ECU’s famous outfield section, known as “The Jungle,” where rowdy students can let opposing outfielders know just how they feel about them.
UNC and ECU fans would probably tell you they don’t have much in common with the other, but the Diamond Heels and Pirates both know a thing or two about near-misses in the postseason. Carolina’s 12 College World Series trips without a title are tied for the second-most in the country, while the Pirates hold the ignominious distinction of being perhaps the most noteworthy program to never make it to Omaha at all.
But make no mistake about it: there’s no love lost between these two schools. ECU in particular sees some of its loudest crowds when in-state foes come to town. Clark-LeClair set an attendance record in 2024 when 6,054 fans came to see the Pirates face NC State. The only other crowds to exceed 6,000 came for visits from the Diamond Heels.
ECU came ever so close to its maiden voyage to Omaha in 2022 when it hosted Texas in the NCAA Super Regionals, eventually falling in three games. The Pirates have reached the regional round in the three seasons since then, but still haven’t gotten back to the Supers. This year, they started with a stumble, dropping a home series to Xavier and then losing on the road at Campbell. They sit at 2-3 compared to Carolina’s 5-0, but there will be a different level of energy in the Jungle tonight.
For Carolina, the hopes are that ace pitcher Jason DeCaro will step up once again in a big game, and that catcher Macon Winslow will continue his torrid start to the season at the plate. UNC is coming off a sweep of the Pirates in this series last season which helped jumpstart the Diamond Heels to another strong campaign. It’s a very, very early test to see whether Forbes’ team can win away from home, something they’ll have to do if they want to capture that elusive national title.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/20/Sports%20Notebook%20022026%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Isabel Swindall
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: An Early Test appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
The best Tar Heel sports team at the moment speaks loudly and carries big sticks.
Dean Smith once famously noted that UNC was not a basketball school, but rather a women’s soccer school. Smith’s observation came as Anson Dorrance’s team was in the middle of an incredible run of 15 national championships in 17 seasons.
These days, Carolina women’s soccer is still an exceptional program, but the playing field around it has certainly improved. Now, another program and its no-nonsense head coach has risen to juggernaut status. That would be UNC women’s lacrosse and coach Jenny Levy, who is entering her 31st season at the helm in Chapel Hill. Levy and the women’s lacrosse program are as intertwined as coach and team can be: she is quite literally the only coach in program history, having started it from scratch in 1994.
Now, Levy has four national championships, more than 400 total wins and a Hall of Fame induction under her belt. Levy’s most recent two titles capped off undefeated seasons, and her Tar Heels look poised to defend their 2025 championship this spring.
Carolina is 2-0 on the young season and has now won 24 consecutive games. Both of UNC’s wins have come against ranked foes, including a comeback win at No. 13 Syracuse in which the Tar Heels trailed 3-1 after the first quarter.
And just as Dorrance had Mia Hamm powering his dynasty, Levy appears to have found a transcendent star of her own: Chloe Humphrey, who is only in her second active season but already has a trophy case full to bursting. The reigning ACC Tournament MVP, first team All-American, NCAA Tournament MOP and National Player of the Year is off to another strong start in 2026, with two hat tricks in as many games. In fact, a hat trick should probably be viewed as Humphrey’s baseline: she’s scored at least 3 goals in 20 of her 24 career games.
Humphrey arrived in Chapel Hill as a blue-chip recruit and was supposed to debut in 2024, but had to sit out after doctors discovered a stress reaction in her foot. She rebounded from that setback to stake an early claim as one of the best players to ever suit up for Levy’s team.
The 2024 season Humphrey sat out was poor by Levy’s sky-high standards. The Tar Heels went 10-7 and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Levy, a ferocious competitor since her playing days at Virginia, took it personally. Her team’s rallying cry the next year was about keeping receipts.
Now, UNC doesn’t have receipts to cash, but a crown to defend. That’s one achievement which has escaped Levy so far: her teams have never gone back-to-back. And you can bet that’s all the fuel the Tar Heels need.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/19/Sports%20Notebook%20021926%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Killers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
Legendary UNC coach Roy Williams once explained that his intense dislike of NC State stemmed from his early years in the North Carolina mountains, when he grew tired of obnoxious Wolfpack fans bragging about their teams’ relatively brief stretches of success against the Tar Heels for parts of the 1950s and 1970s.
Decades later, of course, Williams got his revenge. His 33-5 head-to-head mark against State is by far the best record of any head coach — for either school — in the 100-plus-year history of the rivalry. At one point, Williams even remarked that “he’d rather beat State than eat.”
Heading into the Tar Heels’ trip to face the Wolfpack in Raleigh on Tuesday night, UNC had an almost two-decades-long relationship with State that could be described as hammer-versus-nail. Since 2007, in the past 40 rivalry games, and bridging Carolina’s 2021 coaching transition from Williams to Hubert Davis, the Heels had won a whopping 34 games to the Pack’s measly six, representing the most dominant stretch — by either school — in the rivalry’s history.
This year’s only regular-season matchup between the two schools, however, barely got out of the starting gate. There had been some offseason hype for the game, mainly related to State’s hiring of provocative head coach Will Wade and the ensuing transfer of UNC big man Ven-Allen Lubin to the Wolfpack, but the matchup between two of the top half-dozen teams in the ACC never materialized.
With UNC missing its two best players, Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar, against a Wolfpack team that had been vulnerable against opponents with quality big men, it quickly became clear that the Tar Heels were overmatched. Before a hostile crowd, UNC’s point guard pairing of Derek Dixon and Kyan Evans looked particularly nervous, and the Heels trailed by double-digits even before the second TV timeout, while falling to an alarming 2-5 in true road games this season.
The 82-58 final score marked the Tar Heels’ largest deficit of the entire season and just their third double-digit defeat of the 2026 campaign, following earlier such losses to Michigan State and SMU.
With Wade’s rivalry record now standing at 1-0, it’s worth noting that the most recent State coach to finish his career with a winning record against Carolina was Everett Case, who retired more than 60 years ago, in 1964, just three years after the Tar Heels promoted a little-known assistant named Dean Smith to the top job in Chapel Hill.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/18/DAVID%20GLENN%27S%20NOTEBOOK%20-%20021826%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl DeBlaker
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tables Turned appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by MICHAEL KOH
Carolina fans may not want to hear it, but Will Wade is in the right place at the right time.
In the 1980s and 90s the great college basketball coaches were all larger-than-life. Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Lefty Driesell and Terry Holland all ruled the roost in the ACC, while in the Big East John Thompson, Jim Boeheim and Lou Carnesecca all regularly traded barbs.
And then of course, there was Jim Valvano at NC State, the man whose personality was so big and beloved he parlayed it into a successful TV career after his exit from Raleigh.
But since those glory days, those figures have all faded away. Roy Williams and Krzyzewski both retired within a two-year span, and their successors don’t quite measure up to them when it comes to a cult of personality.
NC State, on the other hand, wandered in the wilderness for decades after firing Valvano, a move which has remained controversial among Wolfpack fans. State cycled through five head coaches in the 35 years following Valvano’s departure, with varying levels of success. Kevin Keatts achieved the highest highs with his Final Four run, but State fans got so tired of his lows that he was fired the very next year.
Which brings us to Wade, who himself was caught in the college basketball wilderness for a time. Wade has won everywhere he’s been, and he’s not shy about letting others know about it. From Chattanooga to VCU to LSU, Wade was beginning to look like one of the brightest young minds in basketball.
When LSU eventually fired Wade for committing violations which would end up being legalized a few years later, Wade spent a year out of basketball before landing at McNeese, only about a couple hours away from Baton Rouge. Two NCAA Tournament appearances put him back on the radar, and NC State scooped him up.
Since taking over the Pack, Wade has stayed in the headlines thanks to soundbites both positive and negative. He wasted no time lobbing a salvo at the Tar Heels, implying Hubert Davis misused Ven-Allen Lubin after Lubin transferred to NC State. Since the season started, Wade has called his team soft and even suggested his players are more interested in schoolwork than hoops. During games, he won’t hesitate to let an official know his opinion after a whistle.
This makes Wade the perfect man to lead NC State, which has longed for a voice in what became a two-horse race in the Triangle after Valvano left Raleigh. Wade has his share of believers nationwide, too, including omnipresent college hoops personality Jon Rothstein, who refers to Wade as an “American Gangster” after every NC State win.
Whether Tar Heel fans like it or not, Wade’s early success with the Wolfpack has injected some much-needed life into the ACC.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/17/Sports%20Notebook%20021726%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Scott Kinser
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Wade’s World appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Written by DAVID GLENN
When the 11th-ranked North Carolina men’s basketball team trounced Pitt 79-65 at the Smith Center on Saturday, improving its record to 20-5, the Tar Heels were playing the worst team left on their regular-season schedule.
When the 21st-ranked North Carolina women’s team fell to No. 11 Duke 72-68 in Durham on Sunday, falling to 21-6 on the season, those Tar Heels were playing the best team left on their regular-season schedule.
Under fifth-year head coach Hubert Davis, the UNC men already know that — when at full strength — they’re capable of beating anyone in the country. Indeed, the Tar Heels already have head-to-head victories this season over Kansas and Duke, two teams currently ranked in the national top 10.
Against Pitt, the main question was how the Heels would fare without star freshman forward Caleb Wilson (out indefinitely with a fractured hand) and junior center Henri Veesaar, who missed the Panthers game with a far less serious ailment and is expected back soon.
In Carolina’s revised lineup, all five starters delivered — Jarin Stevenson and Seth Trimble with 19 points apiece, Luka Bogavac and Zayden High with 15 points each, and freshman point guard Derek Dixon with seven assists and only one turnover.
This week’s road trips to NC State and Syracuse will serve as much more difficult litmus tests for how UNC’s men will perform without Wilson leading the way.
The UNC women, on the other hand, have made crystal-clear who they are this season. That is, the Tar Heels are one of the top 25 teams in the country, but they’re also a group that hasn’t been able to get over the hump against the highest level of competition.
In the Tar Heels’ four games this season against their highest-ranked opponents — UCLA, Texas, Louisville and Duke, who all have spent time in the national top 10 — they are 0-4, although they took the Cardinals to overtime and the Blue Devils nearly to the final buzzer in Durham.
Under seventh-year head coach Courtney Banghart, the Tar Heels have finished in the top four in the ACC standings twice, and they have advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament twice, in both 2022 and 2025. They appear well-positioned for similar accomplishments this year.
To reach the UNC men’s peak status, though, meaning proving they’re capable of beating even their top-tier foes, they’re quickly running out of opportunities. Only four regular-season games remain, with Duke’s March 1 trip to Carmichael Arena in Chapel Hill the Heels’ final chance at a signature victory before the ACC Tournament and the remainder of March Madness.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2026/02%20-%20February/16/D%20Glenn%27s%20Notebook%20021626%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Different Challenges appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye is looking like a playoff quarterback to me.
While his alma mater is engulfed in controversy over its new football coach, the former Carolina QB continues to light up the NFL and his record and stats back up the praise.
Maye led the New England Patriots, whose former coach ironically is in the UNC squabble, to their third straight win and will be favored in their next three games. That would run the rebuilding Pats’ record to 7-2 and put them into contention for the playoffs. Early in the season, they had one-possession losses to the Raiders and Steelers, who both probably don’t want to face Maye again.
After playing his best NFL game last Sunday night in an upset win over the Bills in Buffalo, Maye had another stellar performance in New Orleans, where the Patriots hung on for a 25-19 win over the improving Saints. He had three touchdown passes and no interceptions, and there was a fourth bomb that was nullified by a phantom penalty that wasn’t.
Maye is looking like a future all-star with his skill set and composure against the rush, his uncanny running ability after escaping the pocket and his deft touch whether in the flat, to the sideline or downfield. He can’t be called the best quarterback in the league, but his statistics through five games are near the top of the entire 30-team NFL.
Maye has a 107.3 passer rating, which is third behind Patrick Mahommes and Josh Allen, considered the best two QBs in the league. He is fifth in overall passing yards and in pass completions he is second to only to the Lions Jared Goff. Besides doing all that, he has been sacked 17 times, second most.
Blessed with a much improved corps of receivers, Maye completed 18 passes against the Saints to nine different targets. Stefan Diggs, the pro bowler in Buffalo, signed with New England and is the slot back the Pats have missed since Julian Edelman. He caught three passes, including the rainbow 71-yarder that was called back. Kayson Boutte had five catches, including two touchdowns. Speedster DeMario Douglas also had three receptions, one for 53 yards and New England’s first score.
“You’ve got to celebrate winning in this league,” Maye said afterward, “no matter how much better we could have played, how much we left on the plate. We just want to keep building momentum, week to week. It was great to hit some long shots to guys who made great plays.”
Maye was a two-year starter af Carolina after redshirting and playing behind Sam Howell as a freshman and the next season made first team All-ACC and won the conference Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year awards.
This was also a Duke-Carolina Day of sorts, as Daniel Jones hit Josh Downs with a touchdown pass in the Colts’ win over Arizona and moved to 5-1 on the season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101325%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ella Hall
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Another Maye Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It’s about more than football on the field.
The irreversible mess in which Carolina has found itself has turned into the Bill Belichick scandal metastasizing across America.
Reports continue to flow out from sources inside or close to the football program. According to multi-Emmy winner Chris Clark’s Sports Blog, “Belichick has shown a willingness to trigger his own $1 million buyout.”
That’s what the Hoodie has to pay UNC for breaking his contract, but between the $20 million guarantee Belichick has for the next two years along with two-year deals for his two sons, Mike Lombardi and his son, the total buyouts could be millions more that will undoubtedly be part of any negotiation.
Clark adds that “members of Belichick’s coaching staff have already spoken to other schools expected to be in the CFP playoff,” hoping to catch on with them. His leakers further report, “The rats are leaving the ship” and “serious recruiting violations remain under investigation at UNC.”
The Ivory Tower crowd that broke policies and rules and perhaps laws and gave him a three-year guarantee has disappeared beyond soft statements from Chancellor Lee Roberts and new Board of Trustees chair Malcolm Turner about patience. Their constituency, in fact, is losing its patience.
When Belichick and his girlfriend get off that plane in California, they will find waiting a ravenous West Coast media welcoming a hiatus from the ongoing fight between its governor and the president.
This has gone way past a bad football team with players Belichick and Lombardi inherited and a clear failure in the transfer portal. They are talking about a new freshman class coming in when they will likely lose the current freshman class. Does that sound like progress or treading water?
It has become more than what happens between the sidelines and end zones.
The girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, was a curious tidbit about Belichick when they arrived in Chapel Hill, but attempts aren’t working to get her off the sideline before games and not create so many photo opps for all kinds of media.
Perhaps the worst look was during Carolina’s first open date. The Hoodie and who he calls his “muse” jetted on a university-leased plane to strolling hand-in-hand on Nantucket Island after catching a high school football game.
Then there was Belichick banning social media mentions of the Patriots, his old NFL team he now hates whose beloved quarterback Drake Maye had his career game last Sunday night. The Maye family, from Mark to Luke to Beau to Drake, is as royal as any in UNC history. What a selfish, petty move by a six-time Super Bowl winner.
I hear and read grumblings from Carolina fans who want big time football at any cost and behavior. Most alumni are more concerned with the reputation of their university.
With all of this cannon fodder – NCAA violation, illegal hiring, a broken, unfixable locker room – UNC has plenty to begin settlement talks.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101025%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Phelan M. Ebenhack
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Bad Ending appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke has done it again with Jayson Tatum.
For the past 40 years or so, we have known that Duke not only has had one of the best basketball programs in the country, but also the smartest.
Once Coach K climbed into the saddle in his early years, he started going to Final Fours and winning national championships. Even before that, he didn’t knuckle under to wealthy Dukies who thought Cameron Indoor Stadium had to go.
While all the other schools in the ACC started to build much bigger arenas – like Carolina, which needed one (maybe not as big) to accommodate its large local fan base – Duke added by subtraction in keeping Cameron Indoor as one of the best home court advantages in the nation and instead began to expand around it.
Krzyzewski had great recruiting classes that mostly stayed four years to graduate before he suddenly pivoted to match Kentucky in signing 5-stars he knew would be one and dones. And Duke became a leader in that, too.
When he finally retired in his early 70s, Coach K didn’t need advice from any search committee to select his successor. He knew who he wanted and that was John Scheyer, a national champion and All-ACC player at Duke and one of the smartest young coaches in the game.
Since Scheyer took over, he has hired one of the first general managers in men’s basketball and kept the program at a very high level. This week, he announced former one-and-done Jayson Tatum as his new chief basketball officer. It is voluntary and may be mostly window dressing since Tatum is still an all pro.
But watch other programs follow suit. If UNC was smart, they would do the same with Michael Jordan, a billionaire whose association would be a big boon to Hubert Davis’ program. MJ is supportive behind the scenes, but he and the Tar Heels need to be more visible to capitalize on his alumni status.
In a release, Duke said Tatum will make personal visits to Duke around his rehab from an Achilles injury to rejoin the Celtics, talk with the players and coaches about personal development, professionalism and team culture, plus assisting where he can in mentoring athletes in career management, building NIL deals and handling time demands as college athletes.
Duke probably already has people to do that kind of stuff, but Tatum’s name will also help in recruiting even though as an alum he is not allowed to have direct contract with players Duke is chasing.
Maybe more cosmetic, but his association can’t hurt Duke’s brand.
The Blue Devils have another top freshman recruiting class enrolled, but Tatum’s presence will be more effective than retired pro players serving the same role unless, of course, it is someone like Jordan.
JT has already made a personal appearance at Duke’s “Countdown to Craziness,” an event that some schools including Carolina have scrapped in favor of playing more exhibition games. Why can’t you do both?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Krupa
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Blue Devilish appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has now had two football TV series canceled.
Before fall training camp started, a contract was signed by UNC with NFL Films and HBO to feature Bill Belichick and his team in the first college version of eight-part Hard Knocks series, which was celebrating its 25th year on the air.
The show had always followed preseason camps of various NFL teams. This time UNC would be highlighted because the veteran NFL legend had become the Tar Heels’ new head coach.
The contract was canceled just before training camp opened, and reportedly Belichick’s girlfriend had something to do with it because she supposedly wanted a role as an associate producer of the series.
Jordon Hudson, 24, and the 73-year-old Belichick have what he has described as a “personal and professional” relationship, and she is not employed by the university. They have been seen together from a pre-Super Bowl banquet and Super Bowl commercial, to her competing in the Miss USA pageant in Maine, to holding hands on a stroll in Nantucket during Carolina’s first open weekend and various football sidelines.
Hudson has been labeled a social media influencer, and she is not shy about showing up in public places with or near Belichick and posting pictures with him on her platforms. She has also trademarked some tag lines about the Hoodie as his personal brand ambassador.
Belichick attributed the cancellation of Hard Knocks to not having the type of coverage they were looking for after reports that Hudson wanted an influential role in the production. She accompanied him to a CBS News interview, which she interrupted on camera when the reporter asked Belichick how they met. “We’re not doing that,” Hudson said.
Then before the season began on Labor Day night, Carolina happily announced that Hulu had signed up to do a documentary series on Belichick’s first season in Chapel Hill.
“I’m excited to share with you we will be doing that, and Hulu will showcase our football program,” Belichick said in a promotional video. “This is about the UNC football program. There’s obviously a lot of interest in it, and it will stream on Hulu later this fall.”
After the Heels lost their first three games against power 4 opponents by the aggregate score of 120-33, Inside Carolina reported that Hulu also pulled the plug.
Hudson and Belichick, and several players earlier in the season, said she was not a distraction to the team in the football center or on the sidelines of practices and games, where she had been seen talking with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, UNC media director for football Brandon Faber and Belichick himself during warm-ups.
Whether they like it or not, the relationship has received national coverage from People magazine, the New Yorker, the Athletic and repeatedly by the scandalous New York Post and most recently mention in a full-page story in the Wall Street Journal.
So far, Hulu has given no reasons along with no reports of Hudson being involved.
“So far” is the operative phrase here.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100825%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/John Raoux
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sidelined appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Would UNC actually take the most expedient way out?
A detailed story by WRAL News, quoting players and a few disgruntled parents anonymously, may actually be forcing Carolina into serious meetings about what to do with Bill Belichick.
It is clearly a lack of talent, exacerbated by Belichick coaching and leading a program the only way he knows how, that could turn the so-called greatest hire in the history of college football into historic embarrassment for the oldest university in the nation.
But in college athletics, the fastest way for a coach to get fired is to have parents learn about coaching disrespect. That’s partly how former UNC women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell, who was under fire for years, lost her job when player families started sharing what they were hearing from their kids.
In most organizations, what is deemed incurable toxicity often results in a management decision to move as quickly as possible. Instead of suffering through what appears to be a protracted controversy, going in another direction is usually the choice that is made.
If that’s the decision here, the quicker it happens the sooner recovery can begin. Belichick, his girlfriend and maybe even Michael Lombardi would leave town and UNC would have to figure out how to endure the fallout.
The WRAL story has sources that talk about favoritism for some of Belichick’s players over the UNC leftovers by a staff already tinged with nepotism. That Steve and Brian Belichick are current assistant coaches makes it even more complicated.
Some alumni, fans and donors would be furious, but the university has to make a hard decision on what is best for its future. Belichick may be able to schmooze the upper crust, but so far he looks like a bad fit for an athletic department whose foundation is family, communication and on-field excellence.
If a move is made, there will be plenty of blame to go around and more of it is on South Building than a future Hall of Fame coach who was hired so quickly by a group without a true football mind present to ask the right questions.
UNC apparently has the money to invest $30 million on a new football coach, so if it’s for the greater good they will surely negotiate or come up with enough for a buyout that could be as much as $20 million. Would this actually be worth it five games in?
If UNC went ahead, with another bye week before the October 17th game at Cal, this would be the best time to do it. If so, the first call for help should go to Jeff Saturday, the beloved alumnus who served as an interim coach for his former NFL Colts team.
It would bring all of the national media about Belichick to a crescendo, but then UNC would not be in the news every day for the next year as it tries to move forward.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100725%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Right Time? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The talented new Hoop Heels do have an apparent weakness.
Hubert Davis wanted more size everywhere, and he got it. But most of that height is new or inexperienced and, at first glance, doesn’t look rugged enough. These days, you gotta have some dudes.
Carolina was small in the backcourt with R.J. Davis and Elliot Cadeau, who if they couldn’t get open on the perimeter could get to the basket on a drive, pass or pullup.
So the new Tar Heels to join Seth Trimble are taller and supposedly good shooters. They will need that because of averaged outside marksmanship last season.
And can the new bigs help fix that?
The projected starters are a senior 7-foot transfer from Arizona and a 6-9 freshman with off the charts talent; but can the duo control or hold their own equally in the paint and on the glass.
Henri Veesaar can shoot from outside and complete a feed and finish with a monstrous dunk. At the Blue-White Game Saturday, he did not win many rebounding battles for loose balls. If he has trouble with the Tar Heel second-teamers, opposite ACC bigs will be harder.
Caleb Wilson is a talent to behold. Long arms with a much quicker twitch than Veesaar. Fans may learn to love watching him warm up for his dunkathon from the layup line. But he too will face some power forwards who are bigger and stronger, if not tougher.
The almost all-new backcourt will have to help both big guys.
While taller than R.J. and Elliott, they must learn to drive the lane almost as well as their UNC predecessors.
The perimeter looks to be Trimble, potential point guard Kyan Evans and foreign shooting star Luka Bogavac. If they can move the ball and their feet and get open for looks from the arc, they can help move the team from good to great. Evans and Bogavac bring good stats from Colorado State and European pro ball, respectively.
But at this next level, they will have to produce far more than the advertised Cade Tyson, the one-season transfer who didn’t come close to shooting like he had at Belmont.
There is potentially a lot more depth. In the front court, 6-10 James Brown is back and 6-10 Zayden High returns from a university suspension after looking very good early in his freshman year. The expected help is Jarin Stevenson, the 6-10 forward Alabama transfer from Pittsboro who can shoot it from outside but is also not a real back to the basket offensive threat down low.
The best perimeter reserves are 6-5 Derek Dixon, a true freshman, and 6-6 Jonathan Powell, a starter for most of his one season at West Virginia, where he averaged 8.3 points and 3.1 rebounds per game and was the Mountaineers second best 3-point shooter.
Another unknown: how will the revenue share money the scholarship players are now making affect their performance and their pressure?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/06/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_100625.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Size and Shooting appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Dabo and Dollar Bill are mostly a match.
When the two coaches chat at midfield before the Clemson-Carolina game Saturday, they bring personal stories that are similar in some ways and miles apart in others.
Neither had a productive playing career – Belichick was decent in football but better in lacrosse at Wesleyan and Swinney as a walk-on at Alabama where he made All-SEC academic three times and went on to get an M.B.A. in Tuscaloosa.
Belichick jumped into the NFL, where they have some continuing education but not much since the players are already well-paid pros. Swinney has been an equally successful coach but says championships are his fourth priority behind teaching kids more than football, citing that 98 percent of them are not NFL-bound.
“Our purpose is graduation, number one,” Dabo said in a New Yorker article that was mostly about Belichick. “Number two is equip ’em, as men, through the game. Number three is to make sure they have a great college experience, Lastly, it is to win championships.”
Whatever is the state of academics and athletics in Carolina football, the Hoodie hides from most questions about it and any answer is short.
Swinney has won 9 ACC titles along with two national championships. Belichick has won eight Super Bowls as a coordinator and a head coach, which made him a hot hire for UNC even though he bombed out in his last few years with the Patriots.
Paul Finebaum, the SEC opinion-spewer, was right when he said Tar Heel football was “NOT going to be must-see TV” in the Belichick era, confirmed after the Labor Day blowout by TCU.
“The end of his NFL career was a disaster,” Finebaum went on. “He didn’t win a playoff game his last five years. He had losing records in three of his last five. He should have been fired earlier than he was.”
Based on its pedigree and thirst to start winning, Clemson has been installed as a 13.5-point favorite, and the personnel is so uneven the Tar Heels will try to control the clock and keep the ball but have no realistic chance to win. The game was circled when the schedule came out but now the eye test makes it more of an “X”.
The statistics say Carolina has a chance to at least keep it close; its scoring average is 15th in the ACC at 21 points per game. Clemson is dead last with just under 20 per game. They are exactly the same in defense, each allowing 22.8 points per game.
Both teams need a breakout win badly and both have had two weeks to prepare. Dabo stayed in Death Valley while Belichick jetted to see a high school game and visit Nantucket with his girlfriend.
They are also $10 million coaches with losing records against power 4 opponents.
Swinney, 55 in his 18th season at Clemson, is taking the blame for their 1-3 start. Belichick, 73, is mostly mum about being 2-2.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100325%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Foes From Afar appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Jim Tanner wants to give back and work for the greater good.
The new general manager of Carolina basketball is another UNC grad who has joined the program, just what Hubert Davis said he wanted when he took over in 2021. Tanner is a Morehead-Cain Scholar whose two children also went here.
Some eyes widened when his contract terms were released. His current base annual salary is $950,000, which could jump up another hundred grand if the 2025-26 Tar Heels earn an NCAA bid and/or they sign at least one 4-star or 5-star recruit, a given at UNC.
He has yet to hold a press conference but recently was a guest on the Carolina Insider Podcast to talk about his job. He seems like a good guy and admits he has a lot to learn.
“I felt my background and skillset and relationships could be very helpful here,” he said. “You come in, it’s a collaborative environment, and so I don’t wanna overstate what I do as compared to everybody else. I felt like a lot of my background in terms of negotiating contracts, recruiting players and their families would translate nicely to this role.”
As a professional sports agent for 28 years, Tanner is probably a big help figuring out the value of scholarship players and involved in how much rev share money they get each school year. But he is not an NCAA-designated recruiter, so he can only go off campus under certain circumstances to visit prospects.
Tanner said assistant coach Brad Frederick does most of the scouting and evaluating of players outside the U.S. The overseas addition getting most of the attention is 6-6 freshman wing Luka Bogavac from Montenegro, whose 3-point shooting should be a help to the Tar Heels improving on the .356 percent from the arc last season, with no regular making close to 40 percent. Bogavac made .398 in his second of two professional seasons abroad.
Tanner said recruiting is “a team effort, and so the coaches have input in terms of who they like and who they want us to investigate. We also have (former Tar Heel) Buzz Peterson working with us who obviously was a long-time assistant GM and scout in the NBA.
“Coach Davis really cares about character and that’s something that we’re gonna evaluate,” he added. “So you’re looking not only at what they can do on a basketball court, but how they’re gonna conduct themselves off the court as well in the community.”
Davis’ fifth Carolina team (and the first without R.J. Davis) has 11 new players and only a handful of returnees. Tanner said, so far, the chemistry has been “off the charts” and they all enjoy practice and spending personal time together, like the trip to the beach they took over the summer.
Fans can get their first look at the newest Tar Heels Saturday at the Blue-White scrimmage, which begins one hour after the football game against Clemson.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100225%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Jim Tanner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New ‘Agent’ Man appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Sounds like reality has hit Bill Belichick right between the eyes.
Think of some things Belichick and his general manager Mike Lombardi said when they arrived in Chapel Hill. The image they used a lot was building the 33rd NFL franchise.
Sounded good, especially coming from a coach who built a famous program and won six Super Bowls. But neither him nor Lombardi hardly use that anymore, if at all, in their public comments.
After one-third of their first season with the Tar Heels, whatever they expected and hoped for is not exactly happening. Two wins over mid-major opponents and two losses by a combined 61 points has had a sobering effect on alumni and fans and on them, as well.
Getting familiar with Dabo Swinney and his Clemson program, Chapel Bill would likely agree that the Tigers are the best 1-3 team in the country. And they, too, have been working on their costly mistakes just as the Tar Heels have done over both their idle weeks.
“We’re preparing for a good football team,” Belichick said Tuesday at his weekly presser of the two-touchdown favored Tigers. “They’ve lost a couple of tough games, but they obviously have a lot of talent with some very explosive players on both sides of the ball. They’re a very experienced team, and they definitely know what they’re doing.”
Belichick said that quarterback Gio Lopez is still recovering from an injury against Central Florida, and by now they know that Clemson veteran Cade Klubnik is a more talented and decorated leader.
UNC’s roster and two deeps seem forever in flux with players leaving school for undesignated reasons and others like Lopez who are fighting their way through injuries to get back on the field.
He was asked about recruiting and seemed anxious to answer a question about the future following the eight ACC games ahead.
“We can only worry about one game at a time so our focus is on Clemson,” he said and acknowledged that they don’t have a very developed roster for power college football.
“We don’t have very many players that were here when we got here, and there are only a handful that are playing who we recruited here. I look at it as I’m gonna do the best I can to coach the team today . . . and at the same time recruit and build the team for next year through the high school opportunities we have now.
“There’ll be a (transfer) portal that will occur later on, but that’s very vague at this point because nobody knows who will be in the portal. So that’s really a bridge to cross at another time. But we’ve recruited a lot of high school players that I think will be good fits in our program here.”
To date, 247Sports lists UNC as the largest recruiting class in the country, ranked No. 17 with 37 commits, seven 4 stars and the rest 3 stars.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/10%20-%20October/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100125%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC-Chapel Hill/Jon Gardiner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Future is… appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Are you ready for baseball in October?
Well, there is still a day left in September, and what a day it is to begin the Major League Baseball playoffs. You had a 12 in 30 chance that your team plays in the post-season that starts today.
My team is the Red Sox (as you probably know by now) and the BoSox have their hands full for a couple of reasons.
No. 1 is that as the fifth seed in the American League, they play the 4th-seed Yankees, their oldest and bitterest rival. And because of how the wildcard schedule was revised recently, they will have to beat the Bombers 2 out of 3 at Yankee Stadium to advance.
Why are all three games at the home park of the higher seed, you may be wondering? Me, too. It does give the Yankees an advantage, but the MLB Players Association thought it is better than the one-game wildcard play-in they had before 2022.
It all begins with best-of-three series: the Tigers at Guardians at 1 on ESPN, the Padres at Cubs at 3 on ABC, Reds at Dodgers at 9 after the Sox and Yankees first pitch at 6, both also on ESPN.
The top two division winners in each league – Blue Jays and Mariners in the American and Brewers and Phillies in the National – get first round byes and won’t play until the weekend.
May I indulge you with a few reasons why I think the Sox could actually win two out of three in the Bronx?
They played 13 games during the regular season with Boston winning nine times, four in New York. They also had a three-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park in June.
And ace Garrett Crochet, a favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award, starts the opener for the Sox. He is a fierce lefthander who will force the Yankees to keep a couple of lefty hitters out of the starting lineup, at least.
The Yanks have home run slugger Aaron Judge, who finished the regular season with 53 dingers and can easily launch one into the bleachers in right center where his personal fan section dresses in judges’ robes. And the Yanks have their own good southpaw going in Max Fried.
Another reason this series isn’t over before it starts is the pressure of winning game one and game three. The Players Association must have taken this into consideration.
If the road team wins the opener behind Crochet, the pressure falls into the lap of the higher seed in a very short series.
And like they say about any deciding game in any series – best of five or best of seven – anything can happen in the deciding game. So I like the BoSox if they can get to game three.
I also like the Guardians over the Tigers, the Cubs over the Padres and the Dodgers over the Reds to advance.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20093025%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Young
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Wild Cards appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
From real estate to the Ryder Cup in 3 years.
Anyone who is into watching international golf loves the Ryder Cup every two years, alternating sites across the ocean. It is the golfing version of European soccer.
The best and most hardened golfers from the U.S. and Europe play for their homelands and not the money. And you can tell the difference it makes to them.
The 2025 Ryder Cup ended Sunday on the Bethpage Black course in Farmingdale, New York, where it looked like thousands of people lined both sides of every fairway. The finishing holes were so packed around the greens that it seemed like a soccer stadium, with flags waving, songs belted out, and cheer after cheer after cheer.
The Americans made an amazing rally after falling so far behind the first two days that the Cup was almost out of reach. As it was, the Yanks nearly made the greatest comeback in the history of the event needing to win seven or eight of the 12 Sunday singles to catch the Euros before losing 15 points to 13.
Typical was the explosion of emotion like Shane Lowry after making the clinching birdie putt to assure the winning half point for Europe. The pressure is so steep that you can never tell who is going to play well and who is not.
There was a very special element to this one for us, because Chapel Hill’s Ben Griffin had made the team by qualifying with his fantastic year on the PGA Tour. His first Ryder Cup inexperience kept him out of playing on Friday and Saturday, but his singles match on Sunday loomed very crucial as the score tightened in the late afternoon.
The kid who literally grew up on the Chapel Hill Country Club course and became an all-ACC player for UNC failed to qualify for the PGA Tour in his first few years as a pro. He was so discouraged he left the game in 2022 and worked as a mortgage broker.
He tried again and qualified for his PGA card in his second year back. Ben won three times on the PGA Tour this year and has banked literally millions since he returned to the links and the love of his life.
Just seeing him, cool as a cucumber with those special sunglasses he wears to block chronic floaters, was a thrill. A Tar Heel and Chapel Hillian playing in the greatest tournament in golf and winning his match showed he may very well be on Ryder Cup teams for years to come.
As usual, his fiancé Dana Myerhoff, a Lehigh grad whom he met at a summer kids golf camp, was there watching him win his match. They are due to be married soon, and they look good together.
Despite the loss, it was a gripping and gallant comeback by the Americans and a brief but winning debut for our local guy.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Local and Worldly appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UNC’s Board of Trustees has gone from one spendthrift to another.
The university has never revealed exactly how Bill Belichick was hired and who negotiated his exorbitant contract that right now looks like it might be a waste of money.
Former Board of Trustees chair John Preyer was among the first at UNC to be contacted in a string of phone calls that was initiated by yet-to-be hired Mike Lombardi: from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to U.S. Senator Thom Tillis and eventually to chancellor Lee Roberts.
That was the not-so-underground in which Belichick and Lombardi and perhaps Preyer negotiated a guaranteed three-year deal worth $30 million that could be five years if both parties were happy; plus millions more for a coaching and administrative staff that all supposedly became public before Roberts and athletic director Bubba Cunningham ever signed off on it.
The above chain may not be exactly right, but it has become clear that everyone mentioned was involved from first contact to final contract, which so far is way too much money for too little results.
Preyer was publicly spanked by UNC system president Peter Hans, who said the Trustees acted beyond their capacity as an advisory board. So UNC ended up hiring a six-time Super Bowl champion head coach whose last few NFL years were duds to replace Mack Brown, UNC’s all-time coaching winner, for twice the jack.
Now that Preyer’s term as chair has ended, the Board has made Malcolm Turner his successor despite one year as the AD at Vanderbilt, where he “overspent, overspent and overspent.”
Publications from the New York Times to The Vanderbilt Hustler (the school’s student paper), say that Turner’s resignation and Hi Ho Silver out of Nashville came after running through a rainy-day fund of $17 million gifted by a wealthy alum named David Williams.
Turner, who was a Morehead-Cain Scholar at UNC, is now an executive with DraftKings, the biggest sports betting site in the country, which caused him to say he would recuse himself from any athletics issues at Carolina. Does that matter, except for looking bad?
And the Tar Heels new coach four games into his first season has already given us some bad looks on the field and onto the sideline.
According to Chris Lee of Vandysports.com, rumors of tension between Turner and Vanderbilt had “swirled for weeks” mostly due to “deficits on top of deficits on top of deficits.”
Turner was succeeded by Candace Storey Lee, a former women’s athlete at Vandy who during her five-year tenure has righted the ship financially and on the baseball and football fields, where the Commodores are nationally ranked.
Before going to Vandy, Turner ran the NBA D League (later the G-League) from where he plucked successful coach Jerry Stackhouse to lead the ‘Dores basketball program. The former Tar Heel All-American lasted five seasons before resigning in 2024 with a record of 70-92.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092625%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Neibergall
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Overspending appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
For 1-3 Clemson, Carolina is the perfect next opponent.
Let’s imagine what is going on in the football programs of the teams that will meet in Chapel Hill on October 4.
The Tar Heels are trying earnestly to improve from their unimpressive 2-2 start to the season. Clemson has lost twice on the last possession of each game and then was thoroughly outplayed at home by surprising Syracuse.
Even though their legacies are far apart in football, their brands are two of the biggest in the ACC. Clemson’s goal is to turn its season around at the expense of the host team.
Dabo Swinney has taken the lead for career victories at his school and in the ACC. But his fan base has been split over how the head coach approached the transfer portal and NIL the last few years.
He had built his program on developing some of the best recruiting classes in the country with the culture of winning with those players and not jumping to fill holes in his roster through the portal. Swinney also was late in getting started with NIL, which Carolina was as well.
So what has happened at Clemson after reaching the College Football Playoff five times and winning two national championships, along with 7 ACC titles in 9 years and regular 10-win seasons?
It is not noticeable to the casual college football fan, since Clemson won another ACC crown in 2024, but the natives are restless in Death Valley with wild speculation about who might replace Dabo if he were to leave.
“We’re not going to win the national championship,” Swinney allowed, “but we can still have a great season and enjoy the journey.”
And the Tigers are practicing hard and tinkering with a lineup that doesn’t have the same star quality at wide receiver and running back, but it wouldn’t be surprising if their game plan was to turn Carolina blue into red meat.
While Clemson will be a solid favorite to win the noon kickoff in Kenan Stadium, just winning won’t be enough to jumpstart the rest of its season. Swinney is bullish in defense of Cade Klubnik, the best quarterback he has had since Trevor Lawrence, who got his career started in the 2022 ACC championship win over UNC in Charlotte.
Whatever level of talent the Tigers have, it is far better than what Bill Belichick can put on the field in his first year coaching at Carolina. And they don’t just know they are better; they want to make a statement like TCU and UCF did in two blowouts of the Tar Heels.
Swinney thinks their alumni and fans do not have as much appreciation to match their expectations, and there is no better way to even that equation than by getting ready to play and plan to crush an inferior opponent that has a big brand and sure-fire Hall of Fame coach.
Unfortunately, the timing is perfect.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092525%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Perfect Timing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
No one expected the Bill Belichick hire would go like this.
When UNC made the extraordinary move of signing up the so-called greatest football coach ever, there were several schools of thought.
There was excitement and wonderment that a six-time Super Bowl champion head coach would take a college job at a basketball school. The UNC hierarchy involved in the hire believed the multi-million-dollar investment was worth it.
The publicity Belichick got out of the chute was incredible, as the eyes of college football were focused on Chapel Hill. After only four games, the coverage has changed from anticipation to antipathy as sentiment has turned against the new coach.
Belichick is still a national story, but the dearth of his first team and struggles on the field have given way to speculation over what will happen in the long run, which some pundits say will be a short run.
The roster he and Mike Lombardi put together in a very short window has a mixture of good players, potentially good players and guys who are playing because they are the best they have.
The overall strategy is sound for a team without a lot of talent and no quarterback with star potential. Play ball control, build the running game to work the clock and depend on the defense to keep the score low and close. But the reviews are more complicated by the media and fans watching from around the world.
James Dator of Yahoo Sports believes his chances of “figuring it out” are slim and that fault lies with Belichick himself. “The man who seemingly always had the answer in the NFL is completely lost in college football” and he says it will get worse before it gets better.
That could turn out to be 100 percent wrong by the end of this season or in his second or third year, if he stays that long. The early speculation that he would not last at Carolina has returned and, right or wrong, the program has already been headlined a disaster.
Along with that comes opinions from near and far that Chapel Bill looks disinterested in his new job. In the NFL, Dator wrote he “would never, ever spend time while his team was warming up chatting with his significant other on the sidelines and becoming a meme.”
The university is now under fire about his hiring being rushed through a closed session of the Trustees when the policy, if not a state law, says such a move has to be discussed in open session. It is a mistake the Board of Trustees has apparently made before.
There is a video floating around of Chancellor Lee Roberts effusing over how happy they are with the football program, but the date of that video is long before the season started.
Can Belichick turn all this around on the field and off? In places where the jury is still out, the chances seem smaller by the day.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092425%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Anticipation to Antipathy appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Bruce Pearl might have retired because he got tired of cheating.
Of all the controversial college basketball coaches, Pearl might have the most checkered story. The Massachusetts native who never played a game of high school basketball went from winning two national championships as a Division II coach to D1 infamy.
He was an assistant at Stanford and Iowa, where he got into his first serious trouble by recording a phone call with a recruit he had lost and turning the tape into the NCAA, which blamed Pearl after the recruit passed a polygraph test.
As a mid-major head coach he won championships in the Great Lakes Valley Conference and the Horizon League. He was a big hit at Tennessee, where he won the 2008 SEC East and made national news when he and three players showed up for a women’s game without shirts and VOLS painted in orange on their chests.
He was recruiting and building a good team in Knoxville but then invited a prospect and his family to a cookout at his home during a dead period in recruiting. He lied to the NCAA and asked the recruit’s father to do the same. After further violations, he was fired and received a three year show-cause suspension from coaching.
Good old ESPN hired him as a studio commentator because he was funny and knew a lot of basketball. That notoriety helped him land at Auburn, where he signed a six-year contract for $2.2 million and his program was ruled ineligible for postseason play in 2021 after his assistant coach Chuck Person was involved in a 2017-18 corruption scandal. Of course, Pearl claimed he had no knowledge of what happened with Person, a former Auburn star.
His Tigers eventually went to the NCAA Tournament every year they were eligible and twice made the Final Four, losing to eventual champions Virginia in 2019 and Florida last season.
Pearl announced his retirement this week, walking away from a $50 million contract that went through 2030. His son Steven is taking over, having just signed a five-year deal with the Tigers.
Pearl became ultra-popular at every school he coached until he got some of them and himself in trouble along the way. He was the first president of the Jewish Coaches Association, publicly supported Israel in its war in Gaza and blamed Hamas for the ongoing humanitarian crisis crippling the area.
Wealthy and remarried in Auburn, he has become a celebrity there and avoided the NCAA his last few years. His career coaching record is 706 wins, 268 losses. He was among the fastest to reach 300 and 700 victories, right behind Roy Williams in both.
Pearl is one of the greatest survivors in the history of college sports, recruiting and coaching great teams, moving up in the industry and able to bounce back from every rule he broke and penalty he served.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092325%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good Coach, Bad Coach appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Unfortunately, social media is here to stay.
If so-called legacy media is in jeopardy across the country, it means more of the material anyone wants to hear, read and see will find its way to the Internet and, especially, onto social media.
The growth and standards of that industry is one of the reasons Bill Belichick’s personal life is getting so much coverage these days. If Carolina’s football coach wants to protect his privacy, maybe he should revert back to the uber curmudgeon he was in the NFL.
It’s not that Belichick is uncooperative during his regularly scheduled press conferences. In fact, he gives the local media more time than he did with the NFL New England Patriots.
And if the 73-year-old coach wants to have a 24-year-old girlfriend, that is his right and up to him. But web versions of print media publications and social media platforms are having field days.
Jordon Hudson was with Belichick from his first public appearance back in December. She was reportedly warmly welcomed by officials and given flowers and other gifts from families of UNC brass. The age gap was unusual, for sure, but ever since Hudson has been in the spotlight almost as much as her boyfriend.
Mostly, it is a matter of optics in an industry where private lives are kept private unless it is Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, who Hudson apparently idolizes and follows closely. Hudson considers herself a social media influencer and does not avoid posting photos of herself and the Tar Heel coach. Normally, most people wouldn’t care.
But as brand ambassador for Chapel Bill, that is apparently part of her plan. She usually dresses in stylish but provocative outfits and ends up in places where you expect to see only players and coaches.
For example, bloggers and writers from People magazine and websites as big as Yahoo.com pay a lot of attention and publish photos of Bill and Jordon visiting on the sideline before games.
Now, if Carolina had a football team that was winning and contending for conference and national titles, the very people who helped UNC make such a historic hire might care much less.
And, supposedly, Brandon Faber was hired as a football publicist in part to deal with the distraction the coach’s young lady friend was becoming, even though Belichick and his players claim she does not interfere with their “jobs” as student-athletes.
But small town gossip has turned into national news on every form of media that cares about or covers Carolina athletics. And when your team is not doing as well as everyone expected, or hoped, the Belichick-Hudson saga gets more views than the alleged sexual abuse of athletes at N.C. State, which is a far more serious matter.
Over nine months, Belichick and his girlfriend may be causing a little chatter in South Building and on campus, but as social media keeps growing their unconventional relationship grows with it.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092225%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unconventional Optics appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What is the difference between 2-3 or 3-2 after five games?
Carolina is 2-1 with wins over Charlotte and Richmond, two opponents the likes of which may never be on the schedule again.
The ACC is ready to vote on its football teams playing at least 10 games against Power 4 competition, and if schools want a crack at making the College Football Playoff all 12 will be against Power 4s.
So beginning with Saturday’s visit to UCF, the Tar Heels begin nine straight games, eight of which are winnable. They will likely lose on October 4 to Clemson, which has started 1-2, has a week off (as does UNC) to get ready and will need to run the table to have a chance to reach the CFP.
So beating Central Florida becomes even more important. A win will make the Heels 3-1 and likely 3-2 after losing to Clemson. A loss in Orlando will leave them 2-3 for the last seven games.
If you listened to Dabo after his Tigers lost to Georgia Tech on a 55-yard field goal as time ran out, you know they will be more than ready when they arrive at Kenan Stadium.
Swinney addressed the loud minority of Clemson alumni and fans who are unhappy after the worst start since 2014, when they won nine of their last 10 games and beat the snot out of Oklahoma in a bowl game. That’s the attitude Dabo and his troops will bring here.
It’s not like Belichick will never beat Clemson as long as he stays in Chapel Hill. The point is there is no comparison between the team personnel the Hoodie put together since taking the job and the deep and talented Tigers whose coach reminded the media after losing in Atlanta.
“We’ve got two losses and both came down to the last freaking play,” he said. “We’ve got a good team.”
Swinney responds to any boobirds who might come out that Clemson went to six straight CFPs between 2015 and 2020, played in the national championship game five times and won twice (2016 and 2018). His teams have had 11 straight 10-plus win seasons and won seven ACC championships in nine years.
Clemson won 13 conference titles before he became head coach between 1953 and 2008 while Swinney has since built one of the true powerhouses in the sport.
When he gets criticized, he reminds his administration and alumni that if they would like him to coach somewhere else, he would be glad to do that. “I’m 55 and I have a lot of coaching left in me,” says the former Alabama player and assistant coach whose name is linked to the Crimson Tide on occasion.
So look for the Tigers to beat 2-1 Syracuse at home Saturday and then have two weeks off to prepare to play Belichick and his Tar Heels, the toughest game Carolina will have all season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Dalton T. Wainscott
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Stretch appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Seth Trimble has an ice cream cup that runneth over.
The leader of the Tar Heels is going to have a busy – and hopefully long – last season.
As the one returning starter and captain of the 2025-26 team, Trimble is helping integrate nine new players into the UNC system, several of whom are foreigners who already have a slight language barrier to overcome, especially 6-6 “freshman” wing Luka Bogavac.
“Luka is super funny, super personable,” Trimble said. “He just wants to get to know you and about American culture, what we do, how we hang out, what we eat, coming over from Montenegro. He’s just an incredible basketball player, plays his own pace. He’s ultra-aggressive on the offense end. And it just brings another huge aspect to our team that we can really use.”
Hubert Davis said even before last season ended that he needed to have a bigger team at all positions, knowing that 6-footer R.J. Davis would be graduating with a strong likelihood that Elliot Cadeau would enter the transfer portal.
One benefit for Trimble, himself, entering the portal after his sophomore season and opting out to return is that he has seen everything good, bad and ugly about the state of Carolina basketball.
While all the new Tar Heels seem to be meshing well in practice, Trimble may be able to see challenges coming before they actually arrive and be ready to address them with his teammates.
And then, of course, he has his new private business to look after, having bought the Ben & Jerry’s franchise on Franklin Street, which fortunately his parents are spending more time running than he does now that the new season is upon us.
“It’s super cool, more than a blessing to be a franchise owner,” he said. “I am trying to set my own path, be my own person, and set an example for athletes to come. NIL just keeps expanding and growing with more opportunities for players like me.”
The 6-3 senior has more game than ever and wants to keep the hot shooting going that he demonstrated the first half of last season before cooling off when he missed three games with a concussion.
He wants to make the new Tar Heel backcourt complementary to senior Henri Veesaar, freshman Caleb Wilson, transfer Jaren Stevenson and returning sophomore Zayden High more effective than last year’s front court that did not grab enough rebounds or block enough shots. What is he telling the newcomers?
“We gotta bring it day in and day out in practice,” Seth said. “You gotta have unity as a team. You’re gonna have struggles but also learn a lot. And just continue to battle through adversity like we went through with a lot of ups and downs. We tried our best to stay together, hold each other accountable as a group. Those are some of the biggest things I took away.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091825%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Frank Franklin II
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Super’ Seth appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Are you wondering why Notre Dame is ranked this week?
The Fighting Irish are 0-2 and still No. 24 in the AP poll and No. 21 in the coaches’ poll.
The most politically powerful college football program in the country lost its first two games of the season and somehow is still ranked. The Irish lost at Miami in their opener, 27-24, and lost at home to Texas A&M, 41-40.
Let’s quote Heather Dinch of ESPN:
“Here’s why Notre Dame is not in my top 25 this week,” she said. “They haven’t won a football game.
“I’m sorry, you may have wanted more than that!
“They are 135th in the country in tackles made.
“They are 134th in broken tackles.
“They are 117th in plays over 10 yards.
“They are 116th in rushing yards per game.
“They are 124th in first downs made.
“They are 126th in pass defense.
“They are 108th in the country with 413 yards allowed per game.
“That’s why Notre Dame is not in my Top 25 this week. And did I mention they haven’t won a game?”
As for stats and rankings, 2-1 Carolina’s game at 2-0 UCF Saturday will depend a lot on how the opposing quarterbacks play.
Gio Lopez has seemed to improve in his first three games but still doesn’t have his timing down in his jump from mid-major football at South Alabama to Power 4. Bill Belichick is sticking with Lopez and fifth-year senior Max Johnson didn’t get into the 41-6 blowout of Richmond last Saturday.
The Knights will be playing at home and in coach Scott Frost’s second tenure at the school has about as many new players as Carolina and some of them have played very well in their wins over North Carolina A&T and Jacksonville State.
Like Lopez, starting quarterback Cam Fancher was injured in the first game of the season and gave way to Tennessee and Indiana transfer Tayven Jackson who has played well enough to keep the job against the Tar Heels after an idle weekend. The 6-4 junior has completed 29 of 45 passes for two touchdowns and no picks and has also run for two more scores.
Neither team is close to getting ranked but their schedules ramp up this week, and a win in the 3:30 game in Orlando (on Fox) will improve the victor’s resume as both head into conference play after this one.
Belichick was asked at his weekly press conference how Lopez is coming along.
“A couple of the Gio’s throws came out real quick,” he said. “The ball got there just in time. There’s a difference between anticipating the receiver being open, then seeing him open and throwing the ball.
“If you wait until he gets open, a lot of times that window closes by the time you get him the ball and it’s too late.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091725%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Paul Beaty
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: To Be Ranked? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Other Tar Heels had a great NFL weekend, too.
Drake Maye was far from alone among his Carolina brethren over the second week of the NFL season.
Mack Hollins, who played for UNC’s last winning team before Mack Brown returned, has surfaced in New England as a good blocker and sneaky receiver. He scored the Patriots’ first touchdown against Miami on a great route and touch pass from Maye.
Besides his two scoring passes, Maye completed 19 of 23 attempts for 230 yards with no interceptions and wound up with a quarterback rating of 137 while outdueling the Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa in a game that featured back-to-back touchdowns on long kick returns.
Touchdown Tez Walker, who had a cup of coffee in Chapel Hill, was targeted twice by Lamar Jackson and caught both passes for touchdowns as the Ravens clobbered the bad Cleveland Browns.
Dyami Brown caught five passes from Trevor Lawrence, one for a touchdown, in the Jaguars’ loss to the Bengals, whose star quarterback Joe Burrow severely injured his toe early in the 31-27 win over Jacksonville and is out for three months. Brown caught 16 passes in his last of four seasons in Washington before moving on.
Dyami’s Tar Heel teammate Javonte Williams led the Cowboys in rushing with 97 yards on 18 carries in their incredible overtime win against the Giants. Javonte also had six receptions for an additional 33 yards as the Boys tied the game on a 64-yard field goal and won it in overtime on Brandon Aubrey’s fourth field goal of the game.
On Monday Night Football, rookie Omarion Hampton had a second effective game, despite a late fumble, as the Chargers beat the Raiders 20-9 in Las Vegas. The Big O had eight carries for 24 yards. None were bigger than his two rushes late in the first half to get his team away from its own goal line, the last one where he broke three tackles and kept his balance for an 8-yard first down.
Despite Mack Brown’s up-and-down career at UNC, he recruited and sent more players to the NFL than any of his head coaching predecessors, including eight of the total 28 Tar Heel first rounders. In his two tenures, Brown helped build the brand that Bill Belichick’s presence could take to another level.
As of yesterday, there were 15 Tar Heels on active NFL rosters, including Josh Downs with the Colts, Ty Chandler with the Vikings, Cole Holcomb with the Steelers, Charlie Heck with Tampa Bay, Mike Hughes with the Falcons, Asim Richards with Dallas, M.J. Stewart with Houston, Cedrick Gray with the Titans, and Josh Ezeudu with the Giants.
Overall, the Tar Heels have had about 250 players picked in the NFL draft since it started in 1936, although that isn’t close to schools with the ten most – from Notre Dame’s 525 to Georgia’s 371.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/16/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091625%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Dean
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Roster Highlights appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
My two hometown teams made me a couch potato.
I had grand plans for the weekend after Carolina’s big win over Richmond. First, I was on deadline to write a column about it.
But Saturday night, I went to a birthday party for the wife of Tom LaGarde, the 7-foot former Tar Heel basketball star who once worked on Wall Street and roller-skated around Manhattan.
It was a great party at their seven-acre farm in Snow Camp, where they moved 20 years ago. But it gave me a short deadline to finish the Art’s Angle column Sunday morning.
I wanted to take a bike ride before the Patriots game against the Dolphins. I still love all the pro teams from my Boston upbringing, especially the Patriots because of their new quarterback, second year star Drake Maye from UNC.
Never got on the bike since I watched the NFL pregame shows to hear what they were saying about Maye, who had a so-so game in the opening day loss to the Raiders. The talking heads predicted he would do much better. And he did, throwing for two touchdowns and running for another in the Pats’ thrilling 33-27 victory over the Fins.
There were three or four other games that went down to the wire, including the Chiefs second loss of the season and third straight to the Eagles, who beat them in the Super Bowl last February.
Then it was almost time to watch the Yankees-Red Sox game, a true must win for the Bosox after dropping the first two games of the series in the race for an American League wild card spot. But first I had to check the golf channel and see if Chapel Hill’s Ben Griffin still had the lead over Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, in the Procore championship out in Napa. And he did by one stroke midway through the final round.
When the Bosox scored six runs in the first inning, it gave me a chance to switch back and forth from baseball to golf, and Griffin had a chance to win on the 72nd hole, but he missed the birdie putt and Scheffler won by a shot over his new Ryder cup teammate.
The Yankees were chipping away with two in their fourth inning, one in the fifth on another Aaron Judge home run and the Sox never scored again. It all came down to the top of the ninth when former Yankee and now Sox closer Aroldis Chapman fanned the last batter and gave his trademarked stare at the 27th out for the Yanks.
The Patriots and Maye won an amazing back and forth game, the Red Sox held on to win and stay in the wild card race, and Griffin showed he would be on the PGA Tour for years to come. What day on the couch! Biking on Monday.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091525%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Rebecca Blackwell
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Super Sunday appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The natives are restless about Belichick football.
Do we even have to call Richmond a must win Saturday? Kind of goes without saying about a team that is literally not in Carolina’s league if the Heels want to go on and have a good season.
Apparently, the 20-3 win at Charlotte didn’t float enough boats. The blogosphere wanted Max Johnson to at least play in the game and keep the criticism of offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens from going overboard.
Kitchens was caught saying that he never applied for or even asked Bill Belichick for the job. He just hung around to see what would happen, and apparently his checkered history in the NFL and being a head coach at Cleveland six years ago was enough.
So while Chancellor Lee Roberts was giving the new coach the game ball after beating the 49ers for his first college victory, people want more from the Hoodie, who hasn’t swooned everybody so far.
Was holding Charlotte to 271 total yards good enough against a team quarterbacked by Conner Harrell, who has already accumulated as many total yards in two games as in two back-up seasons with the Tar Heels?
And UNC’s running game against Charlotte was led by a three-star freshman, who thrilled visiting fans with a 19-yard run, the longest for both sides. They say Johnson would have made a big difference.
Johnson didn’t play a snap, which is an NFL trait of leaving the quarterback in there unless it is a true blowout, which it wasn’t. Gio Lopez and mended Max have each thrown one TD pass so far. Lopez had 18 last season at South Alabama, nine fewer than Johnson’s 27 at LSU as a sophomore.
That’s why Richmond needs to be a slaughter from the opening kick at 3:30. The Spiders are also 1-1 after losing to mighty Lehigh and edging Wofford, both FCS teams, code for what used to be Division I-AA.
The crowd that shows up in sold-out Kenan Stadium will tell us if Belichick is for real so far. Remember when Carmichael Auditorium was always packed to the rafters no matter the opponent? They came to see Dean Smith’s Tar Heels, period.
Charlotte and Richmond are supposed to be warm-up games for the true test to show how far Dollar Bill’s patchwork team has come.
Next week is a trip to Orlando for Central Florida, which drubbed North Carolina A&T 68-7 and had a 17-10 win over Jacksonville State.
Head coach Scott Frost pulled a Mack Brown, returning to UCF after five losing seasons at his alma mater Nebraska. Frost could be the answer to a trivia question: Who played for a 13-0 team (the 1997 Cornhuskers) and coached a 13-0 team (the 2017 Knights)?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091225%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Nell Redmond
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: We’ll See Saturday appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina’s brand landed Henri Veesaar.
The Tar Heels have had about the same program as Arizona the last two years, when 7-foot Henri Veesaar was a reserve center for the Wildcats.
They both made the NCAA Tournament, but Arizona had better results by advancing to the Sweet 16 before losing to Final Four-bound Duke last season. The Cats went out with a five-point loss to Clemson in the Sweet 16 the year before.
Caleb Love transferred to Arizona in the spring of 2023. Love and R.J. Davis were both conference players of the year in 2024. Love had his best college season in Tucson and the old Pac-12 as Davis was excelling here while also making first team All-American.
They both used their COVID eligibility and didn’t have seasons like the year before, with their personal stats dropping and their teams both finishing with worse records than the year before.
Their coaches?
Tommy Lloyd served 20 seasons under future Hall of Famer Mark Few at Gonzaga. Hubert Davis had nine seasons working for already HOF member Roy Williams. Gonzaga played in two NCAA championship games, losing to Carolina in 2017 and Baylor in 2021. Williams’ third natty came after just missing another the year before.
Veesaar, the presumed starting center alongside freshman power forward Caleb Wilson, played 7 minutes a game as a freshman and 20 minutes as a redshirt sophomore. He averaged 2.4 points his first year and 9.4 last season with 1.1 blocks per game, which Carolina really needs from him.
Davis saw Veesaar as one of the pieces to literally rebound from a subpar season in the paint. The Estonia native said he was sold on his visit, the only one he took. “Seeing the campus, seeing the fans here, the whole city felt like a great place to be and an amazing place to play basketball.”
Seth Trimble, the only returning starter, spent the most time with Veesaar during his visit. Henri had watched Trimble play and loves his speed on the break.
“The way he goes downhill, we’re going to complement each other so great. I will be able to pop and he’s gonna have more room… he’s an amazing passer on the pick and rolls and sees pocket passes. And he can dunk on anyone even if he’s seven feet, the bigs will have to make a decision early and that opens up the passing lanes.”
He said Hubert Davis and staff want him to “go hard on offensive rebounding and [defensively] alter shots and blocks shots,” which Veesaar said is his favorite part of the game.
How much influence was Caleb Love on his decision?
“I am close with Caleb and he said ‘a great place, the coaches are really going to push me to be a better player.’”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/11/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_091125.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Lindsey Wasson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The New Big appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UNC’s two new football teams are off to understandable starts.
Bill Belichick was using his football coaching code when he repeatedly said, “We have 70 new players,” referring to transfers and freshmen whom he knew would take time congealing into a winner.
His other, off-the-field team of assistant coaches and support staff would also face adjustments in getting familiar with him and their new surroundings, but that would be easier from prior relationships.
General Manager Mike Lombardi, who worked for the Hoodie in Cleveland and New England, was going with Belichick whether he landed another NFL job or took his first college coaching position.
Lombardi is a well-spoken stand-in for the head coach whether in front of the media or hosting his various radio and TV shows. He knows Belichick better than anyone and can explain him well.
On Monday night’s newly renamed Carolina Football Live hour from Top of the Hill, Lombardi has great chemistry with host Jones Angell and helps introduce players appearing as guests on the show.
He knows exactly what Belichick wants to do and, as an author of six football books, talks articulately about the game and how his boss builds a program from meetings to practice to autumn weekends.
Lombardi would not say so but likely knew that Carolina could not beat a bigger, more experienced TCU team from the Big 12 in the opener that attracted a record number of people to Chapel Hill.
“The Old Well Walk was like something I had never experienced before,” he said. “Now, I was in Super Bowl parades after we won, but we hadn’t won anything here yet and everyone still came out.”
And he helps Angell engage with player guests like quarterback Gio Lopez, who was named a starter despite a short practice window to prepare, and said his 6-foot size made some schools pass on him.
“He’s a great long ball thrower,” Lombardi said of the sophomore who had never taken a snap from under center – just in the shotgun – before he arrived at UNC. And he is now doing both pretty well.
Lopez talked about how all the new players have gotten to know each other, are working hard and having fun getting to know their new head coach, who they often find on the treadmill before practice.
How the 1-1 season plays out from here, no one knows while the expectations remain high. The Tar Heels should notch their second win versus FCS Richmond at home Saturday at 3:30.
But the true test of their progress will come at 2-0 Central Florida of the Big 12 in Orlando on September 20 and, after an idle weekend, hosting 12th-ranked Clemson on October 4 in Kenan Stadium.
If both of these Tar Heel teams continue to bond, they could win any of their remaining seven games against ACC opponents predicted to finish below No. 8 Carolina in the conference picks by the media.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091025%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Growing Teams appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
State and Carolina are anchoring the first network poll.
The Wolfpack and Tar Heels are like ships in the night when it comes to the preseason college basketball rankings. They are the last two teams in ESPN’s top 25 and two of only four picked from the ACC.
State has a new coach and a new attitude. Will Wade promises a reckoning in his first season with the Pack. He is a promoter and perhaps talked his way into the No. 24 spot. Wade has a projected starting lineup of five transfers including Ven Allen Lubin, who moved up I-40 from Chapel Hill. Wade’s other transfers from power conferences include projected top scoring forward Darrion Williams from Texas Tech, where he averaged 15 points last season.
The Carolina cast is also different besides senior Seth Trimble, but the Heels’ pick at No. 25 is still remindful of the program that eked into the NCAA Tournament last season by making the First Four.
Luka Bogavac averaged 15 points as a pro in Montenegro a year ago. UNC’s most talented prospect is 6-9 true freshman Caleb Wilson, a multi-skilled 5-star from Atlanta who is already on the 2026 NBA mock draft board and the highest rated recruit Hubert Davis has signed in five years. Other projected starters are Colorado State transfer Kyan Evans and 7-foot Arizona transfer Henri Veesaar.
Louisville is No. 7 and Duke No. 12, with Boozer twins following their father Carlos to Durham, as the ACC’s highest ranked schools in the ESPN poll. Only the Big East with three – No. 4 UConn, No. 5 St. Johns and No. 22 Creighton has fewer. The completely rebuilt Pac 12 has one team, but a good one in Gonzaga at No. 19.
There is no question about the ACC’s slide from preeminence in basketball. The Big 12 has six teams in the top 25, No. 3 Houston, No. 6 BYU (an exhibition opponent for the Tar Heels) and No. 10 Texas Tech as the only conference with three teams in the top 10. There is also No. 13 Arizona, No. 18 Iowa State and No. 21 Kansas, which visits the Smith Center on November 7.
The SEC also has six led by No. 2 and defending national champion Florida, No. 9 Kentucky and No. 11 Arkansas, followed by No. 14 Auburn, No. 17 Alabama and No. 23 Tennessee, where veteran coach Rick Barnes has signed a lifetime contract with the Vols.
The Big Ten has five ranked teams, including No. 1 pick Purdue, looking for its second Final Four trip in three years, No. 8 Michigan, No. 15 UCLA, No. 16 Illinois and No. 20 Wisconsin.
ESPN calls this its “way too early top 25,” which is truer than ever because so many teams have so many new players. Game program sales will go up in most arenas just so the fans can tell who is who.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Vasha Hunt
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Who Are These Guys? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Despite the win, it was a bad weekend for the Hoodie’s legacy.
Through his dominant NFL coaching career, which will land him in the NFL Hall of Fame, Bill Belichick didn’t care much about anything except his players and winning. And now that he’s 600 miles away from New England, his shadow remains long from there to here.
Belichick got his first college coaching win, but beyond the final score of 20-3 over an inferior mid-major the relationship with his old team is still making headlines. The Boston Globe covers him like he is stalking the Patriots sideline.
When news broke that anyone from his old team was being banned from Kenan Football Center, the Hoodie played the old game of tit for tat. “It’s clear I am not welcomed in their facility, so they aren’t welcomed in ours,” he said.
We’re not sure why he is a persona non grata in Foxboro, other than the Patriots are trying to move past his bad ending when they missed the playoffs three times and lost his last playoff game in a blowout at Buffalo.
And with another new coach, famous two-way player Mike Vrabel, they didn’t look much better in a 20-13 opening day loss to the Raiders and Las Vegas’ new coach Pete Carroll, who at 74 has replaced Belichick as the oldest in the NFL.
The boisterous Boston media was all over the team for a showing not much better than their 4-13 record of 2024, and former Carolina glamour guy Drake Maye hardly started like he finished his rookie season. Hopefully it is not a sign of a sophomore slump.
Maye looked good with an early touchdown pass that provided a 10-7 lead at halftime and he was 19 of 24 passing before being pressured into a critical interception that turned the game around. He finished 30 of 46 through the air and showed none of his running skills that marked his rookie campaign.
Yes, it was raining at Gillette Stadium, but on both teams including Raiders quarterback Geno Smith who clearly outplayed Maye as the Patriots managed only a field goal in the last minute of the game.
“I’ve just got to do better on my part,” Maye told the Globe afterward. “Just be quicker. Make more throws. We’ll bounce back and at the same time learn from it. It’s one game and a long season and do what I need to do to play better to help the guys around me.”
In the 13 games Maye has started in the NFL, he has thrown 16 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions, plus lost six fumbles.
While the tough New England media hasn’t turned on Maye, it certainly has made Belichick a punching bag. Blaming him for everything is easier than stomaching another losing season.
They know Maye has potential but are implying the older coach they love to hate is over the hill in Chapel Hill.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/08/sports%20notebook%2009-08-25.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Blame Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UNC is a weird example of what’s happening to college football.
Yes, the new Tar Heels of Bill Belichick are the laughingstock of sports and social media after their embarrassing debut that ruined an unprecedented opening night at Carolina.
The good news was that thousands of fans, who normally fill up Kenan Stadium midway through the first quarter, arrived hours ahead of the 8 p.m. kickoff to take in the newly created Chapel Thrill.
Polk Place was shoulder-to-shoulder halfway back to South Building. Boxes of free lighted wristbands emptied as students and fans made Kenan glitter before UNC-TCU took over.
And the crowd that believed in “Belichick ball” went nuts when the Heels drove 83 yards for a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead. But after the better, deeper and more prepared Horned Frogs were on their way to 41 unanswered points, the buzzkill began and the stadium started to empty out.
After all, ESPN scheduled the late kickoff on a holiday, which meant people who spent most the afternoon in Chapel Hill headed home with a headache for reentry into the real world of work and school.
TCU had a superior team against a rag-tag bunch in light blue made up of Mack Brown remains, 42 transfers and 30 true freshmen. The national attention was great, but an opener against Elon would have kept the Belichick promise alive a little longer.
The NFL where Belichick became a coaching legend operates with similar numbers but far different ingredients. Pro rosters and their “taxi squads” of reserves are all hardened pros from college careers or time with other franchises. So when respected A-team analyst Kirk Herbstreit featured his golden retriever in the ESPN booth during the second half, those still watching knew the game had gone to the dogs. “They’re bad,” he said into a hot mic.
In giving up more points than any of his teams ever had, Belichick’s record without co-six-time Super Bowl champ TB12 fell to 83-107. They went more than two hours without completing a pass, and without two turnovers that turned into touchdowns, the final score could have been far more respectable 34-14.
And Jordon Hudson got much of the attention the game did not. Long-lens cameras caught her on the sideline talking to her much older boyfriend during warm-ups.
So the “distraction” that Hudson was supposedly causing, prompting UNC to hire a veteran publicist to dumb it down, was part of the coverage when it was supposed to be all Chapel Bill. It will be harder for her to hide at Charlotte’s 15,000-seat mini-stadium.
The Tar Heels need more than a social media “influencer” whose posts promote her man and some of his players. The stars who watched from upstairs Monday night won’t be back unless the Hoodie can pull something out of a hat.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20-%20090525.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Chapel Shrill appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Hubert Davis hired a general manager and won’t say much about it.
On his Monday night radio show last February 3, Davis said that his job has changed so much that he needs a general manager, similarly to what Bill Belichick has in Mike Lombardi.
“I am gonna increase the staff and it’s needed,” Hubert told Jones Angell. “I never would’ve thought that four years ago when I took the job. I’m a hundred percent on we need a general manager.”
Davis added, “Now there’s so much your plate that it will take you away from doing what’s most important, coaching basketball. And so, yes, we’re gonna hire a GM.”
Hubert might have been emotional after an 87-70 loss at Duke two nights before that was more lopsided than the score indicated. And the Blue Devils had hired one of the first general managers in college basketball, Rachel Baker, who worked for Nike and the NBA.
Davis’ hire came toward the end of last season, UNC alum and Morehead Scholar Jim Tanner, whose contract was released to show he earns close to a million dollars a year with a lucrative bonus structure.
But, strangely, Tanner has kept a low public profile in Chapel Hill, and a spokesman for the basketball office said there are no plans for him to hold a press conference but will “probably do something on our podcast” with Angell.
Additionally, the spokesman said, Tanner “works with the coaches to identify players and negotiates rev-share contracts, doesn’t recruit off campus but constantly talks roster building with Hubert and the rest of the coaching staff.”
Lombardi does a Monday morning interview on 97.9 The Hill that Mack Brown did for six years and hosts the weekly one-hour show from Top of the Hill instead of Belichick. Lombardi has been on the Carolina Insider podcast and talked about his duties helping the Hoodie evaluate players they might recruit and, like Tanner, also negotiates rev-share contracts with current team members.
Davis said in his press conference this week that he has known Tanner for a long time and the staff of four assistant coaches and Hubert all work well together. The hoop Heels have veteran senior Seth Trimble and nine new players this season, so there is/was a lot of negotiating going on.
The spokesman said he is not allowed to recruit off campus despite the conjecture that Tanner helped Hubert sign two new foreign players (6-6 guard Luka Bogavac from Montenegro and 7-footer Ivan Matlekovic from Croatia) to contracts this season.
Still, with the tremendous interest in Carolina basketball, Davis and Tanner need to be more transparent.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/04/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_090425.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Brandon Dill
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Transparency appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Bill Belichick dispute has turned red hot.
Four Corners of the UNC campus yammered about the hiring of the new football coach and, apparently, have been doing it ever since he was introduced in December. The 48-14 drubbing TCU delivered Monday night has suddenly made it worse.
Those Four Corners are the football program itself; the athletic department to whom Belichick reports; South Building where Chancellor Lee Roberts is the boss of everyone who works at UNC; and the Rams Club and Development being asked to raise millions for more scholarships and other expenses supporting the athletic administration and staff, coaches and athletes.
And when the exciting and glorious celebrity-filled day deteriorated from ultimate anticipation into a total dud, there was no mythical Phil Ford in the middle getting everyone to play together.
Belichick’s hire was national news and still is from CNN Tuesday morning to ESPN all day to bloggers and posters galore. Few football pundits picked Carolina to win the Hoodies’ college debut but even fewer expected the Heels to send an over-capacity crowd home early or TV watchers cut it off and go to bed.
It all began with the love-hate end to Mack Brown’s second tenure at UNC, how Brown said he planned to stay, and Bubba Cunningham had to fire him before the last game of last season.
For those who loved Brown’s folksy, talkative style to those who felt it was time for him to go, the long-distance dismissal looked so bad that it had to sour some other head coaches who might have been interested in taking over, or considering, Carolina. Meanwhile residents of all Four Corners were talking about what happened.
For the athletic department, it brought apprehension that Belichick would hire a lot of staff that could force many of those who worked there into downgraded positions or leave altogether.
For the football program, a coaching turnover always threatens any long-standing paradigm on how things are run and done.
For Roberts, a Duke graduate with a business background and little acumen for college athletics, it might have had something to do with Cunningham’s shift to be his consigliore.
And for the Rams Club, through which so many dollars flow, it wondered what would be needed for expanding scholarships and extra money to help with a $60 million budget increase.
Some of the long-leaning liberal faculty members were aghast at Belichick’s $10 million annual salary with their own budgets being cut, while alumni and fans were pitched to donate more money and/or buy stuff.
It’s a short walk between the Four Corners, so lots of conversations were being heard and debated. The salve would be Belichick living up to his hype and winning championships to help them all.
But when the fallacy of concocting a winning roster of 70 new players became a reality, everyone involved inside and around Four Corners had an opinion on how it happened.
Suddenly, Charlotte has gone from a sure win to a must win.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090325%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Four Corners appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
We’re on to Charlotte and Max.
Bill Belichick’s infamous line (sub, Cincinnati) after the Patriots got blown out by the Chiefs in 2014 can be the theme for his Tar Heels getting absolutely destroyed by TCU, souring what had been a memorable day of celebration in Chapel Hill.
And now that quarterback Gio Lopez hobbled off the field after a checkered start in power college ball, Belichick will be “on to Max” from an undersized mid-major transfer from South Alabama.
Max Johnson’s miraculous recovery from a gruesome broken leg in last season’s opener at Minnesota almost a year ago will be the story going into Carolina’s next foe, at Charlotte, in five days. He came on and produced the Tar Heels’ second touchdown late in the third quarter, long after TCU had shown they were the much better team.
This was the Hoodie’s college football debut, and his non-stop national publicity on his surprise move from the NFL will be the next punch line until Belichick finds a way to change all that. Laughs about legendary preparedness, despite more than 70 unknown players, will be among the stomach punches from Durham, Raleigh and beyond.
First of all, what happened?
Carolina had a beautiful opening drive of 83 yards in 7 plays with Lopez’s two completions and Caleb Hood’s TD slant. That will be partly credited to offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchen’s scouting of the Horned Frogs defense. But TCU adjusted and outscored Belichick’s boys 48-7. It was game over, and the air over Kenan Stadium that was electric just an hour before quickly left the balloon — soon to be followed by the sellout crowd that began its slow trudge home.
Second of all, college football will never be pro football no matter how much money they give the players. Every NFL roster consists of 53 elite former college studs who worked their way to stardom. As a collegiate coach, Belichick will always have first-year freshmen and transfers from who knows where, which he and his staff will try to make into a decent offense and defense in the 11 remaining games.
And wasn’t that a factor in awarding the starting position to Lopez, who apparently looked so good in practice against an unready defense that he got the nod over a two-time SEC starting QB? According to Belichick, he had.
Johnson must have been recouping for most of training camp because over the last 16 minutes of the game he had a stronger arm, quicker release and far better results than Lopez. Johnson comes from a football family; his dad Brad won a Super Bowl with the Buccaneers, and his kid brother Jake caught UNC’s only TD pass from Max.
TCU brought plenty of rowdy fans from Fort Worth, who were very loud early and were the most people left when the game clock hit zero. Either to make a point or just after downing another pint, they began yelling at the Carolina sections, “Basketball School! Basketball School!”
One brave and honest fan in light blue yelled back, “We haven’t been that good in basketball lately.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/09%20-%20September/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090225%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via AP Photo/Chris Seward.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Balloon Burst appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke and State opened the season in typical ACC fashion.
Consider how the Blue Devils and Wolfpack began as heavy favorites and looked like they could have lost after three quarters.
Duke had tons more size and speed than Elon. State was looking to make up for the bowl game it gave away to East Carolina last year. Somehow, both were still one-score games early in the fourth.
If you watched them, compare what you might see this weekend involving SEC and Big Ten teams. As usual, there will be no comparison, sorry.
Both ACC teams were at home, State with the regular capacity crowd that is one big party from an hour before the kickoff through the dramatic last drive. Duke had another turnout that looked like the visiting team brought as many fans as Dukies who showed up.
Each team has exciting quarterbacks who could have great seasons.
Darian Mensah is the transfer the Blue Devils really needed. The sophomore was rumored to receive seven figures for coming from Tulane, where Duke will visit in week three and may be an underdog.
Mensah had a slow start, which was expected with all the hype, but finished with 389 yards passing and three touchdowns, no picks. He led three TD drives in the fourth quarter that turned a close game into a blowout final score of 45-17.
Sophomore C.J. Bailey showed why State could be very dangerous on offense this season even with a running game almost as bad as East Carolina’s. Bailey was the star with 340 yards of total offense that included running and passing touchdowns.
The Pirates ran for a paltry 30 yards, which is about one third of the winning touchdown jaunt that pulled out the Military Bowl win last December when it looked like State had the W in the bag.
Both games had explosive plays by explosive players.
The Blue Devils kept allowing little Elon to stay within one score before finishing with more than 500 yards of total offense, another reason it should have been a rout early on, when the Phoenix’s barely 6-foot QB Landen Clark looked almost as good as Mensah.
ECU’s senior transfer quarterback Katin Hauser, who played some at Michigan State before downgrading to Greenville, looked rattled with the State crowd roaring, but he outplayed Bailey in the second half and could not convert a fourth-and-1 in the Wolfpack red zone that would have tied the game, or won it with a 2-point conversion, in the last minute of play. Hauser wound up with 382 yards of the Prates’ total offense while the rest of the team had 47.
State coach Dave Doeren looked pale at the prospect of ECU doing it again and left the field as a half-happy man with the 24-17 victory. His next four games against Virginia, Wake Forest, Duke and Virginia Tech will tell us more than we learned about State on opening night.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl DeBlaker
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mediocre Starts appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What are Carolina’s advantages, if any, over TCU?
Well, the Tar Heels are playing at home, where a capacity crowd at Kenan Stadium will be rowdy and ready for the opening game, which has to be the most anticipated in program history.
And there is Bill Belichick, whose presence stalking the home sideline has to mean something as far as preparing a virtually unknown roster. His coaching staff has plenty of TCU tape to watch in preparation for this game. So that’s good.
It is also good the Horned Frogs aren’t looking at tape on the Tar Heels or even their few returning players because it is a whole new team and scheme. That will change with future foes Charlotte, Richmond and Central Florida having something to see and study.
Among TCU’s multiple advantages is as an established program that won nine games last year and was in the four-team College Football Playoff in 2022. Won’t the Frogs be fired up to play and try to beat the infamous Hoodie?
From a personnel standpoint, TCU has veteran players and a lot of them back from last year’s 9-4 team, “They play from sideline to sideline,” Belichick said Wednesday in his first pre-game presser.
Josh Hoover is a proven quarterback who turned down Tennessee to keep flinging in his home state under an offensive coordinator who has a story of his own. Kendal Briles is the son of offensive guru Art Briles, who coached Kendal at Houston and was his boss at Baylor for nine seasons. Kendal’s first season as a play caller was in 2015, which ended with a 49-38 win over 10th-ranked Carolina in the Russell Athletic Bowl, where the Bears set a record for that bowl with 756 yards of total offense that included 645 yards rushing by four tailbacks who took the place of two injured quarterbacks.
TCU is Briles’ sixth school as offensive coordinator, and he likely won’t have to resort to any trickery against the Tar Heels. Hoover, a 6-2 junior, set the school record last year with 3,949 yards passing and tied Andy Dalton for the fourth most touchdown passes (27).
Head coach Sonny Dykes called his fate another case of “bad scheduling” because TCU opened the 2023 season with a loss against Colorado and its celebrity coach Deion Sanders. “Not sure how we pulled that off again,” Dykes joked.
In his fourth year running the TCU program, Dykes said of that opener against the Buffaloes, “We didn’t handle all the hype. I’ve got to do a better job of getting our team more focused on just playing a football game than worrying about who we’re going to play against.”
Dykes said his staff has been watching a lot of tape on the New England Patriots from Belichick’s heyday in the NFL. And some of the University of Washington last season, where Steve Belichick made the Huskies’ defense a whole lot better.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082825%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/LM Otero
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Bad Scheduling!’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Seth Reeves is the right guy to run the Rams Club.
The new executive director of the Educational Foundation is destined to have an easier start than his popular predecessor John Montgomery.
While an athletic director doesn’t necessarily have to be an alumnus of his school, the chief athletic fundraisers have an advantage if they already know all the names and faces of former star students.
After getting his master’s in athletic administration from UNC, Reeves worked for Learfield and Tar Heel Sports Properties selling sponsorships before being wooed by the Rams Club to move over.
And in nine years under Montgomery, Seth has enough knowledge to take the Rams Club to another, and very important, level with the transition of college sports to, shall we call it, semi-pro.
Reeves is subtly smart and, unlike most salesmen, listens more than he talks. That’s how he really gets to know the people he is pitching, and in his new role of finding just the right fit.
I worked with Reeves when an intern in graduate school, and he came in thinking he might like to be an athletic director someday. But he got hooked on the relationships he built by creating customized packages for clients in large and small businesses.
His colleagues at the Rams Club got to know Reeves, who eventually thought raising money for scholarships and other athletic department needs might be better than selling to companies whose management changed often and the relationship building had to start all over again.
He learned his new job from Montgomery and stalwarts like the late Eric Montross, who passed away too early while he was perfect to head up the Dean Smith Fund, which had once been taboo.
Smith had always told his former players that they didn’t have to give money to the university because their effort on the court and in the classroom was enough payback.
Montross was so genuine and brilliant, he worked with his ex-coach to change the paradigm, and the list of former Tar Heels who made big gifts to UNC became longer, whether publicly or privately.
Going outside to replace “Monty” would have put that guy behind in the revenue race that Reeves will now lead with two generations of alumni who already know him, like him and trust him.
And Seth will continue to do his job and manage others on the staff to help the Rams Club keep growing when there are so many others at Carolina raising money for their own departments and causes.
The days of college athletics are long gone when former players and coaches moved into such roles as more of a reward for successful careers. Reeves has put in his time, learned his trade and will know how to place alumni and donors in the right positions to feel better than ever about why they are supporting their favorite school, teams and athletes.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/27/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082725%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Subtly Smart appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What if Mack Brown had finished what he started?
The two-time Carolina coach is a hall of famer, but only for what he did between his stints in Chapel Hill. Brown has quickly moved back to Austin, where his success had peaked, in a huff after UNC fired him.
A chain of events began, leading us into the most-anticipated football game at UNC Monday night. Let’s review exactly why.
Brown said he wanted to remain the Tar Heels’ head coach before he bombed out for the third consecutive season by losing a fourth straight time to N.C. State and squandered what would have been a third winning season in a row after ending his previous two 0-7.
Athletic director Bubba Cunningham fired Brown before the last loss to State and embarked on a new coaching search, coming up empty on younger candidates. Brown was a popular mentor to coaches, who might not have liked how Mack was let go without a proper send off.
Waiting was a six-time Super Bowl champion who wanted to try college coaching at one of his long-time favorite schools. As Bill Belichick and his general manager Mike Lombardi told UNC brass what he wanted, it triggered a brand-new era for Carolina athletics.
The proverbial “sleeping giant” would never have agreed to pay any other coach $10 million a season, plus plenty more to hire who the infamous Hoodie needed. That added to the $20.5 million in revenue share for athletes Cunningham had to find.
While the Tar Heels are a field goal underdog against TCU, a resurgence in alumni and fan excitement will be on display for the 8 p.m. kickoff on ESPN. Kenan Stadium sold out much faster than Brown ever did even with a 25 percent bump in ticket prices.
UNC expanded its phalanx of fundraisers who sold signage and hospitality venues like never before, starting with new field logos that will be unfurled before the game. UNC alum Ted Keith penned a comprehensive piece for his Sports Business Journal assignment.
Of the renaissance, Keith writes “everything is being reimagined, including Carolina’s place in the football hierarchy.” Besides the $20.5 million in revenue share, more is needed to balance the bloated budget.
“If you can’t afford it, it’s just a dream,” Cunningham said of the untold millions UNC is still raising to pay everyone and everything they have signed up. Not a fund-raiser by trade, the last three people Bubba hired are revenue-drivers, some with more experience than others but not in college athletics.
Back in Texas, Brown commented on what he left at Carolina and what he thinks is coming. He noted UNC is devoting far more money to football than he had and said Belichick is “arguably the best coach of any sport” who has a strong chance to win right away with what they are giving his program.
Brown, in a strange way, is responsible for a lot of it.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082625%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Reimagining appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Belichick name is more synonymous with defense.
The focus on next Monday night’s opening game under Bill Belichick will have nothing to do with defending the distractions associated with the head coach’s young girlfriend.
Hopefully, that has calmed down after a headline-filled summer when football was not played or practiced. But just before the ACC Kickoff media week in late July, big Brandon Faber publicly joined the Hoodie as ad hoc distractions coordinator, and it worked.
Belichick has his private social time and has been seen enjoying dinner in Chapel Hill restaurants, but he is clearly in full mode coaching now that the countdown to the first game has started.
After graduating from Wesleyan College, Belichick was an unknown coach whose football connection was through his father, a three-decade college scout, and his first NFL job was driving members of old Baltimore Colts staff around so he could be a sponge and continue to learn more football after growing up with his dad.
He moved up the ranks with several other NFL teams until he became the defensive coordinator for Bill Parcell’s two-time Super Bowl champion New York Giants. In 24 seasons as the head coach with the Patriots, he coached the defense more than the offense.
In New England he drafted a sixth-round quarterback named Tom Brady who, on the field, led the Pats to six Super Bowl titles and was said to be more important to the franchise than the head coach.
In missing the playoffs in three of his last four seasons, the Patriots were far better on defense than offense without Brady. And his new defensive coordinator at Carolina is his oldest son Steve Belichick.
Bill was out of football last season and spent much of spring practice and training camp at the University of Washington, where Steve led a defense that was top 30 in Division I football.
And Steve will have some familiar faces when the Tar Heels take the field against TCU on Labor Day night. Defensive back Thaddeus Dixon and linebacker Khmori House followed THEIR coach Belichick to Chapel Hill, and that’s a good start.
The Horned Frogs are big and tough and slippery to handle with a bevy of receivers who helped TCU pass for more than 4,000 yards in 2024 and have lost only leading receiver Jack Bech, who is now with the Raiders. Returning quarterback Josh Hoover completed 67 percent of his throws for just under 4,000 yards and 27 touchdowns.
Carolina is not exactly loaded with returning offensive skill players and will probably start Gio Lopez, a 6-foot transfer QB from South Alabama. So it is unlikely that the Heels can win a shootout and will rely on Steve B’s defense to stop a Frogs offense that put up 32.5 points a game on 5,549 yards and 55 TDs.
TCU went 9-4 last season and finished second in the Big 12.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082525%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: De-Fense! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Erin Matson must have some good connections in The Netherlands.
Carolina’s field hockey team opens the season next Friday at the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in Iowa City, where the Tar Heels take on defending Big Ten champion Michigan on Friday and follow up against Iowa on Sunday.
The Wolverines have a new coach, but she is a former player who has spent the last nine seasons as an assistant. So Carolina may have a difficult time notching wins in the first two games and wants to avoid what happened to the NCAA champion women’s soccer team that lost 2-0 at Tennessee in its opener last week.
Another reason why Matson’s third team may be in a little trouble is that she only has three players from the Netherlands this year. She has had nine over three seasons, including five in 2023 when she went 18-3 and won the national championship as a rookie head coach.
What is Matson’s connection to the Clockwork Orange country anyway? Does she vacation there? Did she play internationally there? Beats me, but she obviously has an affinity for the Lowlanders, as they are called.
Fortunately, senior Sietske Brüning is on the preseason All-ACC team for the third time, joined by senior third-timer Ryleigh Heck and the first time for junior Charly Bruder, who assured her selection by leading the nation in goals last season, when the Heels lost in the NCAA semifinals.
The other two Dutch women on the squad are junior Sanne Hak and freshman Isabel Boere, who keeps the tradition going. Led by Bruder and Heck (who has a sister, Kara, on the team), Matson’s third entry is not only the ACC favorite but also the preseason No. 2 team in the country behind recent rival Northwestern, which the Heels beat in a double-overtime shootout two years ago for the NCAA title at Shelton Stadium.
The most decorated player in UNC’s illustrious field hockey history has been on the U.S. National team since she was 17 and played all over the world as the top scorer at the 2022 Pan American Cup in Chile and also in India, England, South Africa and New Zealand.
But never in the Netherlands? What is her recruiting chops in the country bordered by Germany to the East, Belgium to the South and the North Sea.
When she was starring at UNC, she had not done an NIL deal until Marc Pons of Chapel Hill Tire asked if Matson might record some commercials for them and get paid for it. When contacted, she said, “Oh my God, yes! Yes!”
Since then, she learned all about NIL and funded a brand – “One” – that sells all kinds of stuff bearing her logo. She reportedly has built a net worth of $1.5 million, which is about 10 times her salary at Carolina.
That is certainly enough to go recruiting anywhere, like the Netherlands, where she must have a pipeline across the Atlantic Ocean.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/23/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_082225.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Flying Dutch appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Bill Belichick and Hubert Davis are beginning in similar spaces.
Compare a 73-year-old coach trying the college game after winning eight Super Bowls to a 55-year-old coach entering his fifth season and feeling the heat of checkered results. Is it even close?
They are both facing similarities.
Belichick and his staff are starting with 70 newcomers who have never played in Kenan Stadium. About 40 transfers are beginning new chapters in their football careers. Thirty or so freshmen are taking the leap from high school to big boy football.
Hubert, for the second time in five years, has revamped nearly his entire roster, losing nine players to graduation or the portal and signing nine to take their places with some experience in Power Four basketball or none after coming from high school or overseas.
The expectations for both teams are through the roof because of Belichick’s big name and bigger resume and Davis as the current steward of a beloved program that is expected to be at least an NCAA Tournament team, no matter what names are on their jersey backs.
For starters, both will likely open up with quarterbacks/ point guards who have little exposure at this level. In football it is a 6-foot lefty named Gio Lopez, and in basketball it is either a transfer from Colorado State (Kyan Evans) or four-star freshmen (Derek Dixon and Isaiah Denis).
For Belichick, with Tom Brady winning six Super Bowls, this may be the biggest downgrade he has had since Brady left the Patriots in free agency. For Hubert, try figuring out how to play without former All-American and ACC Player of the Year R.J. Davis.
Belichick coaches football from the inside out, meaning he wants the biggest talented players on his offensive line, and he does have some returnees or transfers who fit that bill. But the Hoodie said at his presser Wednesday, “You want the best players, but more important is having the best offensive line combination because rarely a team plays the same five offensive linemen the whole game.”
The Tar Heels have grad student Austin Blaske and junior Treyvon Green returning, but the other three starters and all their back-ups will show up on the two-deep they release closer to the TCU game.
Davis said before last season was over, “We need to get bigger at every position.” He has done that, but the new combo of big men has to prove they can play as individuals and as teammates coming off one of UNC’s worst rebounding seasons.
On paper, the Heels have the goods, with juniors Henri Veesaar from Estonia and Arizona and Pittsboro’s Jarin Stevenson from two years at Alabama. Sophomore James Brown and returnee Zayden High must show they are vastly improved to get meaningful minutes.
The wildcard for Carolina is five-star 6-9 freshman Caleb Wilson, a projected one-and-done who has to live up to it to make a good team great.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/21/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK082125.mp3Featured image via UNC Football on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Similarities? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The latest Bill Belichick story is more like a novella.
When Paige Williams arrived in Chapel Hill to shine a light and dig up some dirt on Bill Belichick, the veteran journalist turned into a gossip columnist. Her story in the New Yorker was way too long to hold the attention of most readers and wandered far off the track.
Williams is no cub reporter, mind you, as she has written for the New Yorker for at least 12 years, pens a regular column online and is a freelance author of note. She has a best-selling book – about dinosaurs.
A coincidence that she came to cover UNC’s new 73-year-old football coach? Williams wanted to find out if the Hoodie is a relic or for real.
Williams spent the first week in June talking to all kinds of people (including me). Her piece for the New Yorker is titled “Bill Belichick Goes Back To School.” In the printed magazine, it’s called Money Ball.
Williams talked to lots of people around town, some closer to Carolina football than others. Belichick turned down her interview request and Jordon Hudson doesn’t show up until halfway through the feature (she, too, didn’t respond to messages left for her).
“That Jordon person” draws stronger attention from women than men, Williams says.
The thousand-plus word article begins with how and why UNC hired Belichick, which Williams says was done by athletic director Bubba Cunningham when we know he was one only of several people – and not the first – involved in creating what became a worldwide story.
It is really a self-help endeavor to write something so big about which she knew little. I think she told me it was her first sports assignment. She also queried a faculty member in a coffee shop and Scott Maitland at Top of the Hill and the barflies at Mike Benson’s Lapin Bleu in Chapel Hill.
The reactions were what we all expect, but she writes as being generally surprised as she boned up on a school that has never won a national championship in football and is 45 years removed from its last ACC title.
Williams has been and worked all over the place. She was a Neiman Fellow at Harvard and is a well-known crime-writer, including about those who steal apparently very valuable dinosaur fossils. And she’s a graduate of Ole Miss, which has had some pretty good football teams.
She worked hard observing and learning, but much of it is old news for die-hard Tar Heels who can’t wait for the actual football to commence. The New Yorker is a national magazine that is turning 100 this year, so assuredly there are readers who learned a lot about UNC and Chapel Hill.
Did she quote me? Yes. I told her that Belichick could be “the greatest hire that any school has ever made or the biggest embarrassment that UNC will ever have.”
That’s MY story and I’m sticking to it.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082025%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dinosaur Writer appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The athletic director knows where the money is.
Bubba Cunningham is in his last full year as Carolina’s AD. He has learned about the past, battled his own learning curve the last 12 years and now aims at a bigger and wider mission.
Cunningham told the Carolina Insider Podcast last week that UNC’s first revenue share is splitting up the $20.5 million with 65 percent to football, 35 percent to men’s basketball and if any leftovers, women’s hoops and baseball might get some of the pie.
But Courtney Banghart’s and Scott Forbes’ programs will benefit regardless of whatever rev share comes their way. There are new and revised scholarship limits to each sport, with women’s basketball and baseball possibly making new money from NIL and the Rams Club’s continued success.
Women’s basketball and baseball are exchanging how they handle scholarships. Banghart had a roster limit of 15 scholarship players through the end of last season. And they could not be split up like many of the other Olympic sports. Banghart can now use some of her scholarships as “fulls” – meaning tuition, room, board, books and whatever spending money they allow.
But because her program has grown over the last few years, and Carolina is among the most popular places to go to school for recruited athletes, she can still lure a few recruits with partial grants to build a deeper roster and allow her to keep a longer rotation.
Baseball is the biggest benefactor of the new rules. We heard for years how Mike Fox and Forbes split up their allotted 11.7 scholarships and succeeded through the Diamond Heels’ record.
But baseball now has a roster and scholarship limit of 34, which is about three times the “fulls” as in the past. Forbes can use full scholarships to help land some of the best players in the country. And he can break up a few of those to help build an even deeper roster of 34 with a 190 percent increase in scholarship money.
Here is where all the Carolina athletes over 26 sports can offset less scholarship money in their pockets from the revised NIL program.
All athletes can still earn NIL money, although the new CSC (College Sports Commission) will better manage what and how the athletes earn money being valued more accurately (and, to some, honestly) than it has in the past.
And executive director John Montgomery and his kick-ass staff keep setting records for funding through the Rams Club’s scholarship endowment while its annual giving has gone from $150 million in 2017 to $391 million in six years. The various ways they can spend it beyond scholarships is still unclear.
So with UNC making its biggest financial commitment to athletics, new avenues are available for additional money made by even those who are getting full scholarships or less.
For Bubba and his successor Steve Newmark, it could be the biggest win-win that Cunningham and Carolina have ever had.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081925%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC-Chapel Hill/Jon Gardiner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Pathways appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Will Chapel Thrill do it for us, finally?
UNC is tackling a problem in its football gameday atmosphere in another way this season. Something called Chapel Thrill will go on in Polk Place three hours before the game and will join organized groupings at The Pit and around the Bell Tower.
Carolina has tried this forever, and it was either the UNC arborist or someone’s injury at the festivities or the weather that not only killed the on-campus stuff but also Franklin Street where businesses depend heavily on the pre-game purchases, almost desperately.
Chase Rice and Eric Church, two lifelong Tar Heel fans and now country singers, have both written songs about Carolina, and they were supposed to stick as new game day anthems. Neither did.
Inside Kenan Stadium, the music blares over the PA system and by Jeff Fuchs’ Marching Tar Heels, but let’s give everyone something to sing while leaving the stadium.
At Yankee Stadium, once the last run has scored or the last out made, you get Frank Sinatra and “New York, New York.” Does anyone get tired of that song by that guy? Wrigley Field in Chicago belts out “Go, Cubs, Go!” after every home game. At Fenway Park, they play “Dirty Water” about the Charles River.
At Carolina, the team and coaches go down to the home end of the stadium and sing the Alma Mater after every game. That’s a nice moment but it doesn’t pop as they say in music and writing.
When Mack Brown left for Texas in 1997, I asked him and Sally if they had heard the new song, “God Bless Texas” by Little Texas, but they said they didn’t want to interrupt “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You.”
UNC has a signature song, written by a brilliant star who grew up in Chapel Hill and became famous around the world. That’s when James Taylor wrote “Carolina in My Mind” so he wouldn’t be homesick every time he strummed it and sang it.
Why isn’t that song played right after games end at Kenan, the Dean Dome, Dorrance Field, Karen Shelton Stadium and every other sports venue on campus? It’s right there, so much more famous than any song a singer can write these days.
In football, the players are shaking hands and hopefully celebrating on the field before going down to sing Hark the Sound. Meanwhile, every person exiting the stadium would have Carolina on his or her mind, win or lose, walking out. Plenty of time for it and for a new tradition that doesn’t have to be invented. It’s here.
“In my mind I’m gone to Carolina, Can’t you see the sunshine, can’t you just feel the moonshine, Ain’t it just like a friend of mine to hit me from behind, I’m gone to Carolina in my mind.”
We have that song in our hearts forever. Play the frickin’ thing at the end! It will stick.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081825%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘In My Mind…’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Preparation is more important than the games. That’s the Bill Belichick way.
“Nutrition matters,” Belichick says. “Your strength matters. Your playbook matters. Everything matters or we wouldn’t do it. But the most important thing we do is practice, to get the most out of practice. We want to be prepared. We want to be in condition. We want you to know what we’re doing. We want to be ready to go, and we want to go out here and do our best to compete at the highest level so we can get better as a team. Everything matters. But practice is the most important thing we do.”
Strength coach Moses Cabrera puts it this way:
“You can be anything you wanna be this year, but it ain’t going to be if it’s not in here,” he said, tapping next to his heart. “If you like what you’re doing, if you like playing this game, you’ll do all the little things that it takes to get it done. Anybody looking for a shortcut in this game has just screwed you. He screwed you and screwed himself because there are no shortcuts and no chance if you don’t love it together.
“If you try to find the quickest way in and out of everything you do, you cut everybody off; your abilities and what you could be and what you could do to succeed somewhere along the line. You’re gonna make that big mistake in the game that’s gonna cost you if you do. We don’t have to. We don’t have to worry about you being at the meeting on time. We don’t have to worry about what you’re doing and how you’re preparing to get ready to play the game. Most of all, I know you on game day as a partner. I can depend on you to be ready.
“I’ve been with Bill for 10 years. He went to nine Super Bowls in 20 years, six times he won. That is not all. There are a lot of players in that class. Most groups that had it here.”
One more heart tap.
Andrew Jones from Tar Heel 247 put it this way:
“When you look at the remaining players, the ones who are still in the program from a year ago, they survived it. Belichick’s way’s a little bit different. And it requires a lot of weeding out. But the way they weed it out is you’re either a Belichick guy or you’re not. And they do that with recruiting. The recruiting director has been in recruiting offices at Michigan, Georgia Tech and Carolina. He knows exactly what it’s like on that side of things.
“So he’s gonna offer a very unique perspective to this, that he understands if he has a certain kind of guy. And it’s something that you just can’t flip a switch on. It has to slowly accrue over time and become the norm and the DNA of the building.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081525%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Building DNA appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina women are at it again.
A year or so ago, with the football and basketball teams struggling under Mack Brown and Hubert Davis, Bubba Cunningham was asked how he felt about the head-coaching hires he had made.
“Erin Matson and Damon Nahas were pretty good hires,” he said, answering snarky with snarky.
Matson, whom Bubba had hired right after her incomparable playing career was over, led the Carolina field hockey team to the 2023 national championship, coaching many ex-teammates.
Nahas had stepped in after Anson Dorrance’s surprise retirement just before the 2024 season kicked off. Nahas did what Dorrance, the women’s soccer coach with the most all-time wins over 44 seasons, hadn’t done since 2012. He led the Heels to the NCAA championship beating Big 4 rival Wake Forest in Cary.
Matson’s second season was another spectacular success, as the Tar Heels won their first 20 matches before falling to St. Joseph’s, 2-1, in the national semifinals. While the now 25-year-old head coach acknowledged another great season, she admits the loss made her emotional at the time.
Both world class programs go back to work before the end of August and Bill Belichick’s ballyhooed debut as the $30 million football coach against TCU on Labor Day night.
Behind 2024 National Player of the Year Kate Faasse, Nahas’s second team starts the season at Tennessee Thursday night at 7 on the SEC Network, which is on the ESPN platform.
Carolina is a heavy favorite, a perch Dorrance’s teams enjoyed for decades, but playing any sports at any Southeastern Conference school is no walk in the park even though the all-time series record is 12-0-1 in UNC’s favor.
Faasse is a senior forward and one of five upperclassmen on the 27-woman squad, which has traditionally recruited nationwide for depth behind chief scout and program GM Chris Ducar.
Nahas had the tag of “interim coach” all the way through the season before Cunningham ripped the interim off before the Final Four. The way serial loyalty works at Carolina, Nahas’ biggest hurdle after assisting Dorrance since 2015 was that he played his collegiate soccer at N.C. State.
Faasse had 20 goals and 4 assists last season for 44 points, more than twice as many as any teammate. One of last year’s assist leaders with 7, Tessa Dellarose, returns but much of the roster will be a work in progress for Nahas.
We’ll talk more about Matson’s third team, which opens with the ACC-Big Ten challenge over Labor Day Weekend in Iowa City with games against Michigan Friday night and Iowa Sunday afternoon. Matson’s Tar Heels have two tough tests to start the season and get that bad taste out of their mouths.
Yes, they are “only” national semifinalists, but they are also defending ACC champions who beat Duke twice, the second time in the NCAA regional to advance to the Final Four.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/14/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081425%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Let’s Go, Ladies! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Patriots are making Drake Maye tougher. Good.
Some former Carolina football stars stood out the first week of NFL exhibition games. Free agent Sam Howell had a great debut for Minnesota, where he may have lucked himself into the starting quarterback position. Fellow free agent Power Echols made a couple of good plays for the Bears. Omarion Hampton gave Charger fans a glimpse of potential greatness. And Willie Lampkin began to show that a 5-11 offensive lineman is worth a shot in the NFL after going undrafted.
Willie Lampkin (5'11" 290) pancaking four Cowboys defenders in week 1 of preseason pic.twitter.com/pkbm7DoV86
— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) August 10, 2025
Of course, we are most interested in Drake Maye and how the glamour-puss No. 3 pick is doing in his second season at quarterback for the legendary New England Patriots, whose old coach is our new coach.
Maye played a little, hit 3 of 5 passes and scored a touchdown in the 48-18 slaughter of the Washington Commanders in a game where their star QB Jayden Daniels didn’t play. A big and anxious crowd in Foxboro cheered Drake but not his new coach.
Mike Vrabel, a former all-pro linebacker who caught a few TD passes from Tom Brady, is the new coach and his personality is just what the franchise needs to leave the past three years behind. Especially last season, with a rookie head coach, no offensive coordinator to speak of, a terrible supporting cast, and they still won a few thanks to rookie Maye.
Maye, as we all know, is kind of the football version of Roy Hobbs in The Natural with a limitless upside. He’s 6-5 like Brady, handsome, smart and has athletic and football genealogy. And he is anxious to get better.
That’s what Vrabel wants, and he knows he has to have a team ten times tougher than last season and a mentality that makes them smart. So Vrabel got right on the potential Pats heart and soul for a careless strip sack he fumbled away on one of his seven snaps.
Here’s the thing about Maye.
He hasn’t had it very hard as a football player, a prodigy as a young kid whose family upbringing helped him win almost everything through high school to last season’s useless exercise.
So while Howell was running up more than a hundred yards of total offense in the 20-10 win over Houston and could easily beat out anticipated starter and first round draft pick J.J. McCarthy from Michigan, Maye is flat out expected to lead the Patriots back to the playoffs.
Despite his incredible past, Maye has never tasted true adversity in football and has the cast to help him get tougher and better.
Besides Vrabel, Super Bowl champion offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is back, and the wide receiver and running back rooms have more than warm bodies.
Drake may be the same size as TB12, but he has to prove he’s just as big in other ways and keep growing.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081325%20-%20FINAL%20UPDATED.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Krupa
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye, the Hard Way appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Even with Belichick, the Tar Heels are getting no respect.
The preseason college football polls are out, and Carolina is nowhere to be found.
The ACC has fewest teams listed of any power conference in the AP Top 25. Clemson is No. 4 and, as usual, carrying the banner of the league. Miami is No. 10 and stepchild SMU is No. 16. “Others receiving votes” are Louisville, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Duke, FSU and Pitt.
That’s a total of nine ACC teams listed, behind the SEC, the Big Ten and the Big 12. And no Carolina anywhere is embarrassing.
With ESPN giving a big whoop about the opener against TCU, which is among the “others,” what in the Belichick is going on?
This is just another example of how top-heavy the sport is with the SEC and Big Ten, which have 16 of the top 25 in the poll. With Oklahoma, Missouri, Auburn, Arkansas and even Vanderbilt also listed, the only of the SEC’s total of 16 that was snubbed is Mississippi State, which is still pretty good.
Texas is the top-ranked team with 25 votes. No. 5 Georgia got the only other No. 1 vote in the SEC. The Longhorns are the first preseason No. 1 to be underdog in their season opener, which is at No. 3 Ohio State.
In the Big Ten, Penn State is ranked No. 2 (with 11 votes for No. 1) followed by the defending national champion Buckeyes at No. 3 with 11 No. 1 votes. Then comes Oregon at No. 7 with one first-place vote, followed by No. 12 Illinois, No. 14 Michigan and No. 22 Indiana. Southern Cal, Iowa, Nebraska, Washington and Minnesota are others receiving votes, which gives 11 of the Big Ten’s 18 teams recognition.
The Big 12 sneaks ahead of the ACC by virtue of having four teams in the top 25 – Arizona State at No. 11, Kansas State at 17, Iowa State at 22 and Texas Tech at 23. The Big 12 has nine teams also getting votes, which means its total of 13 beats the ACC’s total of 12.
So, with the local media and sports blogs drowning in ink over Belichick’s boys and young men, Carolina heads into its opener as a three-point underdog and obviously did not impress most of the voters who must know that 70 Tar Heels are taking the field for the first time in Kenan Stadium.
And whatever scouting the writers, bloggers and broadcasters have done is way more optimistic than the AP and coaches’ polls. That’s another reason why the TCU game is so tricky.
Let’s say the Hoodie establishes himself as a great college coach to follow his golden NFL days, all the posters were misinformed, bad researchers or guessed wrong. That would be ideal.
But if the Heels lose to – or, worse, get smoked by – the Horned Frogs, their next and likely last chance of getting ranked is October 4 vs. Clemson.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081225%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unacknowledged appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Belichicks are different than many of us thought.
Bill Belichick was known in New England for his short but not-so-sweet press conferences.
In his first week of training camp, the new UNC head coach and his defensive coordinator are father and son, but they are definitely their own people with jobs to do as they were trained but do so in their own ways.
Watching their first press conference, if you closed your eyes and just listened, it was hard to tell them apart. They sound almost exactly alike, but what they say reflects their independence.
Bill spent a good 30-plus minutes with the media and was informative with every answer, almost like he wanted to assure a new group of writers, bloggers and broadcasters that football is football on any level.
And although he has been in the NFL for his entire coaching career, he seemed excited about the challenge of grooming both college veterans and recent high school graduates on how to succeed. He said there are techniques that all players need to learn but seems to understand that he will be coaching 70 players who were not at UNC last year, 40 transfers and 30 freshmen. He sounded, in two words, patient and confident.
Belichick told us more about the mechanics of football than Mack Brown did in a season. He used words like leverage and to either take control in the first contact or how to be in recovery mode if your opponent gains the advantage.
He said the game is played from the inside out and he wants his team to control the middle of the field on offense and defense. Although the players will determine if they win or lose games, he will find Tar Heels who truly want to play.
Being a head coach allows him to talk and interact with any player on the practice field who needs some help improving his technique. This is 180 degrees from Brown, who stayed on the sideline, taking notes from afar.
So Belichick may be earning $10 million a season, he sounds like his favorite place is in the trenches with his guys and readily admits general manager Mike Lombardi runs every other aspect of the program from evaluating players and deciding what to pay them from revenue share to appearing on radio shows for the head coach.
After having won eight super Bowls in the NFL, Belichick is still a football coach, and his son Steve is what his dad is today and has always been, just loving to coach football.
The defensive coordinator says he may have learned football from being around his dad’s teams, but he is “his own man” in coaching and relating to his players. He says there are no fences to his defense; he prepares them how he learned from his famous father.
His staff gets them ready and lets them go, saying mistakes are a part of learning.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081125%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Man At Work appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Caleb Love and R.J. Davis are still competing.
They came to Carolina in the summer of 2020 and began as the scorer and the playmaker. They started 36 of their 58 games as freshmen, playing in mostly empty gyms during the 2020-21 COVID season.
They did sweep a mediocre Duke team and got into the NCAA tournament, where Roy Williams lost the first opening-round game of his career in a blowout to Wisconsin. It was also Roy’s swan song as he retired on April 1 and was succeeded by assistant coach Hubert Davis.
Caleb and R.J. took over the Tar Heels’ backcourt and led a streaky team back to the Big Dance by upsetting Duke in Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game. Love became a folk hero to UNC fans by getting hot in the tournament, and his long bombs against UCLA and Duke sent those iconic programs home and ended Coach K’s career at the 2022 Final Four.
The Heels were the preseason No. 1 ranked team in 2022-23 but missed an NCAA bid. Love lost his game trying to do too much and R.J. had a good shooting season, but at times they appeared to be competing against each other for the ball and good shots.
Carolina did not go dancing after the season, when Hubert spurned the NIT to begin revamping his roster. Love was the main casualty, transferring to Arizona where he had the two best seasons of his career, winning the Pac 12 Player of the Year and in his fifth season made all-conference for the Wildcats.
In Chapel Hill, Davis was the ACC Player of the Year in 2023-24 as one of the best guards in the country, averaging a career-high 21 points as the all-time free throw leader for the Tar Heels. He, too, took his fifth COVID season and with defenses hounding him still led UNC in scoring and 3-pointers and from the foul line he made 87 percent.
And the 23-year-olds are still competing. This time it is in the Western Conference of the NBA where R.J. has signed a two-way contract with the Lakers and Caleb with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Whether they get to play for their big teams or face each other with their G League affiliates depends on how well they do at both levels. They are allowed to spend no more than 50 days with their NBA clubs and will earn prorated salaries depending on how many games they play in the G League.
NBA teams can sign two-way contracts with no more than three players, whose goals are to convert to signing a full contract to be eligible for the playoffs. NBA teams can move the same two-way players up and down for no more than four seasons.
So, the two ex-Tar Heels will be facing off for the South Bay Lakers and the Rip City Remix or hopefully higher.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/08/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080825.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/John Locher
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pro Prospects appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The new special teams coach needs to be special.
Mike Priefer is the only member of the new football program who has a connection to Carolina’s last ACC championship and is more familiar with Chapel Hill than anyone else on the staff, including the head coach who lived here as a toddler.
Priefer’s father was an assistant coach for Dick Crum from 1978 to 1983, including the 1980 team that went 11-1 and took home the ACC title, which has eluded the six head coaches since then.
Priefer attended St. Thomas More, Phillips Junior High and Chapel Hill High School, sold game programs around the Bell Tower and then went on the field as a ball boy. He never met Belichick before his official interview but spent 21 seasons with six NFL teams and played against the Hoodie about 10 times, winning one of those games.
Priefer, 59, was named the NFL 2011 Special Teams Coach of the Year with the Vikings, preaching toughness, technique and desire that he is doing here.
“It was not only the chance to work for Coach Belichick but also to come back to Chapel Hill, which is a special place,” he said. “It was a great combination that I couldn’t pass up.”
New UNC special teams coordinator Mike Priefer. (Image via UNC Athletic Communications)
Priefer attended a lettermen’s dinner in the spring and visited with some of those immortal players who 45 years ago finished first in the ACC and won the Bluebonnet Bowl over Texas, 16-7.
After watching tape, he knows the Tar Heel special teams under Mack Brown did some things well but has to make the kickoff, field goal and punting units better and help the so-called 33rd NFL franchise look a lot like they all do on Sundays.
“We talked about the successes we’ve had with special teams in the NFL and trying to bring that to the collegiate environment,” Priefer said. “The schemes will be a little different, and the players are much younger, so we have to cover the fundamentals and techniques more often.”
He said player development is the most important aspect of special teams on the college and pro level, and the almost all-new 2025 Tar Heels “understand that and are buying in.”
Priefer explains to his players that if they want more time on the field they can do it on special teams and then get the same chance on offense or defense. As Belichick says, nothing will be given and everything has to be earned.
He said that conversation starts with recruits that if they come to Carolina they are going to be developed as a player and a person. Belichick “wanted to bring that to special teams, and that’s what I can provide.”
Priefer says there are some good special team players already here who give good effort and did have some success. “I don’t think they were terrible, but there are some things they can do better,” Priefer said. “And I love teaching football.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/07/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK%20080725.mp3
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: One and Only appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
ESPN may have made its best deal ever.
In case you have not heard, ESPN is purchasing most of the NFL’s programming outside of the actual games on CBS, Fox and NBC, once certain contracts lapse by 2033.
The NFL Network, the 24/7 station of mostly studio shows and features that also carries midweek games, and the Red Zone that shows multiple cut-ins on split screens are the major carrots. Plus the NFL’s fantasy football business, NFL.com and other media. Not mentioned was Season Ticket, which airs all Sunday games and is now bought through YouTubeTV.
The deal is projected to be worth billions of dollars once it matures and will remake ESPN as the “worldwide leader” it was dubbed in the 1990s when the now-Disney owned enterprise dominated live sports on ESPN, ESPN2 and eventually its other stations.
When ESPN acquired rights to the first Carolina-Duke basketball game of the season, it launched ESPN2 by making the blueblood rivalry available only on “the Deuce.” That boosted ESPN toward other stations such as ESPNU, ESPN News and eventually ownership of the SEC Network, the ACC Network and the now defunct Texas Longhorn Network.
ESPN had the dynamic duo of paid subscriptions and advertising that could charge the highest rates because it continued to accumulate viewers and eyeballs. Alternatives, some legal and some not, began whittling down its subscribers and in turn forced them to lower ad rates.
The mega deal won’t take full effect until approved by various broadcast and government agencies, but ESPN will recapture some of the viewers it has lost due to cord cutting over the last 20 years, when it was in almost 200 million homes.
In return, the NFL will reportedly secure as much as a 10 percent of equity stake while it gets out of the ancillary media business. How the owners and franchises will benefit remains to be seen, but they will somehow profit from the multi-millions saved on talent and production costs.
ESPN, which airs Monday Night Football and a playoff game each season with partner ABC, wants the deal done before they carry the 2027 Super Bowl. Consumers will be encouraged to cut cable costs further in favor of DTC (Director to Customer) streaming over the new and improved ESPN app to access almost all NFL programming.
The talks began after Disney chief executive Bob Iger told the media two years ago that his company wanted to keep ESPN as an asset and would seek strategic partners to form a joint venture around ESPN or buy a stake in it. They did both.
Soon, sports viewers will be able to purchase the new ESPN app for about $30, so we can choose to scrap our cable contracts or streaming services and be left to decide between the dozens of other apps out there to binge on all other games and shows.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/06/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK%20080625.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/David J. Phillip
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Binge is On appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It’s hard to believe, but Roy Wiliams has two more benchmarks.
Both April 1 and August 1 have passed without making note(book) of them for the Hall of Famer.
Does it seem like Ol’ Roy has been retired for more than four years since the day a lot of people believed was an April Fool’s joke? Yes, he retired after 18 seasons at Carolina (most of them on Roy Williams Court) on April 1, 2021 and also celebrated his 75th birthday on August 1, last Friday.
Roy and Wanda no longer live in Chapel Hill – they are now at Forest Creek in Pinehurst (plus the mountains and the coast), wealthy and generous enough to add $10 million to what they had already gifted UNC.
But they rarely miss a game at the Smith Center, which this season includes the home rematch with Kansas, where Williams emerged from a no name to a big name over 15 years in Lawrence.
That needs a little review, as Williams was sitting in his assistant’s office when Dean Smith stopped by to see him. “Don’t tell anyone, but I think we can get you the Kansas job,” Smith said in the summer of 1988. Roy thought he had lost it.
That, too, had a Carolina connection. Another Tar Heel alum, Larry Brown had left Kansas with a national championship trophy and a one-year NCAA probation for his successor.
Ironically, it helped Williams, because no big-name coach wanted to inherit a program that had to sit out the 1989 post-season. But that took the pressure off rookie Roy, who had a season (19-12) showing the Jayhawks he inherited and recruited and the fans that he could coach, dad gum it!
We all forgave him for not succeeding Bill Guthridge in 2000 when he affirmed Smith’s personal ask after Kansas lost the 2003 NCAA championship game to Syracuse (mostly by missing 18 free throws.) Matt Doherty had made a mess of things, and Smith said, “Last time, I said we wanted you,” Smith semi-pleaded, “this time we need you.”
It took Williams one season to win his first national title after four Final Fours at Kansas. He went on to four more Final Fours and two more natties in 2009 and 2017, very different teams that proved he could coach all kinds.
In his 17 seasons of coaching against Duke and Mike Krzyzewski, Williams won more games and more national championships and beat Coach K nine out of nine in regular-season finales with the ACC title at stake.
He looked tired on that April 1 afternoon when he walked into the Dean Dome press conference. A week later, after his choice (Hubert Davis) got the job, he looked less tired and more tanned.
In the excruciating wait for football season, writers are creating polls on the 25th anniversary of this century. In two of them, Bill Self (Ol’ Roy’s successor) is No. 1, Williams is No. 2 and Krzyzewski is third.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/05/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080525.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 5 and 75 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Max Johnson was at the beginning of everything.
When Johnson transferred to UNC from Texas A&M after spending two seasons at LSU, he thought he had found his permanent home. His father, former NFL quarterback Brad Johnson, liked Mack Brown who was Max’s new coach.
Brown needed a capable quarterback after having NFL Draft choices Sam Howell and Drake Maye leading his program. Though both started as freshmen (Maye as a redshirt), Max had the experience and talent to win the starting job.
He did and took the field for UNC’s first possession of the 2024 season at Minnesota. Carolina won the game on the Gophers’ missed field goal as time expired, but Johnson had left early in the third quarter with what looked like serious leg injury.
It turned out to be more than serious.
Johnson had broken two bones, one the femur that kept him in a Minneapolis hospital for more than two weeks through two surgeries. You could have said accurately that the Tar Heels’ season, against a soft schedule, was pretty much over.
Brown had two other quarterbacks who could and would play. But neither Conner Harrell nor Jacolby Criswell was major-college caliber, and the Tar Heels finished 6-7 for the second time in Brown’s second tenure in Chapel Hill.
Who knows what would have happened had Johnson not been injured and missed the season. The groan from alumni and fans grew as Brown’s team lost its last three games, including a fourth straight to N.C. State. He was ousted unceremoniously and the search for a new coach began.
Athletic director Bubba Cunningham talked to young candidates who might see coming to Chapel Hill as an upgrade. He got little interest, perhaps because Brown was fired before the State game when he deserved a departure more worthy of a coach who had resurrected Carolina football twice over the last 20 years.
Brown is a Hall of Famer and highly respected mentor to dozens of coaches around the country. It is fair speculation that the way he was treated – while both he and UNC deserve equal blame – turned off some coaches Cunningham was trying to engage.
On the road, Bubba learned that Bill Belichick was serious about the job and, ironically, he may have been the only realistic candidate when the search ended suddenly.
Meanwhile, Johnson had returned to Chapel Hill to heal and begin his rehabilitation, which would take another year and include the possibility and fear of amputation. Fortunately, doctors and trainers saved the leg and today Max is back in the quarterback room competing to play under a new coach.
Belichick told Johnson to get better and compete for the job, which now seems to favor fellow lefthander and transfer Gio Lopez.
“Max has made tremendous progress, but it’s the last 20 percent between not being able to play and really being ready, which is where he is right now,” Belichick said over the weekend as the story continues.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/04/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080425.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Abbie Parr
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Full Story appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The one-month countdown begins today.
The Tar Heels under coach Bill Belichick open the 2025 football season with as much excitement as is palatable.
Alumni and fans who have sold out the stadium in record time are at the top of the anticipation poll, even if their football team is picked to finish only eighth in the ACC.
Football seems to be in the eye of the hurricane around UNC these days.
Chancellor Lee Roberts has talked for months about turning the old Chapel Hill airport location into something special for the university. First came talk of building a new basketball arena there, followed by the idea of adding retail and residential to the complex.
Lately, it has swung in the direction of a multi-use sportsplex with fields for soccer, cricket and any other outdoor activity that will generate large revenue streams for the university. That would be adjacent to the new basketball arena that is still under heavy debate among alumni, local residents and especially students who are against an off-campus home for the hoop Heels.
Right now, most of the focus is on football after UNC hired Belichick for $30 million guaranteed over three seasons and two more at $10 million each if the love affair lasts and the high-profile Hoodie stays into his late ’70s. The Labor Day night opener against a good TCU opponent from the Big 12 is leaving the fan base breathless, even though Carolina’s patchwork roster does not compare to that of the Horned Frogs.
With Carolina losing more than two dozen transfers from the Mack Brown era, Belichick and his staff have reeled in 40 new players from other schools along with what was left of Brown’s last recruiting class.
TCU’s star quarterback Josh Hoover is rated much higher than anyone the Tar Heels might put under center, likely at this point to be 6-foot lefty Gio Lopez from South Alabama. As UNC has pledged more money to football than in the past, a return on that investment and Belichick’s massive contract, realistically, may not show up until the 2026 season.
Still, the approaching opener promises to attract a standing-room-only crowd to watch Belichick in person on his first college sideline after an NFL Hall of Fame career and six Super Bowl championships.
If the Heels can beat the Frogs, they have the schedule to be 4-0 when ACC favorite and nationally ranked Clemson comes to town on October 4. The only other top tier conference foe is No. 6 Duke, while the rest of the schedule has No. 10 N.C. State, No. 12 Syracuse and the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th picks in the league.
As the Tar Heels spend the entire month of August in training camp, Belichick will get a good look at who he has taking the field on ESPN in the only college game played on September 1, when the football world will be watching.
Let the August angst begin.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2025/08%20-%20August/01/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080125.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: August Angst appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The ACC is literally a second-tier football conference.
There are several college football polls that come out each week, including the latest to join the fray, the College Football Playoff rankings.
The Athletic’s latest poll of all 134 major FBS teams has a top 12 very similar to the CFP’s top dozen of last week, except Miami has dropped to 14th after its first loss at Georgia Tech. SMU (8-1), one of the three new schools in the ACC, is at No. 12 and will likely reach the ACC Championship game on December 7th.
No. 14 Miami is favored to win its last two games against Wake Forest and Syracuse and face the Mustangs in Charlotte. Clemson, which already has two losses, still has to go to Pitt and play 19th-ranked South Carolina in the regular season finale. If the Tigers beat the Panthers and lose to the Gamecocks, they could still tie Miami for second place in the ACC with 7-1 records and likely lose a complicated tie-breaker.
But a true tale of the ACC’s overall mediocrity is that second-place Clemson’s losses to Georgia and Louisville leaves it at No. 24 in the latest overall poll, the ACC’s fourth highest team according to The Athletic (Louisville is 21).
Seven from the ACC reside in the next 25 – Pitt, Georgia Tech, Duke, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Virginia and Boston College – which is basically the midsection of the rankings when you consider the last 34 teams are mostly mid-majors and six Power 4s with losing records such as the ACC’s 2-7 Stanford at No. 99 and 1-9 Florida State at No. 103 in The Athletic poll.
Carolina is No. 53 and only got that high by winning at Virginia and FSU. If the Tar Heels win their last three games against Wake Forest, BC, and NC state, they will finish 5-3 and maybe as high as third in the ACC and certainly climb into the nation’s top 50. Below UNC is Cal (5-4), State (5-5), Wake Forest (4-5).
According to the Athletic, the ACC and Big 12’s hopes of sending multiple teams to the first 12-team CFP took a big hit over the weekend. Besides Miami’s first loss in Atlanta, Iowa State was upset at 3-6 Kansas. Meanwhile, Ole Miss’ big win over Georgia (leaving both at 7-2) brought more SEC teams into the playoff mix, including 8-1 Tennessee and 7-2 Alabama.
The crowd of two-loss SEC teams, because of that conference’s power ranking, has a chance to knock out at-large hopefuls, such as currently No. 7 Indiana. The 10-0 Hoosiers are one of only three unbeaten Power schools (the others being Big Ten Oregon and Big 12 BYU), but they play at 8-1 and second-ranked Ohio State next weekend for a spot in the conference championship game and could lose their playoff chance in overwhelming fashion.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/13/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK%20111324FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl B. DeBlaker
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fading Football League appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Are the last three games of the season the most critical of Mack Brown’s coaching career?
Brown acknowledged Monday that he has never had a football fall like this one. The arc of the Tar Heels’ first nine games looks like the stock market during turbulent times.
Expect to win your first four games, which after surviving at Minnesota comes three mid-majors at home.
Then, flirting with a national ranking, give up 70 points to James Madison and a 20-0 lead at Duke, which has the alumni and fan base talking retirement for the 73-year-old hall of famer. After home losses to Pitt and Georgia Tech, chatter turns into a foregone conclusion that Mack is hanging it up after the season.
At 3-4, that was not only the low point on the field, but also for the program due to the death of wide receiver Tylee Craft from cancer. Fortunately, Carolina had the first of two open dates to recover and reset.
Here is where it gets tricky.
The Tar Heels go to Virginia, a tough place to play over Brown’s two tenures, and blow out the Cavaliers. Fortunately, Florida State is having one of its worst seasons and is fodder for another UNC blowout and Brown’s first win over his alma mater. At 5-4, there is a second open date to heal more wounds.
So we go into the last three weeks of the schedule that doesn’t look quite as challenging as in August. Wake Forest (4-5), at BC (5-4), Senior Day versus N.C. State (5-5), all three still hunting bowl bids with six wins.
Wake Forest has been a high-scoring, difficult opponent for the last four meetings. The almost defenseless Deacs always seem to have skilled offensive players, and they are no different with quarterback Hank Bachmeier seventh in the ACC in total offense and Desmond Claiborne fifth in rushing.
A third straight win means UNC goes bowling for the sixth straight season, and Kenan Stadium is sold out with a balmy Saturday night forecast for the 8 pm kickoff. That would be one leg of the three-legged stool of success.
Going to Chestnut Hill to play BC is never easy, and the Eagles of new coach and veteran Bill O’Brien are coming off a comeback win over a good Syracuse team. Winning there could make Carolina 7-4 and get a better bowl game.
The third leg is State, which as we all know has a three-game winning streak over the Tar Heels that has substantially stoked the rivalry.
So here’s the projected scorecard for the three-legged finish:
- Lose all three or just win one and Brown says he expects the chatter to return, louder.
- Win two and one of them is over the Wolfpack, and Brown is likely back for another season.
- Win all three and match last year’s regular season record of 8-4.
Add UNC’s first bowl win since 2019, and Carolina finishes with the best record of Brown 2.0. Considering all, a great end to a seesaw season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/12/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK%20111224.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Floating Arc appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye is officially the second-best rookie quarterback in the NFL.
If you are a Tar Heel fan, Maye’s weekly growth and improvement is heartwarming. After claiming the starting position five weeks into the season, he has become the talk of the league as the obvious franchise quarterback of the Patriots.
He started their two wins in the last 3 weeks and tied up the game in between with a spectacular TD pass as the clock ran out in regulation. They lost in overtime.
On Sunday, the third pick in the NFL draft easily outplayed the No. 1 pick, Caleb Williams, as New England dominated the Bears in Chicago. Still learning, mind you, Drake threw for the only touchdown in the game and drove his team into position for four field goals in the 19-3 victory.
After the game he praised the defense for shutting down the Bears. During a bad practice last week, he asked his coaches if he could address the offensive team. And he gave the players a pep talk, nit-picking them all, including himself, and set the stage for their best performance this season.
His teammates, from fellow rookies to veterans, thanked him afterward, saying they want their starting quarterback to be tough with them because it shows real leadership. And a struggling team suddenly looked much stronger at Soldiers Field as former Patriots players continue to weigh in on his development.
From the moment he ran onto the field for the first possession of the game, Maye just looked more comfortable in his all-white uniform.
He had command in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage where the Patriots have made fewer and fewer mistakes over his weeks as a starter.
Maye reads the defense and seems to know where to throw the ball and what his progressions will be. And, of course, he always has the option of pulling it down and running like he did for 24 yards to go with his 184 passing to keep drives alive.
He is a kid but takes the NFL contact, shakes it off and calls another play. On the sideline, he meets with his coaches and then always takes time to watch the defense trying to get off the field.
He lives up to his reputation as a team player in every measure, which is why Mack Brown and his staff loved coaching him.
After the game he was interviewed for the first time as a winning quarterback in the NFL on national television. The woman sportscaster asked him how good it feels.
“It feels really good!” Drake said with that boyish smile. “And it will feel even better when I get into the locker room with my teammates.”
He jogged off the field and into a very bright future.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/11/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK111124.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Erin Hooley
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye Shines, Start 5 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
There is one very big difference between Kansas and Carolina.
The top-ranked Jayhawks entertain the No. 9 Tar Heels, who are making their first visit to famed Allen Fieldhouse since 1960, when sophomore guard Larry Brown led Frank McGuire’s last UNC team to a thrilling 78-70 win in December of that year. The 7 p.m. tip-off Friday on ESPN2 matches two very good teams in four positions, but it is the center spot that will likely make the difference.
Hunter Dickinson, the 7-2 fifth year senior, is a mismatch for anyone Carolina has on its roster, and Hubert Davis said in his press conference this week that the Michigan transfer is the complete player from rebounding and rim protection, to running the floor and scoring from inside and out.
KU has a good transfer portal roster, as does Carolina. But Dickinson is playing his second season in Lawrence after deciding not to turn pro for a reported NIL deal worth close to seven figures. So Davis says through team rebounding and denying defense they have to do the best possible job on the boards and on the floor against the Jayhawks giant.
Kansas also has a size advantage on the perimeter where 6-4 guard Zeke Mayo, who played three seasons at San Diego State, carries a 15-plus college scoring average and made 5-of-8 three-pointers in KU’s 87-57 win over Howard on opening night. Two other big wing guards to watch are 6-6 Alabama transfer Rylan Griffen and 6-7 AJ Storr, who is coming off averaging 17 points for Wisconsin.
Coach Bill Self used 10 players for at least 14 minutes against Howard, compared to the nine Tar Heels who made up Carolina’s rotation in the 90-76 win over Elon, which shot well enough (13 three-pointers) to keep the game close until the final five minutes.
Self, of course, replaced Roy Williams, who coached the Jayhawks for 15 seasons before returning to Carolina and says he will not be in Lawrence Friday night. Self has won two national championships since (Roy has three), including the dramatic 2022 victory over Davis in the NCAA championship game in New Orleans. Hubert says he watches the tape of that heartbreaking loss every season and R.J. Davis, who was a sophomore, adds it also looms large in his mind.
Davis is the only UNC returnee from that game. The defending ACC Player of the Year and preseason pick to repeat as first team All-American is the best-known player in this early season marquis match-up, the first of a home-and-home series that resumes in Chapel Hill next season after he is gone.
Davis and Dickinson entered college the same year (2020) and will be the main subjects for talking heads before and during the first national blockbuster of the season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20110824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Big Blockbuster appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The uncanny Carolina-Kansas connection goes back more than 75 years.
When Dean Smith was finishing up his Air Force duty after graduating from Kansas and playing for the legendary Phog Allen, he served as an assistant coach at the Air Force Academy under Bob Spear, who urged Smith to take an assistant’s job with Carolina coach Frank McGuire in 1958.
The Tar Heels had come off the 1957 NCAA championship with a magical 32-0 season. They did it with consecutive triple-overtime wins in the Final Four in Kansas City. In the championship game, McGuire’s team defeated – guess who – Kansas with 7-footer Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain, who eventually played in the NBA for McGuire. Always the gamesman, McGuire sent his 5-foot-11 point guard Tommy Kearns out to jump center against the Stilt. As a Wall Street stockbroker, Kearns eventually had his tallest client ever.
After Smith succeeded McGuire and built his own Hall of Fame career, he had repeated opportunities to return to Kansas as the head coach. He turned each offer down but recommended others with UNC pedigree, starting in 1983 with Larry Brown, who won the 1988 national championship at KU, and Brown’s successor Roy Williams who before he left Carolina for Kansas helped Smith recruit an underrated guard from Virginia named Hubert Davis.
The Jayhawks and Tar Heels have met 12 times over the years, seven of them in the NCAA tournament, including in the 1991 Final Four at Indianapolis. Williams won and Smith was ejected late in the second half. They had a rematch two years later in the semi-finals at the Superdome in New Orleans where Smith won and two nights later brought home his second national championship.
During Williams’ 15-year tenure at Kansas, Jayhawk fans lived in fear that he would leave to succeed Smith someday at Carolina.
After Bill Guthridge retired in 2000, Williams turned down returning to UNC and remained at Kansas for three more years, going to back-to-back Final Fours in his last two seasons there. In 2003, he succeeded Matt Doherty and came home to coach the Tar Heels for 18 seasons. Doherty’s former assistant Fred Quartlebaum is now the Director of Basketball Operations at KU. UNC assistant coach Brad Frederick is the son of the former Kansas Athletic Director who had the guts to hire the unknown Williams.
Williams and his Kansas successor Bill Self played in the 2008 NCAA semifinals in San Antonio, with Kansas holding off a late Carolina comeback. Kansas holds a 5-2 record against UNC in post-season play.
After Ol’ Roy retired and turned the job over to Davis, the Tar Heels advanced to the 2022 NCAA Championship game against the Jayhawks. The Heels led by 15 at the half before finally succumbing to a late KU rally.
They meet once again Friday night at Allen Fieldhouse, where Dean Smith and Roy Williams began as a player and head coach in college basketball.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20110724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Kansas Connectivity appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I certainly hope Elon is a better team than Maine.
The basketball season is officially underway with a typical made-for-TV doubleheader on the ACC Network. Duke drew the short straw and played the University of Maine at 7 pm, and Carolina got the “second game” against Elon that tipped off just after 9 o’clock.
The Tar Heels dominated most of their game, but Elon hung around and even rallied for a short lead by outshooting the home team in the second half. UNC’s mini-me backcourt of Elliot Cadeau and R.J. Davis took over, which is both good news and bad.
At halftime, ESPN’s Seth Greenberg verbalized what a lot of talking heads will say during Hubert Davis’ first season without landlord Armando Bacot in the paint. Acknowledging the Heels’ overall talent and depth, he wondered “how they will do with such a small team.”
Carolina outrebounded Elon but only by three and fell prey to its second-half zone defense that allowed the visitors to score 13 straight points and go from a dozen behind to ahead by three. Davis and Cadeau answered by leading an 11-0 run that regained control of the game. Davis, who scored 17 of his game-high 24 points in the second half, dropped a runner and then a 3-pointer followed by Cadeau’s three ball and free throw. Davis assisted on a layup by Jalen Washinton in the eventual 90-76 victory.
Coach Davis, who sported a new beard and his old temper when he scolded his team during the late lull, played nine guys from Davis’ 33 minutes to freshman Ian Jackson’s 12. The Tar Heels had 12 offensive rebounds in the first half off which they scored 12 points. But they had only six in the second half against the more aggressive Phoenix.
Seth Trimble replaced Cade Tyson in a three-guard starting lineup, but the supposedly quick defense gave up too many open shots. Power forward Jae’Lyn Withers had 10 points (including two 3-pointers) and 6 rebounds in the first half, did not score after that and finished with the only double-double in the game of 10 and 10.
Elon plays in the Coastal Athletic Association that has pretty good programs like College of Charleston and UNC-Wilmington. Maine, which lost at Duke by 34 points, is a member of the America East Conference that has Bryant and Vermont. The Black Bears showed a well-coached team at Cameron but could not keep up with the 7th-ranked Blue Devils’ size and pure talent that will produce another high-seeded NCAA Tournament team.
“I know it’s November,” Hubert said of his No. 9 team after the TV doubleheader ended, “but I want us to play more like it’s March.”
He will get a better chance to measure that on Friday night when the Tar Heels visit top-ranked Kansas in Lawrence.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20110524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Size Matters appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye fumbled the game away and then almost pulled it out.
Maye continues to pick up new fans who see him as the youngest gun in the NFL. He started his fourth game for the Patriots Sunday after the concussion protocol kept him out for the second half of his third start.
Make no mistake that he is the future for his current franchise, which has let its championship mettle go down the drain after losing Tom Brady to free agency. Drake is playing with one of the worst supporting casts in the NFL and still shines throwing the ball and scrambling for key yardage for almost hapless New England.
On Sunday, he matched up with boyhood chum Mason Rudolph of the Tennessee Titans, who are also a shadow of their former teams. It was a great game that went into overtime, ending when Maye threw his second interception of the afternoon to send the relieved Titan fans home happy.
His receiving cast has one dependable target in tight end Hunter Henry, and the Pats need to trade for or draft better talent that can maximize Maye’s skills as a passer and runner when defenses will have to pay more attention to a diversified passing attack.
Drake was scrambling late in a tie game when stripped from the ball that resulted in the Titans going ahead by a touchdown in the last 90 seconds. But with no timeouts left and the clock running out, Maye found a receiver in the end zone to tie the game on fourth down as he was going down and time expired. Even the partisan Nashville crowd was cheering his heroics that could have won the game if the Patriots decided to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking to tie the game. In OT, the Pats’ lack of defensive depth and stamina did them in.
He wound up with more than 300 yards of total offense, 50 more than veteran Rudolph in the Titans’ 20-17 victory that tied New England in the win column with a 2-7 record.
Neither team is going to the playoffs this season, but Drake Maye has created such a buzz around the NFL that people want to see him play no matter the outcome of his latest game.
As he did at UNC, Maye fires the ball with accuracy and touch and escapes the rush with abandon and speed that fools the opposition at first and eventually makes them adjust their defense to keep him in the pocket.
When he gets better receivers on his team, he will be able to set up and stay in the pocket and pick those defenses apart.
He has already begun to do it as the youngest player in the NFL with little help.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20110424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/George Walker IV
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye, Start 4 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
This reminds me of the famous 2004 John Bunting do-or-die game.
Twenty years ago, John Bunting faced the same circumstances that Mack Brown may be dealing with going to Florida State Saturday. Besides both being great guys who love Carolina, they don’t have much else in common. Bunting was a star player for UNC and in the NFL. Brown went into coaching early and made it to the Hall of Fame.
The Tar Heels have not had a great season in Brown’s sixth year back on this job. Alumni and fans got fed up with big expectations and bad finishes, and there have already been discussions about whether this will be Mack’s swan song. The 41-14 win at Virginia was impressive after four consecutive losses but created a new crossroad.
With a favorable schedule in the last four games, Carolina could conceivably win them all and a bowl game to finish 9-4, which would be Brown’s best record in his second UNC stint. If the Heels did that and Brown wanted to stay, who could argue?
In Bunting’s fourth season after he became the popular pick to fill the coaching vacancy when Frank Beamer changed his mind and stayed at Virginia Tech, he was working on a 16-28 record when fourth-ranked Miami came to town.
Rumors were rife that Steve Spurrier, who was hanging out in Gainesville, Florida, after coaching the Gators to the 1996 national championship and bombing out in less than two seasons with the NFL Redskins, was using the old “sleeping giant” description of the Tar Heels program.
UNC Chancellor James Moeser and athletic director Dick Baddour were deciding whether to keep Bunting or tell him he was gone after that season. If the latter, they could approach Spurrier before someone else hired him (South Carolina eventually did). It came down to how the 3-4 Tar Heels played against the mighty Hurricanes. Connor Barth kicked his famous 42-yard field goal as time expired to break a 28-28 tie and Kenan went crazy.
Now two decades later, Brown may have to validate the win in Charlottesville by beating 1-7 Florida State, which is having a horrid season. The Heels are favored and, on paper, should win. Defensive coordinator Geoff Collins raves about the talent the Seminoles have “all over the field.”
If FSU gets it together and beats Carolina, Brown will be back in the same old spot. After a bye week on November 9, he would likely have to win the last three games to finish 7-5 and reach a middling bowl. Or worse, go to a bowl with a 6-6 record. Indeed, the Noles are 17th and last in ACC offense, so what exactly is Collins talking about? FSU doesn’t have a running back listed in the league’s top 25 or a quarterback in the top 16.
Thus, it looks like a must win for Brown, if not his Heels.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/11%20-%20November/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20110124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Shades of Spurrier appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Yes, that was Erin Matson at Yankee Stadium.
Carolina’s Superwoman may not leap tall buildings in a single bound, but she definitely moves around fast. From the practice field at Karen Shelton Stadium to a box seat at the World Series, where her boyfriend Ben Casparius is pitching for the Dodgers.
Matson, in case you’ve just dropped in from five years on Mars, is Carolina’s all-everything field hockey coach who won four NCAA championships as a player and, in her first year at the helm, won her fifth natty. Her current team is ranked No. 2 in the country at 14-0.
Flash back five years, Matson was a sophomore for her undefeated Tar Heels and celebrating on Franklin Street after one of Carolina’s historic hoop wins over Duke (maybe the February 20 upset of the top-ranked Blue Devils in Cameron), riding on the shoulders of a young man who turned out to be Casparius, a pitcher/infielder for Mike Fox’s team who had just started dating Matson but eventually transferred to UConn in his home state.
“We’ve been doing long distance for almost six years now,” Matson told the Los Angeles Times this week. “I don’t know what’s quite wrong with us.”
During the FOX Sports telecast of the National League championship series, announcer Joe Davis called Matson “the Michael Jordan of field hockey.”
Matson, probably blushing, said, “Around Carolina, that’s pretty normal. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it.”
After her fourth national championship, UNC recreated the picture of Jordan after his fourth NBA title with the Bulls, Matson holding up four fingers with a victory cigar in her mouth, captioned by the school, “Just GOAT things.”
Tar Heel legend and now the new head coach of @UNCFieldHockey: Erin Matson 🏑 🐏 pic.twitter.com/IkfcCcym5D
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) January 31, 2023
The LA Times reported things we all have known for years, such as, according to Casparius, “Whenever we go to a basketball game, she’s on the big screen at least a couple of times.”
And after graduating in 2022, Matson was UNC’s 2024 commencement speaker. Of landing the head coaching job right after her last season as a player, Casparius said, “She proved she could bring together a group of girls who at the time at least 75 percent of them had been her teammates. . . .an interesting situation when you’re able to gain that respect. She did it. She crushed it.”
Casparius was a fifth-round draft choice of the Dodgers in 2021 and played on every level of pro baseball before being called up by the Dodgers this season despite never having pitched in spring training for them. He started Game 4 of the Series, giving up one hit in two innings of a “bullpen game” that the Yankees eventually won 11-4.
With the Dodgers wrapping up the Series Wednesday night, look for Casparius back in Chapel Hill to watch Matson’s team play at Duke Friday night.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/31/Art%27s%20Notebook%20-%20103124%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Matt Clements
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Long-Distancing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Bobby Hurley has had his first and last Brotherhood game, guaranteed.
I went to Duke Sunday night to see what the (almost) brand new Blue Devils look like, and they look damn good to me. I realized they were playing Arizona State, whose coach is famous Duke “brother” Bobby Hurley coming to the “hood.”
Bobby had a pretty good team that shot 15 percent from outside in the first half and lost 103-47. If you don’t want to bother with the math, that’s a 56-point differential. Think Bobby, who the Tar Heels loved to hate, will come back and lose by 57 for the Brotherhood!
Coach K was there, making one of his few appearances at Cameron since Carolina beat him in his last home game and sent him into retirement in the 2022 Final Four. No matter how much you want to pick on Hubert Davis, he will always have those two wins. Forever.
I especially wanted to see Cooper Flagg, the 6-9 talent who grew up in Maine, was the No. 1 recruit in his class and is already the top pick projected in the 2025 NBA Draft. He was very good but not the best player on his team that night. I spent a lot of summers in Maine, and I will be surprised if any white, skinny kid will ever be the best player in college basketball.
Flagg played 20 minutes in the Blue Devils slaughter of the Sun Devils, and no Dukie played more than 23. Fellow frosh 6-7 Kon Knueppel from Milwaukee outscored, outshot and out-rebounded Flagg, and had one more assist and one more steal. The player to watch, especially Carolina, is 7-2 freshman Khaman Maluach, who had 12 rebounds and two blocks to go with his 8 points. Pure size and wingspan make him the difference for Duke.
It was an exhibition game, like UNC had at Memphis, and Cameron was not packed to the rafters because it wasn’t in the season-ticket package and sold as a one-off since, well, it was for the Brotherhood, whose total net worth could not be calculated.
Grant Hill was there, and his is $250 million, according to the Internet.
It didn’t seem like a normal game because you truly needed a program to tell who was who, and moving forward they should include a pronunciation guide for the two new Special Ks. It is Kon Knueppel and Khaman Maluach. Repeat after me, Knueppel and Maluach.
Duke promotes, but doesn’t flaunt, its NIL machine but everyone following that stuff knows they are set up as well as any school in the country for this new era that is driving a lot of coaches crazy and a few (Tony Bennett is the latest) out of the sport.
How Jon Scheyer follows Coach K in this one-and-done game will be interesting to watch from year to year. For this year, though, the hardly depleted Dukies look damn good.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20103024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Dukies appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
For those who have given up on the Tar Heels, Saturday is a very consequential game.
Who expected Carolina to be 4-4 after 8 games this season and then go to Florida State as a favorite to beat the defending ACC champion in Tallahassee?
The Seminoles are a mind-boggling 1-7 and 16th in the 17-team football conference. That they have only beaten last-place Cal and lost at home to BC, Memphis and Clemson and at Duke, SMU and Miami has 2023 ACC Coach of the Year Mike Norvell on the hottest of seats with the wealthy and wily FSU alumni and fan base.
Since joining the ACC in 1992, Florida State has won 16 of 22 conference championships and six different national titles. For merely the Noles’ long-time resume and rep, this has to be a dangerous game for Carolina.
But after the dominating 41-14 win at Virginia, the current Heels suddenly find themselves in the opposite mental place they have been the last two years, when they were 7-1 and 6-2 after eight games before going 4-7 for the remainder of those seasons.
Their sterling performance in Charlottesville was so overwhelming that it now seems like they could run the table against the last four opponents, none of whom goes into this weekend with winning records.
And if the Heels can avoid an embarrassing and regressive loss at FSU, they would go into a rare second open date on November 9th and finish up the healing process physically and emotionally from what Mack Brown calls the most difficult season he has had as a head coach.
After opening 3-0 that included two wins over FCS teams, Brown’s status became the talking point of the season after losing 70-50 to James Madison and he mentioned quitting to the team in the post-game locker room.
Three more defeats filled with sketchy defense increased the chatter among alumni and fans over whether Carolina would move on from Brown after this season, including rumors that talks about his departure from the sideline had already begun with the university.
Starting 9-1 in 2022 with all kinds of dreams dancing in their heads, the Tar Heels lost the last four to Georgia Tech and N.C. State at home to close the regular season and then to Clemson in the ACC championship game and Oregon in the Holiday Bowl; sitting at 6-2 last season, the Heels beat only Campbell and Duke in overtime before getting crushed at favored Clemson and N.C. State and by West Virginia in the bowl game without Drake Maye.
But Wake Forest at home, going to Boston College and Senior Day against N.C. State (all also 4-4 at this writing) are winnable games. That could make them 8-4 with a chance to win a bowl for a 9-4 finish, which would feel a lot better than the last two years.
“We’ve had all kinds of injuries, played three quarterbacks and then lost Tylee Craft,” Brown said Monday. “I said all along we’d be better at the end of the season.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mind-Boggling appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye was injured but his Patriots won anyway.
The former Tar Heel started his third straight game for New England Sunday, and it began better than his prior two starts.
Maye had already run for a 17-yard touchdown to put the Patriots ahead on their second possession.
Take it yourself @DrakeMaye2 👏
📺: CBS pic.twitter.com/lDKGOnPLKj
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 27, 2024
He left the game late in the second quarter, was diagnosed with a concussion at halftime and did not return. But the Pats rose up in his absence to win behind back-up veteran Jacoby Brissett. It almost seemed like the promise Drake brings to the franchise has resulted in harder and emotional play from the defense and offensive line. Not great, but improved.
This was not the typical game between New England and the New York Jets that we’ve seen for years, when both teams were vying for playoff berths. But Gillette Stadium was still packed to the rafters, nevertheless, because it was rookie Maye and the Jets and their 40-year-old quarterback Aaron Rodgers who walked off the field with the same 2-6 record as the rebuilding Patriots.
Hopefully, Maye’s concussion is minor, and he will be back next week because he has become the 22-year-old hope of the future for this storied franchise. The fans love his style, his strong arm and his surprising running ability that we saw for two years in Chapel Hill.
When he went out, the crowd grew silent then erupted when Brissett led the team to a go-ahead touchdown and field goal and the victorious score with 30 seconds left in the game.
Despite playing less than half, Maye led the Patriots in rushing for the third straight game until the very last drive when they scored the winning touchdown on a one-yard plunge by Rhamondre Stevenson. Maye had scrambles of 18 and 17 yards that included the sixth TD he is responsible for in three games this season.
Brissett had been replaced by Maye because of his inability to stretch the field with long passes. But this time he delivered in the clutch, hitting critical third-down throws that led to a touchdown and field goal before beating the clock to the end zone for the 25-22 victory.
The result still keeps the Patriots and Jets out of the playoff race, so the eyes are on the future of quarterbacks Maye and Rodgers. Coming off in an Achilles injury, Rodgers is coming close to retirement after the Jets started slowly.
But the look on his face said it all as he left the field after being beaten by an old, underdog rival with a backup quarterback and the one, hopefully, getting ready to have his own all-star career.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Krupa
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Game 3 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Man, oh, man, Charlottesville is the perfect place to flip the script on the season.
The Tar Heels have lost four straight under Mack Brown for the first time in the regular season since 1989. And there would be no better place to break that string than Scott Stadium, which has not been accommodating to them over the years.
Ardent fans often remember the tough losses more than the glorious victories. And one of the biggest nightmares came in 1996 when Brown’s first tenure at Carolina had dreams of winning the national championship going to 7-3 Virginia on ABC national TV.
The 7-1 visitors were seeking their first victory there under Brown, and it looked like they had it in the bag midway through the fourth quarter when they led 17-3 after Dre Blye’s 11th career interception for a touchdown.
And then Brian Simmons picked off Virginia’s fourth pass of the game and returned it to the UVa 10, but it didn’t end there.
The students were so sure their team would lose they finished chugging their mini bottles and hurling them onto the field behind the Carolina bench. Brown said he spent more time trying to protect his players than watching Carolina’s last drive toward the end zone.
Quarterback Chris Keldorf and receiver Octavus Barnes got mixed up on the play call, with Barnes turning the wrong way on his pattern, as Antwan Harris of Raleigh picked off the pass and returned it 95 yards for a touchdown that reignited the Virginia crowd.
UNC got very conservative with its offense trying to run out the clock and instead allowed Virginia to score 10 more points and snatch an improbable 20-17 victory from the certain jaws of defeat.
The Heels finished 10-2 after beating Duke in Durham and West Virginia in the Gator Bowl, but felt like they left something much bigger on the field at UVa. Brown was disconsolate and had a very tough off-season.
They went 11-2 in 1997 before Brown departed for Texas and UNC has had only one 10-win season since under Larry Fedora in 2015.
Carolina, 3-4, and Virginia, 4-3, are out of contention for the ACC championship this season but can still snag bowl bids by getting to six wins overall.
The noon kickoff has been relegated to the CW network, which is fourth on the ACC TV totem poll and it certainly won’t draw an overflow crowd.
Instead of securing something meaningful, it feels more like a salvage job than anything else unless Carolina can use it as a springboard by playing its best game of the season and moving to 4-4.
With trips to Florida State and Boston College and home games against Wake Forest and N.C. State – all beatable foes – the season could still end on a much-needed and surprising uptick.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Late Surprise, Please! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The other Tar Heels will have to take the pressure off R.J. Davis.
Remember how Davis began last season as one of only two starters returning from the team that did not make the NCAA tournament? There were questions galore about the new line-up that Davis eventually led back to the Big Dance and into the Sweet Sixteen.
It is likely that opposing teams, and some of our own fans, were surprised when R.J. began ringing up record scoring numbers and was in contention for ACC Player of the Year by mid-season. This November, he will no longer be a secret weapon after being named preseason ACC Player of the Year and first team All-American by the Associated Press.
Those who have watched Davis practice and play so far say he has become an even better outside shooter than the 40 percent he made from the 3-point line last season. But he will also have a target on his back from the first jump. And without three starters who are gone, and still an unproven front court, Davis can’t do it all.
Davis, who received 51 of 55 votes, is joined by Alabama’s Mark Sears and Hunter Dickinson from Kansas, two teams the Tar Heels play in early November and December, and two familiar players – supposed freshman phenom Cooper Flagg of Duke and former Tar Heel Caleb Love of Arizona, who tied for fifth place in the voting. The other AP first teamer is Johni Broome from Auburn, which Carolina could play on the second day of the Maui Invitational.
The 6-foot Davis will be a marked man while Hubert Davis figures out his rotation to replace Armando Bacot, Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan. Teaming again with 6-1 Elliot Cadeau, they will be one of the most talented, but also smallest, backcourts in the country. The Heels caught a lucky break with the return from the transfer portal of 6-3 Seth Trimble, whose 33 points in the exhibition win at Memphis makes him look good enough to be a Swiss Army Knife of sorts on the perimeter.
Granted, Bacot never developed into an offensive threat away from the basket but had an uncanny nose for the ball as UNC’s all-time leading rebounder. The two “J’s” – Washington and Withers – could possibly fill AB’s stat line but that remains to be seen. Transfers Cade Tyson and Ven-Allen Lubin are also in that front court mix.
And Hubert has to find a way to get minutes for 5-star freshman wings Ian Jackson and Drake Powell, great athletes who have to prove they can score at this level.
R.J. taking over the team from Day One is not the right starting strategy. He and the Tar Heels will be better off if Trimble and the new guys get to show off their stuff, so the beep-beep backcourt can have ample room to operate.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pieces of the Puzzle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The late Bob Knight shared some legendary basketball stories.
Scrolling through my phone, I came across an interview young Joe Buck did with the late Knight, the Hall of Fame coach who passed away almost a year ago.
It was a great repartee. Buck was trying to make his bones as an up-and-coming broadcaster, and Knight was as candid as anyone in the history of sports.
I was surprised that the one-hour piece had a few holes in it.
For example, they covered the 1976 season, when Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers went 32-0, the last college basketball team to go undefeated. They had beaten UCLA at the Final Four the year after John Wooden had retired. And Knight revealed he respected Wooden as a coach, but he allowed wealthy booster Sam Gilbert to recruit the best high school players with illegal inducements.
Buck mentioned that Indiana had been undefeated the year before, losing to Kentucky in the Midwest regional final. Buck failed to mention that Hoosiers All-American Scott May had played with a cast on his fractured hand or Knight might have pulled off the feat in 1975, as well.
They talked about his 1981 national championship win over Carolina in Philadelphia, the day President Ronald Reagan was wounded by a gunman in Washington, D.C. Knight said he and Dean Smith talked about whether to play, postpone the game or cancel it. Smith wasn’t sure they should play, but Knight was.
“President Reagan wants us to play,” Knight said. “He’s a winner and the game should go on.”
The Hoosiers led by a point at the half, and Knight recalled they went on to win with an early run in the second half. Tar Heel fans remember that came after official Booker Turner called James Worthy for his third and fourth fouls, forcing Smith to take out Big Game James.
In 1984, Knight coached the USA Olympic team to the gold medal in Los Angeles. They were barely beating Spain at halftime of the championship game, and Knight got on Michael Jordan in the locker room for not setting any screens.
“Coach, didn’t you once call me the quickest basketball player you have ever seen?” Michael said smiling. “I think I set screens faster than you can see them.”
Knight said he wanted the game to be decided with four minutes remaining. With seven minutes left and the Americans now blowing out Spain, Jordan called a timeout, put his arm around Knight and said, “Coach, we’re three minutes early.”
After sitting on the bench at Ohio State behind future NBA stars Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, Knight had decided he wanted to coach and got the head job at West Point at age 24. He had a point guard named Mike Krzyzewski, who was not allowed to shoot because Knight wanted him to pass the ball, play defense and learn how to coach. And Coach K sure checked all those boxes.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20-%20102324%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Bob Jordan
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Knight Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina faces a unique challenge of the Mack Brown 2.0 era.
After beginning the season with three straight wins, two of them over heavy underdogs, the Tar Heels are 3-4 (0-3 in the ACC) and needing three more victories for a sixth straight bowl bid.
After a gut-wrenching two weeks that included a fourth straight defeat and an off Saturday to process the death of a team member, Carolina goes to Virginia, which has been a house of horrors for UNC football since Brown’s first tenure in Chapel Hill.
Brown lost 7 out of 10 to the Cavaliers from 1988 to1997, including the blown 20-17 loss in ’96 that killed Carolina’s chances of making the old Bowl Alliance, which preceded the College Football Playoff that has grown from four teams to 12.
The Heels have gone 2-3 against the Wahoos since Brown’s return, but that includes his long-sought first win in Charlottesville in 2022. Last season, Carolina started 6-0 and was ranked 10th in the nation before losing to a 1-6 UVA team in Kenan Stadium and skidded to 8-5 while Virginia recovered from its own heartache.
In 2022, the first year for head coach Tony Elliott, three Cavalier football players were shot and killed by a former teammate and the school cancelled its last two games against Coastal Carolina and Virginia Tech as the campus and ACC mourned the deaths.
UNC wide receiver Tylee Craft lost a prolonged fight against terminal cancer and has created the same kind of sadness as the Tar Heels return to action Saturday at noon in Scott Stadium. Brown, his staff and team bused to Sumter, South Carolina, Sunday to attend Craft’s funeral and is now trying to get back to business and win another game.
“Our coaches are trying their best to balance being themselves,” Brown said. “I said, don’t change who you are because that’s gonna look weird for your players. So go coach ’em hard and and then go hug ’em afterwards and make sure they understand, because some are going to be more emotional than others. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is tell ’em they lost their teammate in that locker room right after a devastating fourth loss in a row.”
The game on its own will be tough enough as Virginia is 4-3 and 2-2 in the ACC after losing 48-31 at Clemson. The Wahoos’ best wins are at Wake Forest and at home against Boston College, the week before they led Louisville most of the game before losing.
The Heels and Hoos are close to each other in the ACC offensive and defensive statistics. Virginia has two running backs who have combined for more than 100 yards per game, pretty close to Omarion Hampton, the league leader with 129 per game.
“We gotta stop the run,” Brown said. “I’m so tired of six years of inconsistent run defense. If you don’t stop the run, you’re not gonna win.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Carlson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Losing and Sadness appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye is getting better even if his team is getting worse.
The week two report on Maye as the Patriots’ starting quarterback is both pretty good and really bad.
Maye looked something like his days as a Tar Heel on the first two drives of the game for New England which reverted to its place as perhaps the lousiest team in the NFL.
Maye took the opening kickoff on a 68-yard drive, completing six out of seven passes on the way to his fourth TD toss as a pro, a 16-yarder to give the Pats a 7-0 lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars in London’s Wembley Stadium.
On his second possession, Maye connected on five more passes and had a nifty 15-yard scramble for first down as the Patriots took a 10-led with a field goal. That was their last score until Maye’s second TD pass in the fourth quarter of the 32-16 loss.
More good news for the wealthy rookie is that he had no turnovers and is getting comfortable even though his team is racked with some injured starters and the rest inferior players for the former two-decade juggernaut.
After the game, Maye echoed what his rookie head coach Jerod Mayo said when he called his team soft, which of course is his fault more than anyone else’s. When you tool around the channels on Sunday afternoon and night, you see some amazing talent; New England doesn’t have a shadow of that.
When Maye joined the team for summer workouts and training camp, the word of his talent slinging the football was not overrated but it was almost a given he would not start right away. In two games, he has proven to be far more skilled than veteran starter Jacoby Brissett, but he desperately needs better wide receivers to go with tight end Hunter Henry.
The fact that the Pats are going with Maye as their quarterback for the rest of the season is good for the team and the player. At 1-6 after six straight losses, this is another lost season for the team, but Maye is gaining valuable experience as the team tries to trade for or draft much-needed help.
Maye’s accuracy is looking familiar to what we saw at Carolina for two seasons, as he throws darts down the seam and lofts long balls along the sideline and completed 26 of 37 throws for 276 yards and those two touchdowns. For the second straight game he had as many yards rushing as anyone else on the predictable and unimaginable offense of coordinator Alex Van Pelt, who my guess won’t be with the team for the entire season.
The Pats play the 2-5 Jets with Aaron Rodgers next week and have five games in November against teams that will all struggle to make the playoffs. So Maye could get his first win as an NFL starter.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/21/Art%27s%20Notebook%20102124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ian Walton
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye Day No. 2 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
When Tony Bennett does it, you know it’s real.
It’s a little like politics. Much of the country is wondering if Donald Trump is really as dangerous as he seems to be.
The college sports world is wondering if NIL, the transfer portal and having to pay players to get them is going to ruin what we’ve loved to watch for decades.
But some famous college coaches have likely factored the direction of their games into decisions to retire.
Nick Saban said as much when he stepped down from Alabama when it appeared he wasn’t really ready to stop coaching.
Roy Williams said that he just wasn’t the right guy to coach the Tar Heels anymore. We all wondered whether part of that was code for the changes he did not want to go along with.
They speculate even more about former Villanova Coach Jay Wright, who was in his prime with two national championships in the last ten years and more seemingly within his grasp.
For Coach K, it was health and 43 years at Duke more than anything else, but he has since gone public with his opinion that the game and players have changed from what he fell in love with coming out of West Point.
In that context, it’s not shocking that 55-year-old Tony Bennett has suddenly retired at Virginia with his 16th season there about the start. UVa has already confirmed that his decision is not health related. Bennett, whose Cavaliers won the 2019 NCAA championship, has a career record of 433-169.
At the ACC basketball media day recently in Charlotte, he gave a long answer to a question about the state of the game by saying coaches have to decide if they want to keep doing it under the circumstances.
“When you’re in this profession, whether you agree with how it’s going or not, you have to be true to yourself and really look at it and say, who am I?” Bennett told ESPN. “And when you feel it’s time, like Jay did, like Coach K, maybe Saban, it’s their choice. You can sit here and complain or gripe. Or you have a decision to make. Either you try to do it in your way or you get to make that decision. So I think Jay Wright probably foresaw where this is going. It’ll be better when there are regulations. Is that three to five years away? Who knows? Those are decisions every man has to make when it’s his time.”
When Bennett, who became an iconic role model at his school, turns in his whistle and clipboard, he is making a statement that personal relationships with your players aren’t the priority anymore. It is whether the best players want enough money to come more than anything else.
The players deserve to be paid. Coaches have to decide if they still want to be paid.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured photo via AP Photo/Chris Carlson.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Bennett ‘Shocker’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Vince Carter was literally the showstopper at the Hall of Fame.In some ways, it was appropriate that the former Carolina highflyer was the last inductee into the class of 2024 to speak at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Carter was inducted with the late Walter Davis, the silky smooth Tar Heel star of the 1970s who died last year and was represented by his two daughters.
According to whom we learned to call “Vinsanity,” Carter may have been the last man chosen for the prestigious honor this year. Was it because he played for eight teams over his four-decade, 22-year career in the NBA? Or that he never won a World Championship? He even said he got advice from his college archrival who is an executive with the HOF.
“Grant Hill told me it’s going to happen, be patient,” said Carter, who can be as fast a talker as he was from end to end on the floor.
He almost had to hip-hop through his 28-minute speech in which he listed dozens of people to thank and help keep his head straight as he ascended to be the greatest leaper in the game this side of another Tar Heel named Michael Jordan.
What an All-Star special that would have been to see MJ and Vinsanity engage in an NBA dunk contest that both won as active players.
Vince did not name them all but was sure he had exactly 261 teammates, reeling off coaches and executives of every team he played for — beginning with his college coach Dean Smith, before being the fifth pick in the 1998 NBA draft.
“With Coach Smith, may he rest in peace,” he began, “it was all about being a student athlete, education first, Coach Smith embodied that. He was a father figure, you can ask any Tar Heel what he meant to us and we all sound like robots. He taught us so many things on and off the court.”
Carter went on to thank most of his teammates and all of coaches starting at Carolina, where he had such an uneven freshman season that Smith benched him in favor of Ademola Okulaja, a teammate and classmate who passed away in 2022.
He signaled out attending fellow Hall of Famer Roy Williams who had left UNC before Carter arrived and recruited him to play at Kansas.
“I won’t tell the whole story, coach, but you always supported me and I appreciate that. During my recruiting visit I think you got the idea that I wasn’t coming to Kansas. All I said was, ‘I’m going to be a Tar Heel and not go to Duke.'” Roy laughed with the rest of us.
Carter had his longtime hoop hero Julius “Dr. J” Erving and his cousin Tracy McGrady, another Hall of Famer, supporting him on the stage as he ended a long night in Springfield with a truly heartfelt oration.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via AP Photo/Jessica Hill.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hail ‘Vinsanity’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Big-time scorer, double-double point guard and a presence in the paint. So what else is new?
Well, quite a bit. What used to be a secret scrimmage with no spectators turned into a raucous nationally televised doubleheader.
Carolina and Memphis were the prelim to the top-ranked South Carolina and Memphis women in the nightcap at the FedExForum, site of one of the Tar Heels greatest buzzer-beaters (can you say Luuuuke Maye).
It was an exhibition that doesn’t count in the won-lost record, but it will be a game people talk about for a long time.
Without their super senior All-American, returning and preseason ACC Player of the Year, R.J. Davis, the Tar Heels put on a pretty good show in a sloppy but athletic 84-76 win over the Tigers who have seven transfers including the leading freshman scorer in the country last season.
Junior Seth Trimble, who has improved steadily ever since he arrived, left and returned to Carolina, took over the shooting guard spot for the injured Davis and played perhaps his career game. The one-time defensive specialist scored 33 points and missed only eight shots of the 25 he took, including three-pointers and free throws.
Sophomore Elliot Cadeau began with a double-double of 11 points and 12 assists and a bunch of UNC’s 13 steals. He triggered Carolina taking control of the game early in the second half with a drive to the hole, a 3-pointer and an assist to Trimble that turned a three-point halftime deficit into a seven-point lead that Carolina never lost.
As for that presence in the paint, junior Jalen Washington looks like he has finally arrived after a season of rehab and a season as a reserve. Showing off for Armando Bacot, now a member of the NBA Memphis Grizzlies who was at the game, J-Wash made six of seven from the floor, three of five from the foul line and both 3-point attempts with smooth and soft jumpers beyond the arc.
He had six points in the run that broke open the game midway through the second half as Carolina held on for the victory while Memphis sophomore PJ Haggerty recorded 24 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists. Haggerty, a 6-3 guard, led all major college freshmen in scoring last year at Tulsa after transferring there from TCU.
UNC transfers, new and old, combined for 21 of the team’s 40 rebounds. Jae’Lyn Withers and Cade Tyson started and shot 5-of-17 and 1-of-8 from outside but were big on the boards. Ven-Allen Lubin had 6 points and 4 rebounds in limited minutes.
Deferring to their upperclassmen, touted freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell broke into major college basketball by combining for four points and five rebounds in sub roles.
“It was nothing like it looked last year,” said Hubert Davis, referring mostly to Trimble. “I am proud of them all and without RJ” — who is out with a sore back but should be back soon.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/16/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletics Communications/Maggie Hobson.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good Start appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown should be a lifer at UNC.
It was certainly an unusual and heavy-hearted weekend on the Carolina campus. A football player who had been battling cancer gallantly for more than two years died just before Carolina kicked it off against Georgia Tech.
However long he coaches the Tar Heels, Brown should remain at the University in some capacity with the students, athletes and/or alumni. And he demonstrated that over the weekend.
How he handled the very difficult heartbreak of the afternoon certainly passed the test as someone who believes in the youngsters who play for him more than their results on the field.
For the last several years, beginning with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown has talked a lot about the mental health of his athletes and others who are trying to juggle the pressures of football and being students. He is proud that his players are first in the ACC and third in the country in APR, which is academic progress report.
He coached Saturday full well knowing that Tylee Craft might not live through the weekend, and during the time out between the first and second quarters, Brown briefly joined a short ceremony honoring the fallen Tar Heel to hug Craft’s mother, a police officer in Sumter, South Carolina, who made repeated trips to Chapel Hill as her son went through cancer treatment and its ups and downs along the way.
During each visit, Brown and his wife, Sally, and the Carolina football family supported the mother and son in every way possible, with regular visits to the hospital or the SECU family house with Tylee stayed as an outpatient during his treatment.
After the game, Brown spent most of his one-hour press conference talking about the ordeal and how he was trying to help his team and his coaches get through this terrible mid-season tragedy while also readying them to play their last five games of the season.
And the way he emoted, you can’t make up that kind of stuff. Sally Brown, whom Mack said is a cancer survivor since she was 29, could relate as well as anyone to what Tylee and his mother were enduring, and like with many other players the Browns grew close.
UNC has had seven football coaches over the last 36 years and Brown has been two of them. He would not have left for Austin after the 1997 season had Carolina made a reasonable counter to what Texas was offering him.
Twenty years later, Chapel Hill was the only place he and Sally wanted to come back and coach again. His second tenure has not been as successful as he had hoped, but it has met the standards of Carolina football over the years.
Meanwhile, he has been a passionate supporter of his program and his players, even when he can be over the top with what he says. That emotion is authentic because it’s who Mack Brown is.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/15/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK%201015.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Andy Mead.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Who He Is appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Yes, Drake Maye could be a part of the NFL’s future.
While Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels have justified their picks as No. 1 and No. 2 in the 2024 NFL draft, Carolina’s golden boy got his chance with the cautiously optimistic worst team in the AFC.
Maye went third in the draft after two sterling seasons as a Tar Heel, but going to a franchise that had tanked since Tom Brady left brought all kinds of opinions from the sports media and blogospheres. Finally, with ex-NC State quarterback Jacoby Brissett proving he was a career back-up, Maye finally got an opportunity.
He started for the New England Patriots Sunday, and while they lost their fifth game in six this season Pats fans have a lot to compare him to. Brady, their two-decade icon, threw exactly six passes as a rookie after being drafted in the sixth round, the 199th pick.
Tom Terrific, by the way, took over the next season and led the Pats to the first of six Super Bowl championships. He is living proof that a younger quarterback when he turned pro after only playing two years of college ball compared to Brady’s four at Michigan can become very good, if not great. And the packed stadium in Foxboro was there with cheers and signs for Maye and, I imagine, left with dreams of more glory days ahead.
He threw three touchdown passes compared to two for Brissett in five games, and the team scored more points than it had so far this season in the 41-21 loss to the very good Houston Texans with second-year QB C.J. Stroud from Ohio State, who also had three TD throws.
Overall, Maye’s numbers were comparable, as both completed 20 passes and threw an interception that was their fault. Maye was clearly a better runner, escaping pressure for 38 yards, while taking several big pro football hits and coming back to play some more.
To start his career, Drake is probably more comparable in size and arm strength to Trevor Lawrence, the Clemson star and first pick in the 2021 draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars who were about as bad as Maye’s new team.
Lawrence started all 17 games as a rookie for the 3-14 Jags, threw 12 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions and was criticized roundly as not ready to be a prime player. His passing stats improved to 63 percent, 25 TDs and 8 picks his second year when the Jags went 9-8 and won their first playoff game.
Coincidentally, the Patriots and Jaguars play this Sunday in London at 9 am our time. Surely, Mack Brown will gather his still hurting program together to watch their old mate at the football center.
Maye has already been on their sideline once this season, and the Tar Heels will have his back from across the pond.
NOTE: Maye is first NFL QB in 75 years to throw 3 TDs and lead his team in rushing in first start.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/14/CHANSKY%20NOTEBOOK10-14.mp3Featured image via AP Photo/Charles Krupa.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye Day Up North appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Georgia Tech and Carolina have a topsy-turvy history.
The 4-2 Ramblin’ Wreck, which rolls into town for Saturday’s nooner at Kenan Stadium, is one of five past-present ACC members to have a winning record against the Tar Heels. The other three of the Big Four don’t, and it’s not even close.
UNC dominated the team now known as the Yellow Jackets all the way back to the leather helmet days, going 9-3-2 from 1915 until the ACC was formed in 1953. After the Jackets joined the conference in 1980, the Tar Heels went 13-4-1 before Georgia Tech rebounded and won 19 of the next 23 games in the series.
Included was 1990 when Carolina led 13-10 late in the game before the Jackets kicked a field goal to leave town with a tie and went on to win one of two national championships awarded then.
And Mack Brown often reminds us, “They tied us, we didn’t tie them” in his first winning season at UNC with a 6-4-1 record and had to decline a bowl bid when then-Chancellor Paul Hardin said it conflicted with final exams.
Fast forward to Brown 2.0 and Tech is still wrecking us in one form or another. They have beaten Carolina three straight, each time turning a potential great season into something less.
After Brown’s first encore meeting in 2019, a rare win in Atlanta was one of six victories that qualified UNC for its first bowl bid in three years. When COVID forced the ACC to shuffle games around in 2020, Tech did not visit Kenan as originally scheduled.
Going back to Atlanta the next year and playing in the Mercedes Benz Dome, Carolina was 2-1 and heavily favored against 1-2 Tech before back-up quarterback Jeff Sims came off the bench and engineered a 45-15 blowout over the last three quarters.
With Drake Maye succeeding Sam Howell under center in 2022, the Heels were 9-1 before Georgia Tech blew up the Tar Heels season that ended 9-5 with a loss to Oregon in the Holiday Bowl. Carolina easily could have escaped the heat when sure-handed Josh Downs dropped Maye’s touchdown pass in the front right corner of the end zone and the Jackets buzzed home with a 21-17 upset that could have instead been that elusive 10-win season.
Last year Tech won a 46-42 shootout at Grant Field, with Maye completing 17 of 25 for 310 yards and two touchdowns. But he was matched by unknown Tech QB Haynes King, who threw for four touchdowns as the Jackets roared back to win with a 22-point fourth quarter.
Now, with the Tar Heels in a tailspin, Georgia Tech is a 10-point favorite behind King, who has blossomed into a star – sixth in a close ACC total offense race with 281 yards per game and 12 touchdowns. The Jackets have a top-12 running back and top-six receiver. Against that, Carolina has the ACC’s 15th best defense.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Back And Forth appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina owes a debt of gratitude to Mack Brown.
The media (including yours truly) has been speculating whether the Hall of Fame football coach will retire (or be fired) after his 16th overall season at UNC. If so, it will match the same span he coached at Texas from 1998 to 2013.
Greg Barnes of Inside Carolina wrote an analytics-driven story of how five and half years into Brown’s second stint in Chapel Hill the Tar Heels find themselves “mired in mediocrity.”
Emma Moon of the Daily Tar Heel predicts “The Mack Brown 2.0 Era is over” and asks “was it really ever an improvement” from his predecessor Larry Fedora since they both own a 41-30 record through their first 71 games on the job here.
Fedora ended his stay with two seasons of disappointment, eventual anger and then apathy when the stadium cleared out as the mythical October 15 start of basketball practice approached.
Both coaches went 1-4 in bowl games, captured one ACC Coastal Division title and lost competitive championship games to league powerhouse Clemson, Fedora in 2015 and Brown in 2022. They had programs that featured high-powered offenses and dismal defenses under ever-changing coordinators.
Of Brown, Moon concludes, “has he changed anything at all?”
While IC and DTH have fact-based theories, Brown has definitely improved the program he inherited from Fedora. Yes, he won a national championship at Texas. And, no, that will never be a realistic possibility at what is known as “a basketball school.”
But if Bubba Cunningham makes a coaching change, the new guy will find a football program with higher brand recognition, greatly enhanced facilities and a tradition of selling out Kenan Stadium.
No doubt, Brown is an icon of his sport who fashions himself as a father figure to players and a mentor to young coaches. He has pushed Cunningham for at least two major renovations of the Kenan Football Center, now a showpiece. Despite lower capacity than most Power 4 stadiums, Kenan still rocks with a full house.
Winning championships is always the top priority because with that comes more money. But at UNC, selling season tickets and keeping those seats filled go a long way toward building revenue that had fallen off sharply in the Fedora era.
And if Carolina can find the right young coach who won’t have the same pizzazz, he will still have plenty to work with that can be credited to Brown’s natural marketing ability.
When Mack was hired back in late 2018, a long-time member of the athletic department was asked about Brown, then 67, coming back. “I think it’s great,” he said, “but is there a succession plan?”
Not so far, although this time it will be a much more coveted job, thanks to Mack Brown coming back and doing more good things than bad.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20101024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: More Good Than Bad appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke is doing NIL better for so many reasons.
After being regarded as a nice regional private school through the 1970s, Duke had a meteoric rise mostly from the national brand Mike Krzyzewski’s basketball program helped build into a global university. An active alumni base, many of whom acquired great wealth, gave a lot of money back to their alma mater. So it was no surprise, in the chaos of the first official year of NIL, Blue Devils freshman star Paolo Banchero reportedly reaped more than a million dollars for minimum return in value.
UNC seemed stymied from being the flagship of the state university system, which is no longer as rosy of a place as it once was. As so much money was being raised by four-year funding drives into the billions, Carolina’s alumni base became a large target for every other organization, foundation and charity on campus.
That was one reason the university low-keyed NIL to much of the public and tried to make sure it didn’t fall behind on the field and court. UNC is now in the shadow of Duke’s NIL success, which has helped them continue signing 5-star basketball classes.
Their fall Duke Magazine edition has junior hoop star Tyrese Proctor on the front cover and a full-page picture inside. They didn’t reveal how much NIL dough Proctor was making in the eight-page article titled MONEY BALL but divulged a few of his business partners, such as Bath and Body Works and Express men’s clothing. It also features stars of their ACC champion women’s track and field team. Certainly, somehow these athletes are paid for their NIL by the magazine or its sponsors.
The spread also introduces Rachel Baker, the first female general manager of a major college basketball program in charge of NIL. She has worked in the NBA and with Nike and advises the players’ path to the NBA and their NIL prospects. Former Duke football player Terrell Smith is the assistant director of athletics/NIL strategy.
UNC has had Armando Bacot and Elliot Cadeau on national TV ads but has never been out front with their NIL program. Mack Brown speaks publicly about how far behind they are in their NIL bank account and Hubert Davis, who lost at least one big man prospect from not meeting the kids’ hand-out demand, won’t say much at all about NIL in recruiting but does share advice with his players that stem from his time making and losing sponsorship deals during his 12 years in the NBA.
The newly reorganized collective CarolinaNIL has a pretty website but still has the problem of asking donors they have hit up before. Maybe the settlement in the NCAA-Power 4 conference lawsuit will net UNC and athletics a lot of money, but nobody quite knows what that will be beyond the athletes’ cuts.
What is happening down the road in Durham is called the Duke Difference, and it seems to be working right now.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Duke Difference appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Has Mack Brown made up his mind?
One of Brown’s former players said he saw him this week and was surprised at how relaxed his old coach was. After all, Carolina has three straight losses and faces nemesis Georgia Tech Saturday at noon in Kenan Stadium.
Those who attended or watched Brown’s weekly press conference Monday noticed his answers were more direct than usual and informative about what was troubling his 3-3 team halfway through this season.
For example, the coach who is sometimes nicknamed “Mr. Fix-It” said his staff does not try to correct mistakes repeatedly made by a player. If it’s the same mistake by the same player, UNC will put someone else in that position and move on. If an error is made by someone who rarely makes that mistake, Brown’s staff will coach him hard to help him get it right.
He said his team made fewer mistakes against Pitt than in past games and only a few plays marked the difference between a 34-24 loss and possibly their fourth win of the season. He said the defense gave up too many “explosive” plays to the Panthers and his own offense did not complete two long drives, one for 19 plays that resulted in giving up the ball on downs.
Brown reiterated what he said before the opening game that, after losing quarterback Drake Maye and other key veterans, the inexperienced 2024 Tar Heels would probably get better as the season wore on. “And we still have a chance to have a great year,” he said.
He talked about playing Carolina in a home-and-home series after he left for Texas in 1998. When the Tar Heels of first-year coach John Bunting visited Austin in 2001, Brown was more concerned with comforting the family of a Longhorns player who was killed in a car crash the previous summer than coaching the game. The player’s number was 44, the same amount of points Texas had after a late touchdown; he called a timeout so his team could agree to not kick the extra point and take a knee in honor of No. 44.
“Some Carolina fans thought I had done that to go for two and run up the score,” he said with a laugh.
When they came up to Chapel Hill the next season for the rematch, he was asked if the fans might boo him when he ran out with his team. “They booed me for 10 years when I was here, so I’m used to that,” he answered.
He called Pitt the best team Carolina had played so far this season but hinted that Georgia Tech, which has beaten the Heels the last three years and is currently 4-2, might be even better than the Panthers.
It was almost as if Brown was resigned to letting the season play out or he had decided, amidst the mounting criticism, that this would be his last.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Daniel Lin
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mr. Fix-It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Did you happen to catch one of the best baseball games ever played?
The Major League Baseball season may be too long with 162 games from late March to the end of September, but it yields the best 12 teams for the playoffs.
This year has happened again with all the teams that made it, but the New York Mets have put on the best show so far on their way to the best-of-5 second round in the National League playoffs.
The Amazin’ Mets lived up to their old nickname by having to play five games in four days just to make the post-season, then eliminate NL Central Division champ Milwaukee and reach the second round against the East Champion Phillies.
They won the first game of the best-of-five in Philadelphia before they finally had a day off. They played the second game on Sunday, which has to go down as one of the greatest postseason games ever.
The score was tied 3-3 after six innings when the Mets went back up 4-3 on a home run by slugger Pete Alonso in the seventh, and it looked like the Mets magic was still alive going to the home half of the eighth.
But the Phils rallied with three runs to go ahead 6-4 heading to the 9th inning.
Of course, New York tied the score again on a two-run homer from Mark Vientos, his second of the game, and the Mets had regained the momentum going to the Phillies bottom of the 9th.
The back-and-forth slugfest continued when the Mets walked Philly star Bryce Harper almost intentionally and forced the winning run into scoring position as the home crowd continued to lose its mind.
The Phillies won on a two-strike single to left field by Nick Castellanos to walk off the win and set off a wild celebration in the City of Brotherly Love.
Castellanos had ripped the winning line drive that scored Trea Turner and sent the Phillies to a dizzying 7-6 win that evened the NLDS semis at one game apiece. Perhaps the coolest moment came when Castellanos shared his heroics with his young son sitting behind home plate.
The series moves to Citi Field in New York for the third game on Tuesday at 5 o’clock, when more fireworks are expected, while the wicked West Coast rivals Dodgers and Padres are also tied one game apiece in the other half of the National League bracket; game two in LA had to be stopped for 15 minutes to protect the Padres outfielders from being hit by debris thrown by the Dodger fans.
The baseball season may be too long, but the playoffs always seem to deliver.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Matt Slocum
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Playoff Fireworks appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Three weeks in the life of Carolina football and maybe Mack Brown’s career.
Brown has long talked about the season in three parts, depending on how the schedule falls. Sometimes it is four-four-and-four as it was last year with a competitive slate the first month. This fall the first five games have failed to prove anything except the Tar Heels are not as good as they’ve been in the past with far tougher opponents ahead.
Pitt is 4-0 and among the ACC leaders in offense with another good transfer quarterback the Heels will be facing Saturday in Kenan Stadium at noon on Homecoming. The Panthers are second in the ACC in offense, barely trailing first place Miami with better than 48 points a game, two touchdowns more than Carolina is scoring.
Eli Holstein, a 6-4 transfer from Alabama, is keeping pace with ACC Player of the Year candidates Kyle McCord of Syracuse and Cam Ward of Miami with 344 yards of total offense per game. Omarion Hampton continues to lead the league in rushing, but Pitt has No. 3 in Desmond Reid, who is averaging 106 yards per game.
Pitt is eighth in ACC total defense, two spots higher than UNC. So, if the Heels can keep up their improved defense in every game except for James Madison, they may be able to stay close. And winning is necessary to keep them from falling to 3-3 on the season with a third straight loss. Because it doesn’t get any easier the next two weeks, playing at home against 3-2 Georgia Tech and at 3-1 Virginia, where Carolina always has a tough time.
In short, this mid-section of the season is where the Tar Heels must show they are good enough to win at least two out of three and draw within one W of bowl eligibility. And they have yet to put the complete game together in the easiest part of the schedule. Wins over Minnesota, Charlotte and NC Central weren’t good enough to keep them in the top 50 in the country, and Carolina is a generous No. 58 in The Athletic’s latest poll.
It would not be surprising if Conner Harrell split snaps with Jacolby Criswell against Pitt. While not as good of a passer, Harrell is faster and can provide an option game to keep defenses guessing more than blitzing, which would also give Hampton fewer defenders to fight through before he can break a long or first-down run.
Excellent transfers are helping teams revitalize their offenses, such as Pitt and Holstein. Max Johnson has NFL bloodlines and might have been great before breaking his leg at Minnesota. But we can only speculate on that until he returns in time for spring practice and next season. Meanwhile, the current QBs will determine how far the Heels will go this season and, perhaps, how long Brown will be on the job.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Andy Mead
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 3 Weeks appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina volleyball is building a program with love.
UNC’s new volleyball coach Mike Schall has been at it for almost two seasons after taking over for veteran Joe Sagula. Schall’s sport is faster paced than ever and requires athleticism and teamwork.
The Tar Heels won their seventh straight match Wednesday night by sweeping Duke in three sets at the hallowed Cameron Indoor Stadium. The Tar Heels, now 11-1 and 3-0 in the ACC, have beaten the Blue Devils in eight of their last 10 meetings, dating back to Sagula’s tenure.
Earlier that day, Schall spoke to a group meeting of On The Team, which was founded by Chapel Hill resident, former college athlete and Harvard grad Anne Jones, who brings elite women athletes in front of businesses to inspire and share insights about leadership, teamwork, resilience, and accountability.
And it’s not just for women.
Jones believes they can teach everyone elements that bring success with stories about how women dealing with their individual challenges can affect their teams in sports and life.
Jones also had North Carolina Courage stars Kaleigh Kurtz and former Carolina All-American Brianna Pinto talking about how their personal preparation can have a positive influence on their mates by everyone sharing how they get ready for their next day or week.
When practice for the season began, Schall asked his 17 players to each decide what characteristic was most important in reaching their team goals. And they all decided it was love and the support it brings.
Watching his players outhit Duke was all about his constant rotation on the court and those not playing standing at the end of the bench wildly cheering on their teammates, who appear to be building an ACC power behind senior Mabrey Shaffmaster and Chelsea Thorpe who combined for 21 kills, and five service aces led by sophomore Safi Hampton’s three. Sophomore Thorpe (.500) and grad student Alexis Engelbrecht (.462) led the team in hits against the Dukies.
Schall also has a life goal of helping develop his players and young staff into adults who can help change the world.
He rarely talks in team huddles, meeting with his young coaches who all have position assignments at the start of timeouts and then letting one or two of them speak to the team while he may encourage players as the TO ends.
He says this is somewhat standard in college volleyball, but his team seems highly engaged during the action and highly attentive in huddles.
This is something that is going on at Carolina away from the rabid masses who live and die with football and basketball. But it is very much part of the overall program that is among the best in Olympic sports in the country and hopefully will remain strong during these turbulent times in college athletics.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Volleyball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Diggin’ That Team appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Joe Wolf could have gotten lost in his own family.
In a college basketball program festooned with super stars and steady Eddies, Wolf knew what it would be like joining the Tar Heels in the fall of 1983.
They had won Dean Smith’s first national championship the year before and just missed returning to the Final Four the prior season. But Joe knew why he turned down Marquette’s big push in his home-state Wisconsin.
He was comfortable in a crowd, the youngest of seven children to Pat and Leo Wolf. His seven-year-older brother Jeff had played four years for the Tar Heels, graduating in 1978 in the class that included Phil Ford. And his kid brother was a freshman on a top-ranked team led by Michael Jordan.
Young Joe was just as comfortable coming to Chapel Hill. The 6-9 forward joined a heralded freshman class that included fellow big man Dave Popson and Kenny “The Jet” Smith, just as highly recruited and highly sought.
“Every time I turned around, someone wanted to know where I was going to school,” said Wolf, who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 59. “I didn’t know what to expect at Carolina, but I thought I could be more of a regular student there.”
And like the kid brother who was jostled around by three elders, Wolf was determined wherever he played — as a starter at power forward, but sometimes moving out to shoot his soft jumper or inside to battle with other bigs.
He played on two Tar Heel teams that went undefeated in the ACC regular season and for three straight regional finals teams. The “regular student” also earned first team All-ACC honors as a senior after he began to blossom as a freshman.
And he took to good coaching. After a bad first half against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Smith asked him if he played golf. Joe shook his head. Smith went on with the analogy.
“A lot of times, golfers will play a terrible front nine,” said the hall of fame coach, “and after they take a break, eat a hot dog and drink a Coke, they get determined they are going to play much better on the back nine. You can do that, Joe.”
Wolf went on to outplay John Salley, the Jackets’ star, as the Heels frustrated the Tech crowd by rallying to a big victory as Wolf finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds. Afterward, assistant coach Eddie Fogler said, “Nice back nine, Joe.”
We are so shocked when our one-time heroes die young, like Eric Montross last year and former football standout Donnell Thompson earlier this year.
Joe Wolf will long be remembered for his handsome face and long body that produced so many clutch baskets and rebounds when the Tar Heels needed them. Rest in peace, Wolfie.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Lone Wolf appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown reminds us that football is only a game.
The Carolina coach began his weekly press conference with an informal prayer meeting for all those affected by Hurricane Helene. Brown and his wife Sally have had a home in Linville for years and their feelings are more with them right now.
Brown began, “I want thoughts and prayers for the people in Western North Carolina. We have so many friends up there, and it’s really devastating. They don’t have phone service. They don’t have wifi. Roads are out, trees are down.
“They’re encouraging people not to go to the mountains. People up there can’t get off the mountain. They don’t have food. There’s no water in some of the hospitals. It is totally devastating to think that a storm could do that much damage.”
Mack turned back to football and the 21-20 loss at Duke Saturday night. His team squandered a 20-0 lead in the third quarter, and Brown remained upbeat about a 3-2 season that has not gone as expected.
“We’ve got a really good team and we as coaches haven’t done a good enough job with ’em yet,” he said, a refrain he has used many times over the years. “You come out Saturday and have an even game with two even teams. It’s come down to the last drive in three of the last five years.”
In 2019, Chazz Surrat’s dramatic interception at the goal line brought the Victory Bell back to Chapel Hill after three years in Durham. In 2022, Drake Maye hit Antoine Green in the end zone to win the game on their final possession. And last season, the Heels survived two overtimes after a dramatic comeback in regulation.
“We’ve made that drive to win the game those three years, we didn’t this time,” Brown said. “We won the first half. They won the second half, and probably five plays in the game, maybe one or two that if we’d made, we win the game and things are totally different.”
Brown acknowledged the fan base is angry after giving up 70 points to James Madison and giving back the 20-point lead over the Blue Devils.
“In modern day college football, there’s so much anger publicly that it’s everywhere, not just here,” he said. “Players have to learn to handle that. That’s the way it’s gonna be in their lives. They’re gonna have crises that are more public than when I was growing up because of social media.
“So, it’s one of the things that you learn is to take negatives and turn ’em into positives. And that’s a life lesson. One of my jobs is to try to help them with life’s lessons. And that’s what we’re doing.”
Brown spent very little time talking about 4-0 Pitt, Saturday’s opponent at high noon in Kenan Stadium. The Panthers, the third straight unbeaten team the Tar Heels have faced, are from what the Carolina coach says the best foe so far.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/10%20-%20October/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20100124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sorrow and Anger appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
So far, only the college football cream is rising to the top.
We expected havoc with the transfer portal in full swing across the country. So some results are surprising, but the Alabama-Georgia game is a symbol that the best programs will just keep getting better.
The new 12-team College Football Playoff, where the top four seeds get byes, may look like the second round of the NCAA basketball tournament, with good-but-not-great teams having to pull upsets to move on.
Conference realignment has shown some surprises, SMU among the best of the ACC’s newest members. The Mustangs dropped the death knell on Florida State, sending the Seminoles to their worst loss of a 1-4 season that will likely cost Coach Mike Norvell his job.
The ACC does have very good teams at the top and a few that have not reached the meat of their schedules. Carolina is an example at a suddenly surprising 3-2 against an assemblage of unranked and mid-major opponents with its win at Minnesota worth anything after the Gophers barely lost at Michigan.
N.C. State is in even worse at 3-2 after losing big to its two Power 4 opponents – 51-10 by Tennessee and 59-35 by Clemson with the Wolfpack scoring 21 points in the fourth quarter against the Tigers mop-up reserves.
The Pack of Coach Dave Doeren resume ACC play and could go on a little run with home games against struggling Wake Forest, then Syracuse, Stanford and Duke and a trip to Cal mixed in. The Pack needs to win three for bowl eligibility.
The Tar Heels have a slightly stiffer stretch with visits from unbeaten Pitt and FSU-beater Georgia Tech, followed by trips to Charlottesville, Tallahassee and Chestnut Hill with Wake Forest at home looking like UNC’s only sure win. Can the Heels find two more victories to qualify for a sixth straight bowl bid?
What if State and Carolina keep stumbling and wind up in the regular-season finale at Kenan Stadium with 5-6 records and playing in what could be coined the Subpar Bowl after the success the rivals have had in recent years?
Their quarterback situations are not up to par. State’s Grayson McCall, a transfer from Coastal Carolina, has not played since leaving the third game against Louisiana Tech with an undisclosed injury. The Pack has been going with a true freshman ever since.
The Tar Heels are in better, but not great, shape with Jacolby Criswell taking over for Conner Harrell and making some good plays in their two losses. Similar to McCall, Criswell is nowhere near the caliber of what the programs have had in recent years. For both, it certainly is not the year of the quarterback.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20093024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Eli Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Subpar Bowl appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke-Carolina is a grudge match for more than the Victory Bell.
The Blue Devils have not beaten Carolina since 2018, the year Larry Fedora was fired and replaced by Mack Brown, who was serving as a football advisor for Bubba Cunningham.
After Fedora finished his last two seasons with a 5-18 record, Cunningham asked Brown if he would return to UNC as head coach.
Mack told him he didn’t want to take anyone’s job.
Cunningham said he had to fire Fedora due to the apathy that had engulfed his program, and Bubba was going to hire a new coach. Under those circumstances, Brown agreed to come back.
It is uncanny that his five-plus years in Chapel Hill mirrors what happened over his last five seasons at Texas. The Longhorns were undefeated playing top-ranked Alabama in the 2009 national championship game but lost quarterback Colt McCoy in the first quarter. Brown had not groomed a back-up for McCoy, and inexperienced Garrett Gilbert could not lead his team to a win over the Crimson Tide that would have been Brown’s second national title.
Brown’s 16-year stay at Texas went downhill after that disappointing loss, and he began replacing assistant coaches. The most publicized firing was of 39-year-old defensive coordinator Manny Diaz after the second game of the 2013 season, following a 40-21 loss at BYU in which the ‘Horns gave up 550 yards.
Brown claims he is still close with Diaz, who was the head coach at Miami when Brown returned to UNC and lost three games to his old boss, including a 62-26 romp at Miami and a 45-42 heartbreaker in Kenan Stadium. Diaz has resurfaced as the new head coach at Duke.
Others at Texas say Brown and Diaz’s “friendship” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. After the 2021 loss at Kenan, “mentor” Brown tried to console Diaz at midfield with a hug and prolonged handshake. Videos show the mad “mentee” trying to break away.
After two years as a defensive coordinator at Penn State, Diaz has Duke off to a 4-0 start with one of the best defenses in the country. And Carolina is counting on a red-shirt junior Jacolby Criswell to repeat at least some of his great throws that were overshadowed by the Tar Heels’ 70-50 loss to James Madison.
Diaz’s Hurricanes faced Sam Howell for three years and was gone before Drake Maye took over at quarterback. Brown has gone on to beat Miami all five times they have played, and Duke has a similar losing streak against the Hall of Famer.
So Manny Diaz has two streaks he would like to break at Wallace Wade Stadium. And this time he may have the defense to do it while Carolina may not have the offense to beat the Blue Devils and their new coach.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/27/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Streaks on the Line appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The new Carolina basketball schedule is out and it’s a winner.
If the 2024-25 Tar Heels are as good as advertised, they will be no worse than 10-3 heading into the new calendar year, where they will have 19 straight ACC games in a larger league that still looks average.
In a broad brush stroke, every ACC team has lost key players from last season — including the Tar Heels sans Amando Bacot, Harrison Ingram, Cormac Ryan and Paxson Wojcik. However, the Heels have the best veteran cast in the ACC, easily.
Their barometer games will be in November and December, making only their second-ever trip to Lawrence, Kansas, go to Maui for a rugged three-day tournament and face last season’s NCAA vanquisher Alabama in the Dean Dome. After 13 games, 10-3 will look good.
UNC has some new players, which everyone has with the transfer portal and NIL luring them to move around. But who has a backcourt of returning ACC Player of the Year and Jerry West Award winner R.J. Davis, passing master sophomore Elliot Cadeau and veteran Seth Trimble who can spell either; big guys Jalen Washington and Jae’Lyn Withers; sleeper transfers Cade Tyson and Ven-Allen Lubin and 5-star freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell. No one has all those pieces.
If Hubert Davis and his staff can put the rotation together to highlight pressure defense, fast break offense, slashing scorers and good outside shooting, losing Bacot underneath won’t prove fatal.
There are so many interchangeable parts in the backcourt with R.J. and Elliot, who will get the most minutes but can take blows and not lose a lot with junior Trimble and also use top talents Jackson and Powell as swing wings. Tyson may be the most intriguing newcomer, as the 40 percent long-ball shooting ace who at a stringy 6-8 can play small forward and turn power forward into finesse forward.
A lot depends on junior big man Washington, who according to reports is stronger and more assured around the basket. The starting center position is his to lose, but he also has help from the returning Withers and former Vanderbilt star Lubin, a 6-8 junior who shined on a bad team but whose savvy was loved by former coach Jerry Stackhouse.
It looks like a nine-man rotation that, at the outset, all deserve to play while knowing their roles and capable of creating chaos for opponents around the perimeter. Carolina is picked second behind freshmen-loaded Duke, which continues to play the one-and-done game under Jon Scheyer that pretty much failed in the post-season for Coach K.
Their two clashes are February 1 and March 8, one of only three home-and-homes in the 17-team schedule, are as usual the ones to circle, but one of the blue bloods has almost all new faces while the other has a good-looking mix of new young and old that with the right chemistry, could concoct a team of ACC champions and maybe more.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Favorable Schedule appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown may be making it worse.
With press conferences being recorded and shared over social media these days, Brown’s weekly presser might have given his post-game emotional outburst more life than it needed.
He had good intentions by saying after six minutes, “Let’s talk about Duke. We’re not talking about that anymore. We’ve got it, we’ve got it handled.”
The media pushed back, which it is supposed to do when a controversy erupts. But the 73-year-old Hall of Fame coach, who says he loves talking to the media, needed to be firm and button it up. Instead, he took at least a dozen more questions and went into greater detail than he needed to.
“If you would’ve quit, you would’ve come in and told us,” asked Adam Smith of Inside Carolina. “People who were in the locker room, the players and adults, it’s our understanding that you had quit. Are you saying that they misinterpreted what you said in there?”
“Yes,” Brown responded to the fair question. “Yeah, I asked them if they wanted new leadership, and they said no. I backed away to think about it. And I told ’em, ‘Let’s go forward. Let’s get ready for Duke.’”
Brown took another question when he probably should have said, “If we can’t talk about Duke, we’re ending the press conference.”
The good question deserved a short and sweet answer. But Brown went on for another 30 seconds, which is a long answer for a question you didn’t want.
“Yeah, they were more mature than I was, so that’s what really made me mad. They did what they were supposed to do and I’ve gotta gotta handle losses better. I promised Sally, I’d do it when I came back. And that’s something I haven’t done very well. I can’t stand losing. It makes me physically sick and I feel responsible, and I put all the pressure on myself to have done it better. And I didn’t do that. So that’s what is disappointing for me. Yeah, I love my job and I want to keep doing it, and I’m glad they want me to keep doing it too.”
And Brown answered yet another question in what was turning into a pity party.
“Mack, are you concerned if this is something that undermines your position or in the way people perceive the health of the program? What happened as far as your comments and whether it was misconstrued?”
“No,” Mack said. “We’re in a world of comments and rumors – ‘I heard and he said, and we did.’ And the only thing I wanna do is play better. That’s what we gotta do. And I’m proud of the players. They stood up and like I said, they taught me something.”
Six more questions and six more minutes, and then came his weekly Monday night coach’s show with few questions and more answers.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/25/Sports%20Notebook%20092524%20Final.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pity Party appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke will be very hard for UNC to beat Saturday.
The Blue Devils are coming off their fourth straight win of the season. The Tar Heels are coming off their worst loss, maybe of any season. And Mack Brown’s team may need to play one of its best games since he returned here as head coach in 2019.
Duke, with new coach Manny Diaz, has had a slightly harder schedule than Carolina with wins over FCS Elon (1-3), Northwestern (2-2) of the Big Ten with three games against Power 4 teams, and mid-majors UConn (2-2 with both losses to Power 4s), and Middle Tennessee State (1-3).
UNC has won at Minnesota (2-2), which played with a small-college quarterback and without its All-Big Ten running back, beaten Charlotte (1-3), which lost its starting quarterback for the second half, turned it on late to rout FCS N.C. Central and got blown out by surprising James Madison (3-0), which has 50 new players over the last two seasons, including a new coaching staff this fall.
Those are the stats, but the intangibles are not in Carolina’s favor.
Duke has lost five straight to the Heels and 13 in a row to Brown in his two tenures in Chapel Hill. The Devils have gotten over the loss of Coach Mike Elko to Texas A&M since Diaz has more charisma along with Elko’s defensive chops. Obviously, this is a BIG game for them.
“I was disappointed that we’re not 4-0 because it was going to be Duke 4-0 and us 4-0 and a great matchup,” Brown said Monday of the 4 p.m. kickoff at Wade Stadium. “Manny’s done a great job at Duke. They’re a really good football team.”
Needless to say, but I will say it anyway, the UNC alumni and fan base are back on the bandwagon that would ride Brown off to retirement after his players allowed 42 points in 18 minutes of the 70-50 loss.
Against a better-prepared JMU team, the Heels turned the ball over five times and were horrible on special teams (except for a meaningless blocked punt for a touchdown), worse on defensive execution and, while falling behind by 30 points in the first half, had to throw the ball 48 times with a thin and banged up offensive line to protect new quarterback Jacolby Criswell and All-American running back Omarion Hampton.
The blue blood rivals are about even statistically on offense, but Duke is 17th in the country on defense, No. 1 on tackles for losses and No. 4 on sacks. Carolina will have to start fast, regain its mojo, and play to the standard Brown supposedly set for them before the collapse against the other Dukes.
“This is a fun game when you’re playing for something special,” Brown said of the Victory Bell. “Three of these five games that we’ve played since I’ve been here have come down to the last play.”
After Saturday, the Heels would take their chances with that.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Surely Underdogs appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I went to a soccer game and a volleyball match broke out.
Friday night was a pretty amazing happening on the Carolina campus. It ended with a field hockey match, Erin Matson’s second team and defending national champions beating Syracuse 5-0 in their ACC opener to go 5-0 on the season.
Before that, I was headed for the men’s soccer game on Dorrance Field, where the sixth-ranked Tar Heels faced No. 18 N.C. State in what is always an arch rivalry renewal.
Before going in, the fiend I was meeting texted to say he was watching volleyball in Carmichael Arena, so I stopped by. The Tar Heels of second-year coach Mike Schall were playing undefeated Michigan in the first round of the ACC-Big Ten challenge.
The old Blue Heaven had a nice crowd that sounded louder than the actual attendance. The portion of Jeff Fuchs’ marching band assigned to volleyball was blasting out a familiar refrain at every UNC point. The Tar Heels were underdogs to the Maize and Blue but were not to be denied even after losing the first game in a best-of five.
The rules are ever-changing in volleyball, and the first thing I noticed was one of nine players wears a different color jersey than the other eight. Turns out, she is the Libero, a defensive specialist who can only play on the back row. And for UNC, that was 5-10 junior Maddy May.
The game now allows almost free substitutions and awards a point on getting the serve as well as winners. Schall’s Tar Heels looked slightly smaller than the Wolverines but battled back from losing the first 25-point game to win the next two and went into the three-game break favored to win the match.
At the pause, we went over to soccer, where Carlos Somoano’s team held a 1-0 lead over State on a goal by former Wolfpacker Luke Hille. Then, in the 74th minute, Ahmad Al-Qaq took a short pass from Tate Johnson and fired a beauty to the top of the goal mouth and the Heels completed their fourth shutout of the season.
We went back to Carmichael to see if volleyball was still happening, and sure enough Michigan had tied the match by winning the fourth game to set up the 15-pont finale.
The deciding game was close until the Tar Heels went on a run to pull away with the final five points. Sophomore Safi Hampton and senior Mabrey Shaffmaster combined for 43 of the team’s 62 kills, and May served out the match that ended with Hampton’s winning kill for a 15-10 victory.
On a beautiful weekend in Chapel Hill, Friday night was spectacular and headed for Saturday’s noon football kickoff against James Madison. Of course, that is a whole different story that we won’t tell at this time.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Volleyball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Oh, What a Night! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
James Madison at Carolina won’t be the passing fest of years past.
When the Tar Heels and Dukes square off at Kenan Stadium Saturday at noon, don’t expect a lot of fireworks through the air. Both teams are in the third tier of NCAA stats in passing, JMU is No. 107 and UNC is 111.
Conversely, Carolina is the 15th best rushing team in college football and James Madison is a respectable 54th. There will be no Drake Make impersonators on either side flinging the pigskin all over Kenan.
For the 3-0 home team, the emphasis will remain on running the football against good rushing defenses. Omarion Hampton is fourth in the nation with 416 yards on 66 carries, an average of 6 yards per tote.
Hampton holds the school’s second most yards in a season (1,504 in 2023) behind Don McCauley (1,720 in 1970). The other No. 23 in Carolina lore, McCauley capped his All-American home career with 279 yards against Duke on 47 rushes (equaled only by Mike Voight against Duke in 1976.) McCauley was carried off the field after the 59-34 victory, scoring five touchdowns for the Peach Bowl-bound Tar Heels.
“The way we played back then, it was no secret you were getting the ball,” McCauley said of Coach Bill Dooley’s three yards and a cloud of dust offense. “At the end of the Duke game, (quarterback) Paul Miller pulled the ball away from me and I thought I had fumbled, but then there was Paul holding it up as he crossed the goal line all alone.”
McCauley said the key to his career in college and 11 years with the old Baltimore Colts was staying healthy, and he hopes the same for Hampton, who has three times as many carries as any other UNC back.
“The kid is pretty special,” McCauley said in his Chapel Hill home. “I want him to stay healthy and not miss any games. I never missed a game, and I was lucky.”
Hampton’s heroics began last season when he turned in the fifth 1,000-yard season – best in the country – since Mack Brown returned to UNC and most of the attention has been on Maye and Sam Howell. The other four seasons crossing that special line belong to Michael Carter twice, Javonte Williams and Ty Chandler.
Carolina is favored by 10-plus points over 2-0 JMU because of its 13th-ranked rushing defense, holding teams to 68 yards per game and 2.1 per carry. James Madison is a respectable No. 55, limiting opponents to 120 yards and 3.64 yards per carry.
Another reason McCauley wants Hampton to play in every game is because he can become a rich young man when he is drafted into the NFL next April. “Look at someone like Christian McCaffery,” McCauley said. “I think he is making 5.6 million dollars this season. I was making 25 to 28,000. To me that was a lot of money.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20092024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jerome M. Ibrahim
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Ground Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Turns out the undefeated Carolina basketball team didn’t train in the mountains.
For years, the story went that the 1957 Tar Heels had met Wilt Chamberlain when Wilt “The Stilt” worked in the Catskills in the summer when he and other basketball stars played ball on Friday nights to entertain the hotel guests.
The docu-movie about those days in upstate New York played over the weekend at The Chelsea during the annual Jewish Film Festival for Chapel Hill’s arthouse theater. “The Catskills” was funny and nostalgic and captured the era when Jews weren’t welcome at the array of resorts, so they built their own hotels that got famous like Grossingers and Kutchers.
Wilt worked at Kutchers where he handed suitcases up through second floor windows instead of carrying them inside. At night, Chamberlain joined some other college players in games that drew big crowds. Rumor has it some Tar Heels were in those games.
Not true, says Joe Quigg, the center who made the two winning free throws in the third overtime to beat Wilt and Kansas, 54-53, for the national championship.
He was up there for several summers in high school and eventually joined by UNC teammates Bob Young, Tony Radovich and a few others. Quigg said they never actually worked out because they had jobs at the resorts, and that Coach Frank McGuire’s best friend and chief New York City scout Harry Gotkin set it all up.
“Frank didn’t have much to do with it,” said Quigg, who still works part-time as a dentist in the Fayetteville area. “Harry Gotkin introduced me to North Carolina. And that did it. When I first went up there, I was a senior in high school, and we worked putting mats out by the pool and as waiters in the dining room. Then playing ball at night.”
Quigg recalled dozens of summer resorts that all employed high school and college kids. “It was hard work, seven days a week,” he said. “You had to get up and be ready at 7:30. And then you worked 1-3 for lunch, got off at 3, and then back at 6:30 and till 9. So it was hard, but we made good money.”
The only time they saw Chamberlain play was in sport clips before movies in the theater. “He scared us to death,” Quigg said.
But he actually tipped away a pass to Wilt before Kansas could take a last shot to win, and the 32-0 Heels flew home to Raleigh-Durham Airport. Awaiting them was an estimated crowd of 10,000. The game was on TV back in North Carolina, and the players didn’t know it.
Of the two free throws he made to put the Tar Heels ahead for good at partisan Convention Hall in Kansas City, Quigg said the shots determined whether he would be a dentist back in New York or in North Carolina. “Thank goodness they went in,” said Dr. Quigg.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Summer Heels appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
You’ve got to have depth to instill discipline, apparently.
Mack Brown said during the offseason that one of his biggest goals was for his next team to cut down on penalties. The Tar Heels were 110th in the nation last season, averaging just under 7 flags per game. Brown said he was going to be punitive for pre-snap and dead ball penalties.
Carolina started the new season with restraint but it has not continued. According to NCAA stats, the Heels are one of 17 teams tied for 44th in penalties after week three. During training camp in August, Brown said last year’s number is “unacceptable. . . if a player has one, we’re taking him out of the game.”
His biggest beef after UNC’s 45-10 win over North Carolina Central was the 17 penalties. Brown said “12 of those 17 were pre-snap or post whistle, and that’s what we said you can’t have.” He sent most of those to the ACC office for review, which is a formality with all teams that dispute the officials’ calls.
As for pulling those guilty players out, that’s hard to do when the offensive line is not very deep. So Brown’s summer pronouncement has not taken effect. Offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey said, “We handled it really well on the road in Minnesota and then we had a few the second game. So we just keep trying to hold ’em accountable. And it’s gotta be a constant reminder and it’s gotta be important to our guys, too . . . we just gotta keep working on that. The penalties set us back.”
Well, not on the scoreboard, as Carolina has won its first three games despite not playing particularly well, start to finish, in any of them. Now comes a team that, on paper, could be the toughest of the season so far. James Madison is 2-0, and in the one common opponent beat Charlotte by more (23 points) than UNC did (18).
The Dukes have a new coach who had a great record (113-46) at Holy Cross, but Bob Chesney inherited a roster nowhere near what JMU had going 11-2 last season. Former coach Curt Cignetti went 52-9 in five years and moved on to Indiana of the Big Ten, taking a number of his players with him to Bloomington.
Even if the Heels clean up their penalties and play better offense to match their improved defense, how ready will they be for the trip to Duke next week?
The Blue Devils are also 3-0 but escaped with two wins at Northwestern and at home against UConn. They followed the David Cutcliffe era with two bowl seasons under Mike Elko, who left for Texas A&M, and continue to upgrade their program with former Miami head coach Manny Diaz, who did not take the job without a guarantee of NIL money. Guaranteed.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Abbie Parr
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Flags Galore appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Florida State is about to break all the wrong records.
Has there ever been a college football team that went undefeated and won its conference championship in one season and started 0-3 the next?
Has there ever been a major college coach who did the above one year and may not make it through the next season?
To everyone outside the Panhandle, this is one of the funniest stories to ever unfold in the ACC if not the rest of college football.
First of all, the Seminoles began this season like they ended 2023 due to using a transfer quarterback who was run out of Clemson. They lost to Georgia Tech in Ireland and then to Boston College and Memphis at home.
The last loss may be the most uproarious, especially in Bluff City (Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock ‘n Roll, etc.) That is because FSU coach Mike Norvell came from the University of Memphis (formally Memphis State) for a mountain bluff of money and then lost to his old school, whose annual football budget is $55 million less than his new school.
But to those who watch mild-mannered Norvell on the sideline and think he doesn’t exactly fit in Tallahassee, you may not have to worry about that for much longer.
With a reported multi-millions in NIL money, Florida State has lost a 5-star commitment on signing day for the last three years. And Norvell’s inability as a closer with high schoolers and not go all in on the transfer portal has left him with less depth of talent than one would imagine from a 13-1 team whose only loss was to Georgia 63-3 in the Orange Bowl.
Clemson, on the other hand, joined FSU in the lawsuits against the ACC to beat the Grant of Rights agreement that is still in force through 2036 – and does not use the portal due to Dabo Swinney’s preference on recruiting freshmen.
They remain the two schools that have nowhere to go because the SEC and the Big Ten have decided, for the time being at least, to stand pat with expansion. Even when that resumes, neither of those conferences can get more TV revenue to raise distributions for their members AND pay the ACC duo the same amount.
The Tigers, 1-1, with a week off to prepare for N.C. State’s visit, are back in the driver’s seat to reclaim the ACC championship they won for six consecutive years. But their ranking is in the top 25 rather than customary top five and Swinney no longer looks like a lifer in Death Valley.
In other words, the door has cracked for teams that can win the league with one loss, as none looks to go unbeaten. Carolina actually has the best chance since its visit to FSU on November 2 no longer seems as daunting as it once did.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/17/Arts%20Notebook%20091724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Colin Hackley
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Panhandle Blues appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Have you noticed what’s happening with football on all levels?
I don’t follow high school games, but if so I would probably find out the same thing. The way football is played these days is a little nuts.
It must be the chance to get into a 12-team college football playoff that so many power conference scores are so lopsided that no one seems to have any sympathy anymore for the underdogs.
How about seventh-ranked Tennessee killing Kent State 71-0 and No. 10 Miami beating Ball State 62-0. Don’t they have any third- and fourth-stringers they can put in the game?
Second-ranked Texas finished off UT-San Antonio 56-7 with second string quarterback Arch Manning, who might be better than starter Quinn Ewers. Manning is from that famous family whose brand name has generated $3 million in NIL money for Arch, a back-up.
No. 7 Ole Miss drubbed Wake Forest 40-6 in Winston-Salem and found out after the game that the Deacons are buying their way out of the rematch in Oxford next season because they want to play more Football College Subdivision or mid major opponents.
The 30 power conference schools that have begun the season 3-0 are for the most part beating up on mid-majors and FCS schools. And, frankly, it’s hard to tell if any of them are any good until they start playing each other.
Have you checked out the NFL highlights and lowlights after 2 weeks?
The 2-0 Saints, with rejuvenated quarterback Derek Carr, broke the Cowboys’ 16-game home winning streak by bush-whacking the ‘Boys 44-19 in a game that could be the beginning of the end for Dallas coach Mike McCarthy. And what do you do with the career contract they gave to quarterback Dak Prescott, who is supposed to lead them back to the Super Bowl after a 30-year drought?
The Raiders went into Baltimore and dropped the Ravens to 0-2 that has already made them a long shot for the Super Bowl they were among the preseason favorites to reach.
Supposedly washed-up quarterback Baker Mayfield’s 2-0 Buccaneers beat the Lions in supposedly unbeatable Detroit.
The Packers, who signed Liberty University quarterback Malik Willis on August 27th to play for the injured Jordan Love, beat the Colts with Willis looking like he may never give the job back.
And the Titans, who let Willis go, lost at home to the Jets and 40-year old Aaron Rogers. Tennessee kept a quarterback who has a two-year QB rating of 35, which is really bad, by the way.
And the Vikings, who lost first-round draft pick JJ McCarthy for the season, upset the 49ers behind retread QB Sam Darnold, who as you remember once couldn’t make it with the Panthers.
The Cats could still use Darnold after dropping to 0-2 with struggling Bryce Young under center. In those two losses, the Panthers have been outscored 73-13.
Cra-zy!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/16/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK%2091624.mp3
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Crazy Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
For some schools, NIL is the cherry on top.
One question that has been raised about spending a gazillion dollars on renovating or building a new basketball arena is, “How much would that help the actual basketball team that plays in it?”
Back in the day, the so-called arms race in facilities was the most important element of recruiting — keeping up with the Joneses who were outdoing each other with their locker, weight, meeting and recreational rooms. The bigger and cooler and swankier won out.
When the Tar Heels played at Texas in 2001, Mack Brown gave the North Carolina press corps a tour of the Longhorns football palace, and it was uber impressive.
One wag asked Brown, “Do you ever NOT get a player you want?”
Brown said while some of the recruits don’t pan out to be as good as advertised, “We never miss on a player we go after hard.”
Twenty-plus years later, UNC has improved its facilities to rival any in the ACC but still misses on many players Brown really wants. That he keeps getting good recruiting and transfer classes speaks for his salesmanship about their “40-year commitment, not a four-year commitment” that involves a valuable education and life-lasting relationships.
The new gorilla in the room is money that can now go directly to athletes in the world of NIL, which means to some programs that have cheated for years, “Now It’s Legal!” Because it is.
And Carolina finds itself in the middle of the pack in raising and doling out recruiting money. So when 5-star athletes announce they are signing with certain schools, how much they are being paid never, ever gets into the published story.
Houston announced that 5-star and 6-foot-6 guard Isiah Harwell from Idaho has picked the Cougars because Harwell said 68-year-old head coach Kelvin Sampson is a “cool dude.” He could have said “cool cash dude.” Because Now It’s Legal.
Same for Texas, when they earned a commitment from 6-2 safety Zelus Hicks. It was far more for the money he made than the digs he would shower and dress in after practices and games. Sure, Texas still has awesome facilities but that was always going to come with his scholarship. For anything beyond that, “Now It’s Legal.”
Brown said to a group of supporters last week that some schools may have a $15 million NIL budget and Carolina might have $4 million, and that they have to figure out how to level that playing field. The Tar Heels have great kids in their program that do well in the classroom and stay out of trouble.
But the first time Brown talked to transfers he was trying to recruit several years ago, the talk of a beautiful campus, great academics and first-class facilities took a solid second seat to the question they ultimately asked the head coach. “How much NIL money will I get?”
Brown didn’t have an answer and still doesn’t.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/13/Sports%20Notebook%209-13-24%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Erik Verduzco
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Now It’s Legal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Reliving the post-9/11 surge of Carolina football.
The year 2001 was John Bunting’s first season as the Tar Heels’ head coach. Bunting was a popular choice by his former UNC teammates to succeed Carl Torbush after Frank Beamer reneged on his handshake with then-athletic director Dick Baddour to move from Virginia Tech and coach at UNC.
America was still in shock after the terrorist attack when four hijacked passenger planes were turned into weapons of mass destruction by Al-Qaeda spies posing as American citizens while plotting their take-over.
Carolina’s home opener against SMU on September 15 was postponed and rescheduled for the end of the season. Bunting’s maiden Tar Heels had lost road games at third-ranked Oklahoma, Maryland and fourth-ranked Texas and were counting on beating the winless Mustangs to get into the victory column.
Instead, they had to face No. 6 and defending ACC champion Florida State on September 22, when college football resumed all over the country. Through all prisms, it looked like a fourth consecutive loss.
When the game kicked off at high noon, Kenan Stadium was far from full, including the student section.
And when the Seminoles led 9-7 at halftime, there still wasn’t much hope for an upset. But as Carolina began to outscore FSU 34-0 in the second half, word spread around campus and Kenan began to fill up.
The worm turned when the Heels recovered a fumble early in the third period as the Noles were headed for another score. One minute later, Darian Durant connected with Chelsey Borders on a 52-yard touchdown pass, and Carolina had the lead for good.
Two field goals by Jeff Reed made the score 20-9 at the end of three quarters, and Ronald Curry came in at quarterback and engineered three touchdown drives as Kenan erupted.
Curry hit Kory Bailey for a 53-yard TD pass, Andre Williams capped an 83-yard drive with an 11-yard sprint to the end zone and Curry completed the scoring with a one-yard plunge across the goal line. Students rushed the field after the 41-9 upset, and the much-needed party was on.
The 1-3 Heels went on to win five straight games and get into the national rankings with a 38-3 romp over 13th-ranked Clemson before losing to Georgia Tech. They finished the regular season at 7-5 after beating Duke and SMU and then upset Auburn in the Peach Bowl 16-10 in Julius Peppers’ last game at UNC.
That was also Bunting’s only winning season before he was fired late in the 2006 schedule, allowed to finish the season and beat State and Duke in his last two games on the sideline. He was replaced by Butch Davis.
After the Florida State win, Bunting’s biggest moment was when Connor Barth booted a 42-yard field goal as time expired to beat No. 4 Miami in 2004.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The FSU Upset appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Rod Broadway and Dee Hardison were the Carolina blue iron curtain.
That Broadway will be in attendance and honored at Saturday’s home game against NC Central, among other HBCU pioneers, reminds me of his playing days alongside Hardison for the 1977 ACC champion Tar Heels.
They were 5-star recruits for Bill Dooley 1970s juggernaut, massive defensive tackles from western North Carolina (Oakboro) and Eastern (Jacksonville) in the days when Dooley dominated recruiting in the state and Tidewater, Virgina, and into Pennsylvania.
Their defense led the ACC with incomparable stats, holding opponents to under 150 yards per game, 3 yards per rush and less than one touchdown a game, both named All-ACC in their junior and senior years.
I will never forget the 1977 season finale at Duke, which had a pretty good offensive line and rushing game. The Blue Devils got zippo running the ball and managed a field goal in UNC’s 16-3 victory. The Heels went to the Liberty Bowl and lost to mighty Nebraska 21-17.
Duke coach Mike McGee, who won the Outland Trophy as the best lineman in the country when playing in Durham, was amazed that his team could not block Broadway and Hardison or get by them in any way.
Both stayed in football and had long careers.
Broadway went into coaching and had an illustrious career at Historically Black Colleges, where he won five national championships after serving 13 years as assistant at Duke and five at Florida. He joined John Bunting’s staff at his alma mater before taking over a 2-8 program at Central, leading the Eagles to a pair of CIAA titles with a 33-11 record in Durham and won Black national championships in 2005 and ’06.
Before his third year at Central, Rod lost his wife Diane after she fought a rheumatic illness for 14 years.
He moved on to iconic Grambling State, where he led the Tigers to an 11-2 record in 2008 and the Black national championship. At North Carolina A&T, Broadway capped off a 2017 season when the Aggies went undefeated and knocked off Grambling for his second Black natty there and his fifth overall. He was there for six seasons before retiring at age 62.
Hardison, who also was first-team All-ACC his last two seasons in Chapel Hill, made first team All-American as a senior and was drafted No. 32 by the Buffalo Bills and also played for the Giants, Chargers and Chiefs. Dee died in April of 2018 at 61.
Mack Brown has always supported HBCU schools and football programs and when he scheduled Central in 2022 he had such a celebration in mind.
Also being recognized Saturday as honorary captains are the late Bishop Harris, a former Central star who passed away earlier this year, Hall of Fame player and coach at Central Billy Hayes and George “Bulldog” Smith, the strength coach there for 20 years.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Day of Honor appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Smith Center “Arena Committee” did not come up with much new.
According to a recent update on UNC’s Master Plan for facilities, “An Arena committee has been working with multiple consultants over the past six months to evaluate multiple options for the Smith Center, including renovation of the existing arena or new construction at locations on and off campus.”
Their work has involved “analysis of costs, future earnings, site conditions and stakeholder input.” That input included a survey for various alumni and season ticket holders to say what they could afford to contribute for expansion or a new building.
The internal Arena committee is made up of administrators, trustees, faculty, alumni and student representation to review renovation ideas and possible sites to construct a new Smith Center.
That committee came up with three potential locations that have all been suggested by wags on social media. They are obvious because there aren’t more feasible sites. Renovation is also on the table, along with leveling the arena and starting over, either of which would require the team to play off campus for at least three seasons, maybe more.
The “off campus” idea is best for access and egress but worst for engagement with the town and students, who have made a tradition of walking to games.
The exact next step is unknown. Maybe architectural firms contract to develop ideas, drawings and budgets for each option or to make substantial renovations to the iconic 38-year old hoops palace, where Roy Williams coached three national championship teams in his 18 seasons.
Every 10 years or so, the idea regenerates despite the hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of dollars spent to make the Dean Dome a great place to watch basketball once patrons are in their seats after gnarly traffic outside and a jammed concourse inside.
We’ve heard building it in the Bowles Lot adjacent to the Smith Center. That could have lower and upper concourses, private suite boxes and more room on the ground floor that only goes half around in the current arena. But unless that came with raising the old building for a high-rise deck, parking and traffic congestion would remain unsolved.
Other possible locations that you have heard about or seen on various posts are where the Friday Center now sits, Odum Village behind hospital parking decks and the land where the old Chapel Hill airport sat and the Carolina North campus was once planned. That, like the Friday Center, could have better entry and exit access and more parking, but both are “off campus” and force students to bus or drive there for games.
As for the money, we are starting at about maybe a half billion for extensive renovations and more for brand new construction compared to the $36 million price the Smith Center cost in the 1980s.
Or maybe disband the committee and table the idea for another 10 years?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20091024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC/Jon Gardiner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dome Dilemma appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye did not start his NFL opener, and now he knows why.
The rebuilding Patriots may not be a Super Bowl contender yet, but they still have the championship pedigree when it comes to rookie QB Maye.
As the former Tar Heel star kept improving during the preseason, Patriot fans and even the know-it-all media in Boston were predicting Maye would start the first game of the regular season at Cincinnati.
Instead, they went with 7-year veteran Jacoby Brissett, who does not have the pure skill as the 6-5 dart thrower, but he had what it took to upset the Bengals and their star quarterback Joe Burrow, 16-10.
Look at the rookies in a similar position over the years, all the way back to Tom Brady, who sat out his first season and was ready when pressed into duty the next year. Same thing for Patrick Mahomes. There have been rookies who started under center, such as ex-Clemson star Trevor Lawrence, who suffered through a miserable rookie season and has since figured it out.
Brissett executed a great game plan by rookie head coach Jerod Mayo and new offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. He completed 15 of 24 mostly short passes to run the clock and keep Burrow off the field. He gave the ball to bulldozing running back Rhamondre Stevenson, who had 25 carries for 120 yards and sealed the upset with tough first down runs down the stretch.
Meanwhile, Maye stayed on the sideline without his helmet and wearing an earpiece to hear what was said between the coaches and Brissett. And if we know Maye, he is far happier with the win than disappointed he did not get into the game.
He may play sooner than later, since the Patriots need a deep passing attack to score more than 16 points. Their excellent defense won’t be able to hold opponents to 10 like they did the Bengals.
When and where is the question, but it won’t be bandied about in Boston for the next few weeks, particularly if the Pats can win their home opener against Seattle and their visit to the Jets in week three.
Mayo, who played for and worked under Hall of Famer Bill Belichick, will not be on thin ice no matter what he does during his first season. He has the backing of the franchise and has put together a better team than most credited him for during the complicated process of building a final roster.
The defense held Burrow to 164 yards passing and shut down the Cincy running game. Maye is a sponge for coaching and chances are he learned a ton on the sideline of his first official game.
When he becomes the Patriots starting quarterback, he will be more prepared than he would have been Sunday.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/George Walker IV
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not His Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Will the ACC be a conference that eats its own?
Weeks Zero and One of the 2024 football season had some surprises, forcing prognosticators already to shuffle their picks, all moving toward the middle. Sounds a little like politics, huh?
Florida State, the runaway choice to repeat as ACC champion, had two league games to start and, shockingly, lost them both. To say the natives are restless in Tallahassee is an ultra-understatement.
Georgia Tech had a little more Irish in Dublin when it beat the Seminoles on a walk-off field goal. But FSU would be ready for its Monday night visit from Boston College, right? Wrong, and it wasn’t even close.
Meanwhile, Clemson was annihilated by top-ranked Georgia in Atlanta, which is almost equidistant from both schools. So what does the ACC think about its top two teams looking more mortal?
Some other non-conference games speak to balance as the Yellow Jackets and Eagles are tied for first place in the ACC standings while 0-2 FSU languishes in last.
Most were one-sided mismatches, but two more Power 4 contests show something about the ACC side of the ledger. Carolina hanging on to win at Minnesota says more about the Tar Heels’ gumption than game. And Virginia Tech losing at Vanderbilt says the Hokies are not as good as advertised and the perennial SEC doormat Commodores might be better than we think.
Miami has been installed as the unofficial new ACC favorite after going into the Swamp and drowning Florida, a program coming off consecutive losing seasons. The Hurricanes’ new quarterback Cam Ward appears worthy of his preseason ACC Player of the Year pick.
Stanford, remember, is new to the conference and lost by a touchdown at home to TCU, which has a strong program. Fellow newbies SMU and Cal were among the rest of the ACC to post easy non-conference wins.
We may learn more from Friday night games in Week 2 as SMU hosts BYU and Duke travels to Northwestern. On Saturday, there are a few better barometer battles like Pitt at Cincinnati, Cal at Auburn, and N.C. State vs. Tennessee in Charlotte.
There are also the third and fourth ACC matchups to track with Georgia Tech at Syracuse and Virginia at Wake Forest.
Next week, strangely, has no league games but a few more Power 4s to check out: BC is at Missouri, Pitt is home to border rival West Virginia, Wake Forest hosts Ole Miss and Virginia welcomes long-ago ACC rival Maryland, now in the Big Ten.
Today, all ACC teams – except Florida State – have the right to believe they can compete for the coveted top two spots in the standings, even Clemson, which has an early week off to get ready for its ACC opener against State in Death Valley.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/06/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl B. DeBlaker
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bunching Up? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Here is Carolina’s 4-step plan to be 5-0 at the end of September.
Mack Brown says he won’t talk (much?) about who the Tar Heels are playing because he wants them to meet a standard he and the staff are setting for them.
That’s all well and good, but he cannot deny the month of September is set with up four increasingly difficult games that could leave them 5-0 for the second straight season with a chance to match last year’s 6-0 start in October without Drake Maye.
The first game of September is against (shush!!!) UNC-Charlotte, which lost to a future Carolina opponent we won’t name right now and was wracked with injuries in the 30-7 loss. So you know that the 3:30 foe in the home opener at Kenan Stadium is a kissing cousin.
Okay, the 49ers are only a couple of hours down I-85 and have three familiar assistant coaches (to be named later) and a decorated defensive back who began his career in Chapel Hill.
We won’t mention the head coach since he has no direct ties to the Tar Heels except for hiring Dre Bly, Tim Brewster and Tim Cross, all former Brown assistants at UNC.
Their pre-season All-AAC defensive back Dontae Balfour is also an ex-Heel. Charlotte had nine players out with injuries in their opening game loss.
Anyway, if Brown doesn’t want to talk about who they are playing, a big crowd should show up anyway to get behind Conner Harrell, the new starting QB now that Max Johnson is out from a broken leg at Minnesota.
Still, it all adds up to what should be an easy win and 2-0 record against the overmatched opponent.
Step No. 3 is a night game against a team from Durham (not Duke). They are the North Carolina Central Eagles and are better on paper than Charlotte but still a heavy dog in Kenan.
They opened their season by beating Alabama State 31-24 in the Orange Blossom Classic in Miami and face Elon this week. UNC added Central to the schedule in 2022, as Brown always supports HBCU schools.
So then Step 4, which on paper will be the toughest of the three home games. James Madison, a mid-major power, won its opener at Charlotte and takes on Gardner Webb in JMU’s home debut Saturday.
If – and it’s a pretty big if – Carolina is 4-0 by September 28, the ACC slate starts with a trip to that other team from Durham, a matchup that seems to go down to the last possession every year. Guess it’s okay to say “Duke” because the Blue Devils are now coached by a Brown protege and ex-Mami head man Manny Diaz.
The Blue Devils whacked Elon in their opener and are at Northwestern, at home against UConn and at Middle Tennessee before the Heels come calling on 9/28.
By then, maybe we can talk about the two bluebloods.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Quiet 5-0? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Carolina-Duke rivalry must be preserved.
The Duke Basketball Report revealed its top ten college basketball rivalries. It was self-serving because everyone knows which is No.1.
But the variations of the “second nine” only underscore how valuable the home-and-home series is between the Tar Heels and Blue Devils, which has been on national TV since the 1980s.
“None of it can touch Duke and UNC,” J.D. King writes. And he lists two versions of the next nine, with reasons natural rivalries are not so great.
For example:
Kentucky-Louisville is a natural, but they have never been in the same conference and refused to play each other for most of 70 years in the earlier 20th century.
They met in the 1983 NCAA tournament and have been playing once a season ever since, which is the problem. To be a great hoops rivalry, a home-and-home series every season is necessary.
Other rivalries within the same conferences have not come close to the Carolina-Duke TV ratings, which are the best in every regular season. Most are overshadowed by football rivalries.
Kansas and Missouri, border states, used to have a really hot basketball rivalry. But do they even play each other now that Missouri has moved to the SEC?
Which is the very reason that the ACC must do everything in its power to keep the Carolina-Duke rivalry as it is today. No, they can’t separate and move to different conferences, even if they played once a year on a neutral court or alternated arenas annually.
The home-and-home series would disappear, and the reason would be something about money.
The rivalry of today is the North Star of the ACC and should not change formats regardless of which league the two schools move to. They must play home-and-home every season or risk becoming like the old arch football rivalries that died in realignment.
Saving the ACC is what most ACC fans want, but in a world driven by money that may not happen. What league would not want the greatest rivalry in the history of college basketball, worth multi-
millions in right fees from the TV network that wins the bid?
Say that Duke moved to the Big Ten and Carolina to the SEC. Do you think other schools in those leagues would allow them to play home-and-home and overshadow the rest of their basketball schedules?
Not a chance.
The common denominator of Carolina-Duke basketball over the last 60 years is both programs have remained national contenders and NCAA tourney participants for most of those six decades.
Let them stay together, whether in the ACC or another conference. The legacy players and legions of alumni and fans from both schools would mourn the loss if the greatest rivalry in college basketball does not stay as it is right now, on the first Saturdays of February and March. . . .in prime time on national television.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Rivalry appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UNC’s schedule now has another big advantage.
The Tar Heels hope to turn it into addition by subtraction after losing starting quarterback Max Johnson late in the third quarter of the win at Minnesota.
Mack Brown was perturbed last week when I asked him about the three mid-major non-conference games to follow the opener. He wouldn’t acknowledge it is a winnable stretch because he doesn’t want his team getting overconfident.
One takeaway from a season-ending injury to Johnson is the Heels have all three games at home in which new starting quarterback Conner Harrell and his back-up Jacolby Criswell can get adjusted to their roles.
Mack said Monday that his play-action offense will be tweaked to accommodate the skills of Harrell and Criswell, who are both more option-type QBs than the 6-5 passer Johnson.
“We can’t determine what happens,” Brown said. “We can only determine how we respond. So we’re gonna respond in a very positive way.
“What’s our identity going to be? We are gonna run the ball and stop the run. This is the toughest team we’ve had. We only had six explosive plays. That was our negative on offense.”
Brown and offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey have to find back-up help for Omarion Hampton, who had 30 carries for 129 yards, 5 receptions for 17 more. The second running back is grad transfer Darwin Barlow (one carry vs. Minnesota) and freshman Davion Gause.
“Sometimes you go into a season thinking you’ll be good at this or that on offense, and then you find out we weren’t as good as I thought we were gonna be,” Brown said. “And that’s what we’re doing right now is a big self-evaluation. That offensive line is gonna be a huge part of it.”
“Hampton’s one of the best players in the country. But we have playmakers on the outside too, and I’ve gotta do better getting more opportunities for them, we didn’t do a good job of it the other night.”
Brown and Lindsey are all in on Harrell, who is one of smartest guys on the team as well as being gifted.
“Conner was the Gatorade player of the year in Alabama,” Brown said. “He was 25-2 and won two state championships. He’s valedictorian of the high school, one of the top students in our business school. These kids absolutely love him. I’ve never seen a better kid that tries any harder.”
So (UNC) Charlotte, which lost 30-7 to UNC’s week-four opponent, James Madison, will be the home opener Saturday at 3:30 that may be more interesting and draw a larger crowd from all the uncertainty.
“We are not talking about who we play for the rest of the season,” Brown said. “We’re playing to a standard that North Carolina needs to play to. We’ve told the kids they better get after it.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/09%20-%20September/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20090324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Abbie Parr
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New ‘Standard’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina found a way to win or, as Mack Brown likes to say, “not to lose” in their opener.
The Tar Heels flipped the script on Brown’s second tenure with an offense that stuttered and stammered and a defense that was vastly improved under new D-coordinator Geoff Collins.
Noah Burnette, who was put out to pasture after the 2022 season, continued his amazing comeback, with four-out-of-four field goals including a personal record from 52 yards. The last one was a pressure-packed 45-yarder with 1:44 left in the 19-17 victory over Minnesota in a game delayed an hour by storm warnings and ended early Friday morning when Dragan Kesich barely hooked a left-footed field goal that could have sent the Heels home in a state of shock rather than jubilation. It was the program’s first opening road win over a true Power 5 program since 1993, a 31-9 upset at Southern Cal, in the sixth year of Brown’s first stint.
Carolina’s kickoffs and punting were almost as perfect, and Collins’ debut at UNC held the Gophers to 231 yards coming off 400-plus per game in 2023.
The head-hunting “D” was a committee led by Jahvaree Ritzie with five solo tackles and three sacks.
Still, it took a holding penalty that pushed Minnesota out of the red zone and gave Kesich a tougher kick as the clock ran out on a stunned home crowd.
Offensively, the Heels hardly looked like the team that had to outscore opponents the last five years. Omarion Hampton had more than half of his team’s total yards with 129 of the 253. Hampton also fell on a fumble that kept the Gophers from taking over deep in UNC territory with a chance to put the game away. With 30 of the overall 41 carries, he augured well for his preseason All-American selection.
The offense sputtered in the first half behind new quarterback Max Johnson, who was getting better in the second stanza when he injured his knee in a way that could keep him sidelined indefinitely.
Transfer Johnson, who ran for Carolina’s only touchdown, was heating up in the third quarter and finished with 12-19 passing and 81 total yards.
Conner Harrell came in and did a nice job moving the “Big O” attack into position for the last three field goals after their only touchdown of the game in the first half, which ended with Minnesota up,14-7.
The Golden Gophers were playing without their own star running back and were held in check when it counted, never more so than on the last drive of the game when their field goal missed and Brown left the sideline hugging players while allowing it wasn’t pretty… but a win is a win is a win.
Regardless of how it looked, the win was exactly what Brown’s program needed after an off-season of speculation. The Heels now have three home games against mid-majors that can give them another fast start before ACC play begins at Duke on September 28, when they should be 4-0 and happy road warriors.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20083024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via The Associated Press/Abbie Parr.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Burnetted appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
After one game, the ACC has literally turned upside down.
When Florida State lost on a field goal to Georgia Tech in Dublin to open the college football season, the balance of power in a conference fighting for its own future went topsy turvy.
And until the Seminoles face Boston College on Monday night, they will remain the first ACC team in history to be in 17th – and last – place.
Think about that.
In the formative days of the Atlantic Coast Conference, you could be last by being in eighth place. For a few years after South Carolina left the league, last place was 7th place. As the ACC gradually expanded, last-place teams could be all the way down to 14th place. But with the end of two football divisions, the admission of Cal, Stanford and SMU means last place is 17th place.
And that it happened to Florida State was truly ironic, because Seminole Nation is still smarting from going undefeated and winning the ACC championship and being left out of the CFP, which accelerated the legal battle against the ACC and an attempt, with Clemson, to flee for the SEC or Big Ten or any league that might pay them more than the financially lagging good ol’ ACC.
It also means it is a wide-open race to finish first or second and qualify for the conference title game in Charlotte on December 7, Pearl Harbor Day.
And with Clemson under so much stress that coach Dabo Swinney is not taking live calls to his coach’s show due to the infamous heckler last season, the Tigers have lost the tag of dynasty after a 9-4 record and now open the new campaign Saturday against No. 1 Georgia and go to frustrated FSU on October 5.
It’s way too early to begin theorizing about who will make it to Charlotte, but what Georgia Tech showed was that a team picked as low as 10th in preseason polls can turn out to be much better than that.
Certainly, Louisville and Miami and Virginia Tech and N.C. State and possibly Carolina might have a say in the matter. Or even first-place Georgia Tech.
Louisville and Miami play on October 19 and the next week Miami goes to Tallahassee.
Virginia Tech’s toughest games, on paper, look like at Miami and at home against Clemson six weeks later. State plays at Clemson and UNC.
The Tar Heels’ only games against the reshuffled top tier of the ACC are at home vs. Georgia Tech on October 12, at Florida State on November 2 and the regular-season finale in Chapel Hill against the Wolfpack, trying to break a three-game losing streak to the arch football rival.
It may well go down to that last weekend to find out the best teams in the 2024 ACC standings.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082924%20Final.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Peter Morrison
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Long Fall appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina’s already thin inside game just got even thinner.
The way Zayden High left the Tar Heels’ basketball program has spurred questions and speculation. UNC may have privacy restrictions that resulted in two paragraphs that said the 6-foot-9 rising sophomore “is not enrolled.” Maybe it was something the school could not reveal, but the cold announcement does not look very good.
The release had a second paragraph that listed stats from the seldom-used freshman, 4.4 minutes per game and shooting 32 percent, including 0-8 from the 3-point arc.
Whatever the reason, the result doesn’t help a frontcourt that had trouble replacing Armando Bacot and still plans to do it by committee after missing out on several sought-after transfer big men, likely for more NIL money.
It will be interesting to see where High surfaces and if he is transferring and took what had to be meager money to leave. He was a four-star recruit with a pretty good resume at Compass Prep in Arizona, where he averaged 17 points and 9 rebounds as a senior and was MVP of the 2023 Hoop Hall Classic.
The Tar Heels pivot for 2024-25 has 6-10 junior Jalen Washington, the projected starter, plus 6-9 Jae’Lyn Withers, 6-8 Vanderbilt transfer Ven-Allen Lubin and 3-star 6-9 freshman James Brown.
Hubert Davis’ fourth Carolina team has a sparkling backcourt and perimeter, led by returning ACC Player of the Year and Cousy Award winner R.J. Davis, sophomore point guard Elliot Cadeau, junior defensive ace Seth Trimble, 5-star freshmen wings Ian Jackson and Drake Powell and 4-star shooter Cade Tyson.
The Heels will need another spectacular season from fifth-year senior Davis, improved outside shooting from Cadeau and for reputed 3-point marksman Tyson to do his thing.
It would be ideal if Tyson replaced Cormac Ryan’s perimeter game and Lubin could come close to what Harrison Ingram produced as a 3-4 man.
As a team, Carolina will have to match or better 45 percent shooting, 36 percent from three-point range and 76 percent from the foul line, all tremendous improvements from the previous season and, respectively, 9th, 5th and 4th in the ACC. The Heels were second in field goal defense and fourth in 3-point defense.
With Bacot, of course, they were tops in all rebounding categories. In assists, assist-turnover ratio and blocked shots, they were fifth, quantum leaps from the year before.
Look for another high-octane team that runs at every opportunity and gets easy baskets in transition. And it would be nice if Carolina could match lofty preseason expectations like first or second in the ACC and top 10 in the national polls.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: High Alert appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Suddenly, the Tar Heels are underdogs at Minnesota.
We knew the betting line might change closer to kickoff, but did you ever think it would land on the Golden Gophers as a 1-and-a-half-point favorite over Carolina in the season opener for both teams?
Neither of these schools are big football brands, although both have come close to breaking that glass ceiling in their histories.
Minnesota claims to have won nine national championships long before that mantel was determined on the field. From 1904 through 1960, the Gophers were selected the best team in the country by various foundations, organizations and media polls.
Five of those teams went undefeated and the 1960 Gophers lost the Rose Bowl to Washington, finished with an 8-2 record and were still voted No. 1 under their national coach of the year Murray Warmath. In modern times, Minnesota has not made it into the College Football Playoff but has been to 18 bowl games in this century, including three straight under current coach P.J. Fleck. Their all-time heroes are Charlie Sanders, Leo Nomellini, Bronco Nagurski, Bud Grant, Carl Eller, Tony Dungy and Bobby Bell.
Carolina did not play in the nation’s oldest conference, the Big Ten, and had great teams led by Charlie Justice, Don McCauley, Lawrence Taylor and in Mack Brown’s first tenure that ended in 1997.
Brown has certainly raised UNC’s football profile in his two stints in Chapel Hill with nationally ranked teams and his sixth team in his second tour was thought to be favored over the Gophers, who are picked to finish 13th in their league.
But oddsmakers are saying that Minnesota’s veteran defensive front will make it hard on Omarion Hampton and an inexperienced offensive line and force the Tar Heels’ new quarterbacks to win the game through the air.
Conversely, the Gophers don’t have a Hampton but are very deep at running back behind Darius Taylor, who played only six games last season but still led the Big Ten in yards rushing per game, and four starters and several projected NFL draft picks returning on their offensive line.
So the defense of new coordinator Geoff Collins will have to live up to its billing behind linebacker stars Power Echols and Kaimon Rucker and a deep secondary to contain Taylor and pressure a new quarterback who came from FCS school New Hampshire.
All that, plus raucous opening-night fans dressed in gold will be a tough test for Brown, who has gone 8-2 at UNC against Power 5 teams in openers. All other Carolina coaches since 1988 have combined to go 0-11 in such games.
The Heels steamrolled the Gophers, 31-13, last year at Kenan Stadium, but this time the home field makes Minnesota a slight favorite with the over-under for both teams at 50.5 points.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/27/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Reinhold Matay
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Golden Gophers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye may have won the starting quarterback position last night.
Drake is in a tough spot as a rookie in the NFL. He is a great prospect on a not-so-great New England team whose fans are among the most supportive in football but with a very short fuse. What do you expect from a spoiled fanbase that enjoyed a two-decade dynasty with Tom Brady?
In his last two preseason games, Maye has given them hope that the franchise can be resurrected.
There is a reason the Patriots had the third pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. They won four games last season in the fourth year without Brady.
Cam Newton was too old and Mac Jones too small to keep the Pats competitive. Maye is only 21 but was an All-American for the Tar Heels at 19 and has all the family pedigree and success in college to sign a $36 million rookie contract.
Maye has no experience in the NFL and no real competition to win the Patriots starting position, so his rookie season may be ugly for him and his team.
But Sunday night, he showed glimpses of what he can become despite the depleted supporting cast that made Brady leave for free agency in 2020.
His best play was nullified by an unrelated penalty, when he ran to the left sideline and threw across his body for a long touchdown.
There was a penalty that nullified this TD, but this play is a great window into some of the special traits Drake Maye brings to the table
(🎥: @BenBrownPL) pic.twitter.com/clZ2q1NaFg
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 26, 2024
It wasn’t in his final stats of completing 13 of 20 passes for 126 yards and a touchdown that counted for a QB rating of 99.3 in the first half he played of the eventual 20-10 loss to the Washington Commanders.
New England has a decent defense but far from the offense that is needed to compete for a playoff berth. So Maye will likely suffer through the first losing season of his football life.
Whether he starts the opening game at Cincinnati, an almost certain loss, will depend on Drake’s continued improvement and whether the coaching staff and ownership want to throw the prized rookie into the cauldron right away.
Not to compare the Patriots to the new-dynasty Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes sat out his rookie season behind veteran Alex Smith, and it helped immeasurably when he became the starter the next year.
We all want to see Maye shine, but Mack Brown had a much better supporting cast at UNC than Drake has with his new team.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Daniel Kucin, Jr.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Progress appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina may be seven feet away from big-time NIL success.
It’s no secret that UNC came out of the starting gate late and has never caught up to the other schools that are killing it in recruiting through NIL.
Now, the answer is only slightly above their heads.
Hire Armando Bacot as head of CarolinaNIL, the new consolidated collective that has formed the umbrella over basketball, football, baseball and all the Tar Heel teams that want to stay in the game with the best athletes in this new age of college sports.
What players make – from Drake Maye to R.J. Davis – is a protected secret in the Tar Heels’ NIL world. Except for Bacot, who has not been shy about earning what he terms “life-changing money” from NIL and told Inside Carolina this week that the figure over five years is more than $2 million.
Bacot heaps praise on playing for the UNC brand, but it was more him than anything else. He obviously is a marketing savant and figured out early how to cash in on his name-image-likeness potential.
Sure, becoming the Tar Heels’ all-time rebounding leader helped his profile immensely, but he took it to the next levels on his own — with TV commercials, movies, restaurants and all kinds of other products.
Carolina has seemed to reorganize into what wasn’t working for most athletes not named Bacot. Very likely, young people without AB’s creative chops or alumni who have made money the old-fashion way are not the answer. Maybe Mondo is.
Think what his experience and success alone can mean to kids being recruited as freshmen or transfers in all sports. Bacot could be a presence from near or far as a very large example of how it can be done.
Give him a fancy office festooned with the spoils of his success on the court and in business. Let him help coaches sign up athletes and then teach them how to promote and leverage their time at UNC.
And Bacot can do it from near or far. He is trying to make the Utah Jazz right now, and if he can there is still advice and information he can impart by phone or email. And, during the off season when recruiting ramps up for the next school year, he will be back.
In announcing his latest venture with the local ATMA Hotel Group, Bacot mentioned at least a half-dozen times that he made that life-changing 2 million bucks from the exposure he got as a Tar Heel and the marketing savvy he learned from fixing up old cars and selling them as a kid.
“I had no clue,” he said of arriving at Carolina. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Now he does, and UNC should take advantage of what they did together.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Answer appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
You could say the Carolina-at-Minnesota game will get Max attention.
The cat and mouse game between Mack Brown and P.J. Fleck over the secrecy of starting lineups continues, but it sure looks like one of the teams will start a quarterback named Max. Maybe both.
Brown hasn’t tipped off which of his three experienced QBs will start the season opener next Thursday night on FOX, but speculation is building that for the Tar Heels it will be LSU/Texas A&M transfer Max Johnson, the 6-5 lefty who has 30 games in the SEC on his resume.
For the Golden Gophers, it looks like sixth-year graduate transfer Max Brosmer from New Hampshire. Has there ever been a college football game where both starting quarterbacks were named Max? I checked with AI, which didn’t have a clue. But both are from the state of Georgia, so go figure.
The data dump squarely gives the edge of experience and execution to Johnson, who started 22 games for the Tigers and Aggies, completing 60.5 percent of his passes for 5,850 yards and 47 touchdowns. He is listed as a senior with two years of eligibility remaining, thanks to taking one as a red-shirt at LSU and another at Texas A&M shortened by injuries that apparently gave him a COVID sixth season.
Brosmer has a better resume, but it is from the Football College Subdivision level, where New Hampshire plays. He started 31 games for the Wildcats and threw for 8,000 total yards with 69 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. Last season, he led the entire FCS with 3,500 yards for 179 first downs in 461 attempts. He had a Football Focus grade of 83.5 out of 100 that included throwing 12 touchdowns passes and four picks.
If Brown or Fleck has to go to their respective back-ups, Carolina has a solid advantage there, as well, with redshirt sophomore Conner Harrell and grad student Jacolby Criswell, who transferred back to UNC after a season at Arkansas. Minnesota’s back-up is true freshman Drake Lindsey, who joined the program in time for spring practice and apparently looks pretty good.
Brown could announce his starter at Friday’s press conference, and he has already said whoever it will be stays in the game as long as he produces. If not, he will come out and give the QB2 a shot.
Will it be Max squared or someone else for the Tar Heels, who for the last five seasons were led by NFL-bound quarterbacks Sam Howell and Drake Maye? Howell and Maye led pass-happy offenses, combining for 18,300 yards and 155 touchdowns over their five-plus seasons.
“We were trying to win the Heisman Trophy, so we were throwing the ball on every play,” Brown quipped recently. This season, Carolina will be satisfied with just a win, no matter who is flinging the pigskin.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/LM Otero
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: To The Max appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I hope the teams get to take an educational tour of Maui.
Carolina returns to the Maui Invitational for the ninth time, as the popular college basketball tournament returns to its home at the Lahaina Civic Center after storms and wildfires destroyed a large portion of the island three months before the last eight-team tourney was scheduled.
The 2023 event moved to Honolulu while Maui began to rebuild, a job that is far from finished after the deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in a more than hundred years. The invitational is known for bringing some of the best teams in the country, and this year they may get to see more than just each other.
Carolina is playing in the event for a record ninth time and is going for its fifth championship and to take home the trophy and commemorative surfboard. Another title will tie Duke’s five for the most in tournament history.
The Heels have certainly done the best to earn their four surfboards. Each time, UNC has gone on to reach the NCAA Final Four, the last three winning national championships in 2005, 2009 and 2017 under Roy Williams. The 1999-2000 team, coached to the title by Bill Guthridge, lost in the semifinals of the Final Four after sweeping Southern Cal, Georgetown and Purdue in Maui.
Funny, Dean Smith never won the Maui Classic, losing in the title game on both trips.
Over Thanksgiving, Williams twice had teams that looked like they could win it all in the Big Dance.
In 2004, the Heels lost their opening game of the season to Santa Clara on the way to Maui, playing without star point guard Raymond Felton, and then turned it on with Felton back to win all three in Lahaina. In 2008, Williams had indisputably college ball’s top team by the following March and began the season by clobbering two opponents by 72 points before beating No. 8 Notre Dame by 15 for the surfboard.
In 2016, like in ’09, Carolina was coming off a bummer Final Four but overcame departing seniors Brice Johnson and Marcus Paige to beat two teams by 75 points and then edged No.15 Wisconsin for their fourth surfboard.
The pairings are out for this year’s Maui Invitational. Top seeds UConn and UNC are in opposite brackets and can only play each other in the third game Wednesday, November 27. The defending national champs Huskies open the event against Memphis Wednesday morning at 9:30 Hawaii time; the Tar Heels play Dayton about 14 hours later to close out the first round and with a win will face the Auburn-Iowa State survivor.
The fact that Connecticut and North Carolina will play so far apart gives the Huskies more overall downtime before round 2. Clearly, they’re the bigger dogs in Maui this year.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/21/Art%27s%20Notebook%20082124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Historic Trip appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Miami was an NIL pioneer, but now its biggest source is drying up.
Remember when NIL came on the scene, and coaches and fans called it the “wild west”? It was because certain schools jumped the gun with rich supporters who offered up money to buy players and then worry about the details later.
Miami was one of the schools that had a gazillionaire backing its NIL program, which was funded by their “NIL King” for how much he was forking over.
The story surrounds healthcare entrepreneur John Ruiz, who got famous for paying basketball star Nijel Pack $800,000 plus a car to transfer from Kansas State and sign with the Hurricanes. Ruiz also put up the money to get the blonde Cavinder sisters to sign with the U’s women basketball team.
Pack still plays for Miami, but the NIL godfather is now in serious trouble with his company, LifeWallet, which posted a $200-plus million loss in 2023. Ruiz reportedly has spent $10 million on NIL deals with Canes’ athletes and has had to tell his investors their money was gone for good as LifeWallet is under federal and civil probes.
Miami and Ruiz were among the schools and donors who used the broadest interpretations of NIL guidelines provided by the NCAA, which at the time said it would not investigate irregularities and punish cheaters. And, of course, it’s not anything like a private-equity investment because Ruiz wasn’t getting any return for the NIL money he paid athletes.
Ruiz’s commitment to help fund a much-needed football stadium closer to campus at Miami is also up in smoke while he and LifeWallet have been subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC investigated the company and has since said it has “substantial doubt” about its viability moving forward.
Ruiz won’t go broke, as he was listed among Forbes’ billionaires in 2023 with a net worth of $1.5 billion. But Miami’s reliance on him could leave the school without enough money to continue its NIL program while Ruiz is in litigation.
Miami women’s basketball was charged with sanctions by the NCAA and new president Charlie Baker, who has started to follow up reports on sketchy NIL deals and found the U to have had impermissible meetings with recruits, whatever that means.
On the NIL spectrum, most schools are still doing it the way they started or have revamped their programs like UNC consolidated its football and basketball collectives under the name of Carolina NIL, which is reorganizing.
It’s another unknown about the constantly changing college athletics landscape. Athletes and their agents are bargaining with the schools recruiting them but as far as setting limits on the amounts of money in play, that train left the station long ago.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/20/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_082024.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Rebecca Blackwell
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Squeeze is On appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown is playing every card in a game he has to win.
It seems like a little teenage tit for tat between Brown’s Tar Heels and P.J. Fleck’s Minnesota Gophers prior to their season opener a week from Thursday night.
Brown is not announcing his starting quarterback for now, whether lefty transfer Max Johnson or righties Conner Harrell and Jacolby Criswell will get the nod.
Fleck began what has been called a “chess match” by not revealing his two-deeps on both sides of the ball, which includes his presumed new starting QB. This makes it harder to scout a roster that, as with most Power 4 schools, has so many changes via recruiting and the transfer portal.
Likewise, Fleck would have to go back to find tape on Johnson from his stops at LSU and Texas A&M but hasn’t seen anything on big Max in the Tar Heels’ offense and will need to prepare for the 6-5 southpaw and two other quarterbacks who are run-pass-option threats.
This is an extremely important game for both programs, which begin the season as longshots to make the new 12-team college football playoff.
Carolina has been picked in the middle of the expanded 17-team ACC in most preseason polls. The Tar Heels have drawn one of the easiest early schedules in the country with three home games against underdog mid-majors following the opener in Minneapolis.
After Minnesota, their next Power 4 game is at Duke on September 28, the first of four straight against ACC teams picked to finish behind them in the standings. In all, six of the Heels’ eight conference opponents are rated in the bottom half of the league: Georgia Tech, Duke, Boston College, Pitt, Virginia and Wake Forest.
UNC has a good chance to go 8-0 before visiting Florida State on November 2, which would be Carolina’s third straight fast start under Brown. Finishing the season strong has been Brown’s biggest problem, going 2-9 in their last 11 games in 2022 and ’23.
Minnesota is among three teams in the Big Ten picked to tie for 14th place in the now-18-school league. So beating a high-profile program like Carolina will be the best start imaginable on a schedule that follows with home games against mid-majors Rhode Island and Nevada before playing ranked Iowa, Michigan and new B1G member Southern Cal.
The loser will have a serious setback in trying to build a season worthy of a major bowl invitation, largely because their non-conference schedules are so weak.
So the best opening night game on FOX will have a huge audience for fans thirsting for the football season after a long hot summer, regardless of who is QB1 and the other starters for both teams.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/19/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_081924.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tight Lips appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
NIL may be getting ready to bite Carolina basketball again.
When you hear the name Tyzhaun Claude, think of James Okonkwo. Claude is the transfer from Georgia Tech who accepted a remaining scholarship to play for the Tar Heels this coming season. His data is for a good-sized kid but not a legit big man who may get as much playing time as Okonkwo, the last man in the rotation last season.
When Claude’s commitment was announced, it came from his “agent” in a social media post. Since agents don’t work for free, that means Claude must have gotten some NIL money. But it can’t be much considering his one good season at Western Carolina.
What it does say is that Carolina is paying SOME NIL money, which was unknown with Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan. The assumption is that R.J. Davis had mega offers from other schools but returned for his super senior season, presumably, for an amount similar to what Drake Maye got to come back last year.
And that can put the Tar Heels into an uncomfortable position with higher-rated recruits, a number of which are already including Hubert Davis’ program in their top five or top ten lists. Remember, Hubert and his staff sell the big brand and exposure of UNC Basketball, which is good enough to draw interest from most big-time prospects.
But how many of the coveted big men did they get out of the transfer portal? Zero.
Case in point, Coleman Hawkins went to Kansas State, a long-time also-ran in the Big 12 that could be a contender for conference and national offers by paying Coleman and other transfers big bucks. That kind of bidding war is the last thing Davis will get into if he remains true to his roots of programs run by Dean Smith and Roy Williams.
No one but Maye’s family is sure how much Drake received from a bunch of wealthy alums who passed the hat when they decided to show appreciation for his decision to come back for his last college season. And so far, a dollar amount to reward R.J. Davis hasn’t even been suggested in the (social) media.
The only NIL figures we’ve heard about any Tar Heel athlete come from Armando Bacot who has said publicly he made “over a million” dollars. And most of that stemmed from AB’s intelligence and the marketing chops he’s always had.
Surely, five-star signees Ian Jackson and Drake Powell got something, but it can’t be as much as the returning ACC Player of the Year and first-team All-American Davis, who deserves whatever the amount and maybe more since his value is established.
If you haven’t noticed, Carolina has been ranked in the top 10 in some preseason polls and one respected blog picks the Heels to finish first in the ACC ahead of Duke, which is loaded with 10 highly ranked freshmen and transfers.
Is that realistic without the ilk of Bacot, Ingram and Ryan?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/16/CHANSKY%20SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK%20081624%20FINISHED.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Ilk of NIL appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Even on grainy TV footage from 40 years ago, James Worthy is still phenomenal.
Scrolling through my cable TV guide, I saw that the NBA Channel was carrying the 1984 Finals: Lakers vs. Celtics. So I clicked to see one of the greatest playoff games of all time.
This was Game 4 at the old Forum in Los Angeles. The Lakers had two Tar Heels on their roster, second-year power forward Worthy and eighth-year center Mitch Kupchak, whose injury-plagued career was nearing an end for a job in the Lakers front office.
Worthy was in his second season in the NBA and already one of the best players in the league. He had missed the end of his rookie year in 1983 with a broken leg, which is why Dean Smith insisted Big Game James enter the NBA draft after he led UNC to the NCAA championship as a junior. The Lakers had the first pick, and Smith was worried that Worthy would get injured again if he came back to school and hurt his draft position.
Early in that season, a fully recovered Worthy had displaced local UCLA star Jamaal “Silk” Wilkes in the starting lineup and became the power forward to NBA Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a low-post target for point guard Magic Johnson. The Celtics had the great Larry Bird and front-court mates Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.
The Lakers had won Game 1 at the old Boston Garden and won Game 3 in LA to take a 2-1 lead in the series. They led Game 4 almost all the way, although it was a one- or two-possession thriller for most of the fourth quarter. McHale missed a tip-in at the end of regulation and the game went into overtime with Abdul-Jabbar having fouled out.
In his first full season, Worthy became the go-to guy as the Lakers tried to hang on and not let the series go back to Boston tied at two games apiece. In overtime, Worthy scored 12 of his team’s 14 points, scoring nine straight that gave the Lakers a five-point lead before the Celtics battled back to win on a steal and dunk by former Guilford College star and future Celtics coach and general manager M.L. Carr.
Worthy had taken his game to another level in the NBA and could score on the block and with turnaround jumpers from the baseline. Although the Lakers lost the series in seven games, Worthy went on to become a three-time world champion and was MVP of the 1988 NBA Finals. He was named to the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary team and his No. 42 jersey was retired after his last season with the Lakers in 1994.
His No. 52 at Carolina hangs in the rafters of the Smith Center as the National Player of the Year and MVP of the 1982 NCAA Final Four. The Gastonia native still lives in California but comes back to the Tar Heel State and Chapel Hill regularly.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via NBA
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Big Game James appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The stars are beginning to come out for Carolina football.
For a team that is picked to finish eighth in the ACC, the Tar Heels have been festooned with preseason honors, from the league’s leading returning rusher Omarion Hampton, to linebacker Power Echols, to tight ends Bryson Nesbit and John Copenhaver, to wide receiver Kobe Paysour. And, unlike the last five years, there is no all-star quarterback in sight.
Hampton, who rushed for 1,504 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2023, was named to the Doak Walker Watch List for the accolade he nearly won last season. The award is named for Doak Walker, the three-time All-American running back for SMU, which is beginning its first athletic season as a new member of the ACC.
The junior from Clayton was named to the preseason All-ACC and All-American teams along with nominations for Maxwell and Walter Camp awards. He also finished the 2023 campaign with 29 pass receptions for 222 yards and another touchdown. He led the ACC with 253 carries and finished fifth in NCAA yards rushing.
The UNC single-season record is held by All-American Don McCauley, the only Tar Heel with more yards (1,720 plus 19 touchdowns) in 1970.
Echols, a senior from Charlotte, is on the 2024 Butkus Watch List as the best linebacker in major college football. As a junior, Echols started all 13 games and had 102 tackles, 5.5 thrown for losses (TFL), 4 quarterback pressures, 2 forced fumbles, 1 interception and 1 pass broken up (PBU). The award is named for former Chicago Bears’ great Dick Butkus.
This is Echols’ second straight season on the Butkus Watch List. He and fellow linebacker Kaimon Rucker will lead the defense and try to make up for the loss of All-ACC linebacker and NFL draft choice Cedrick Gray, a fourth-round pick of the Tennessee Titans. They will have the challenge of leading Carolina to a better finish than No. 90 in NCAA rushing defense, allowing 2,121 yards on 504 carries.
Nesbitt and Copenhaver are also repeaters on the John Mackey Award Watch List.
Nesbit, a senior from Charlotte who was named first-team All-ACC, appeared in 12 games last season and started two. He had 41 receptions for 585 yards and five touchdowns. Copenhaver, a graduate student from Roswell, Georgia, made 10 starts in 12 games and finished with 18 catches for 240 yards and four TDs. The award is named for former Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers all-pro tight end John Mackey.
Paysour, a junior from Kings Mountain, was named to the College Sports Communications 2024 Comeback Player of the Year Watch List. Prior to a season-ending injury last year, Paysour started five games at wide receiver, with 22 receptions for 282 yards and three touchdowns. In 2022, Paysour was a valuable sub for All-ACC receiver Josh Downs.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/14/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Erik Verduzco
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: We’re Watching! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Stephen Curry saved his coach and his country in Paris.
Yes, NBA players now believe it is important to represent their country whereas they began losing that feeling after the first two dream teams suited up in 1992 and ‘96.
Watching the Olympics certainly showed that. Serbia and France had star NBA players and gave the Americans close games in the medal round before Curry had two of his legendary hot streaks and bailed them out.
It is still amazing that Curry, despite being a skinny kid in high school with a good game, was not offered a scholarship by a single ACC coaching staff. Curry went to Davidson and his fame grew along with his game and his body. Now he is known as the greatest shooter in the history of basketball.
And he is so likeable that he offset the mixed feelings many NBA fans have toward the Olympics. Coach Steve Kerr lost support across the country when he barely played Celtics star Jayson Tatum and benched him for both games against Serbia when his defensive length would have helped against their outside shooting.
And many NBA fans are more invested in their own teams than an all-star international squad that has rivals among the 12 players on the roster. Celtics fans are all over the country and they were not only pissed at Kerr, they have mixed feelings about rooting for certain stars from other arch rivals.
LeBron James is one of the most popular and disliked NBA players. Also true for Kevin Durant jumping from team to team, or underrated Bam Adebayo or cocky Anthony Edwards or injury prone Joel Embiid. Surely, some rival fans of the Lakers, Heat, Timberwolves and 76ers feel the way Celtic haters feel.
How Curry plays the game and gets hot down the stretch to complete comebacks for the Warriors makes him an international hero when he does that in the Olympics. He just has that even demeanor when he sticks dagger after dagger, shimmying his shoulders occasionally and rarely pounding his own chest.
Does Team USA come all the way back against Serbia if not for Curry’s 60 points and 17 three-pointers in the semifinals and gold medal win over France? Probably not, making him a heart-wrenching hero around the world. No one else on the team gets that kind of free pass.
He saved Kerr from adding a loss on top of constant criticism over his lineups and substitution pattern, roasted by most major sports commentators.
And when Curry said after getting his first gold medal, “I still got something to do, and go play for Coach Kerr” and the Warriors. For as long as he does that, America will be indebted to the beloved 36-year-old by fans of every NBA team.
Shimmy. Shimmy.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Mark J. Terrill
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: True Hero appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Anson Dorrance is going out like his original mentor.
Among the many famous stories about Anson Dorrance is how he wangled his way into a Carolina basketball practice to watch Dean Smith “teach a class.” That was in 1982, while Dorrance was still coaching the UNC men’s and fledgling women’s soccer teams.
He had heard that Smith’s practices were scheduled by the minute: 5:00 pm dribbling warm-up, 5:03 stretching, 5:07 layup drill. “How is this possible?” Dorrance said in Tim Crothers’ best-selling 2009 book “The Man Watching” about the soccer Hall of Famer who announced his sudden retirement Sunday when even Dorrance predicted he would die on the pitch one day.
To attend one of those practices, Dorrance needed almost top-secret clearance beginning with assistant coach Bill Guthridge, who laid down the rules about how and when to enter Carmichael Auditorium. Pick up a pass, meet a manager in the concourse, sit above the yellow railings, “no food, no drinks, no talking,” Dorrance recalled.
Smith became the secret mentor Dorrance was looking for, and the Carolina soccer program won so much that Smith himself used to quip, “We’re not a basketball school, we’re a women’s soccer school.”
Through the years, the famed coaches talked often about everything. Dorrance asked him what he was most proud of after he left the bench. “I retired coaching,” Smith said.
Dorrance did the same thing, at 73 years old (compared to Smith’s 66) after 47 seasons (to Smith’s 36) with 22 national championships and a World Cup (to Smith’s two, plus one NIT title and a gold medal) with legendary players from both programs.
He said that decision had a lot to do with Smith, who always said he would never retire after the last season but before the NEXT, when he knew he could no longer generate the enthusiasm to give his team 100 percent of his time, his mind and his energy.
So when Dorrance stepped down four days before his first game of the new season, a lot of Tar Heel old-timers remembered that’s what Smith said on October 9, 1997 (5 weeks before his team’s first game).
There could be other reasons that we will learn over time. But Dorrance may have started to seriously think about it the day the old Fetzer Field, renovated and expanded through his success, was named for him (like the arena name Smith agreed to reluctantly).
Dorrance coached dozens of all-conference and all-Americans and had more than 60 players compete in the Olympic Games, where they earned 29 gold medals and many of them also making the World Cup teams and advancing into pro soccer, the talent pool emanating from Dorrance’s early teams that set the national standard over five decades eclipsing what Smith did in four.
By the way, Dorrance won his first NCAA championship in the fall of 1982, a few months after attending that master class in Carolina basketball.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20081224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Masterclass appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Team USA delivered when the pressure was on everyone.
For LeBron James, Kevin Durant and, especially, Stephen Curry, they had to step up when Serbia was about to step over them on the way to the gold medal. It didn’t look possible, and all that time I was thinking of USA coach Steve Kerr.
It has been a tough Olympics for Kerr, coach of the four-time World Champion Golden State Warriors. Not only was he saddled with substitution decisions that, no matter what he did, drew criticism for who he played and for how long.
The thing about Kerr that I couldn’t get out of my mind was his team was playing not that far from what happened on the darkest day of his life. He was born and grew up in Lebanon, where he attended the American Community School in Beirut before taking his considerable talents to Palisades High School outside of Los Angeles to earn a college scholarship.
His father was president of the American University of Beirut. In 1984, a year after Steve departed for the United States, Malcolm Kerr was shot and killed outside of his office while Steve was a freshman at Arizona. “My life was impenetrable,” he said of his youth. “Bad things happened to other people.”
On July 30, as Kerr was coaching Team USA in Paris, a horrific bombing occurred 2,000 miles away in Beirut as part of the escalating war in the Middle East. I can only imagine what memories that brought up for Kerr and his family. Little wonder why Kerr has been an outspoken proponent of stronger gun laws in this country.
As his Olympic team fell 13 points behind Serbia after three quarters, I wanted Kerrto win more than ever and again Saturday against France for the gold medal. The Americans had won gold in every Olympics since 2004, when they were upset by Argentina in Athens, where there were terrorist threats after 9/11.
But Curry, along with James and Durant, two other of the planet’s greatest players, bailed out Team USA. Curry hit a crucial 3-pointer with 2:24 to cap the rally on his way to 36 points, the American Olympic record for a knockout game.
The 39-year-old James had his second Olympic triple-double with 16 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Joel Embiid came off the bench down the stretch, giving the USA four NBA Most Valuable Players with Curry and Durant. And that proved enough to hold off the Denver Nuggets’ three-time MVP Nikola Jokic, 95-91, outscoring Serbia 32-15 in the fourth quarter in a crushing defeat for the team they blew out 12 days before.
“They were perfect,” Kerr said of Serbia. “They played a perfect game.”
It was an incredible performance for both teams on the world stage. And for Steve Kerr, one to remember instead of one to forget.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20080924%20-%20FINAL%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Mark J. Terrill
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Heartfelt Win appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
We may actually see Drake Maye in a Patriots uniform against the Panthers.
If we could get Maye to drink a glass a truth serum, how would the former Carolina star quarterback answer the following questions:
Beside signing a $36 million contract, how has it been going from playing college football at his home state university, where he was a hero from snap one, to being a first-round draft pick for one of the most storied – and difficult – franchises in the National Football League?
Are you ready to play in the Patriots’ first exhibition game against your home-state pro team Thursday night on the NFL Network, where millions of curious fans will be watching and the maniacal New England media judging you?
You had an entire red-shirt season to learn the college game; are you ready to play an NFL game after summer workouts and about a dozen training camp practices?
Will you be shell-shocked, a bit unprepared or just ready to play when your number is called sometime in the first half?
Maye has been carefully nurtured by the team and fellow-rookie, head coach Jerod Mayo, up to this point. Despite some uneven performances, as much due to the Patriots continued rebuilding on offense, the affable 6-4 rookie has had mostly mixed reviews in the drills, the 7-on-7s and the full-contact scrimmages.
Veteran Jacoby Brissett, the N.C. State alum in his second stint with the Pats, will be the starter in the exhibition and depending on what Maye does when he comes in will likely remain that way through the regular season opener against Joe Burrow and the Bengals on September 8, in Cincinnati.
In his press conference this week, Maye looked and sounded like a combination of the All-American he was in college and an overwhelmed rookie. He is throwing to new receivers including several rookies who like him are trying to earn playing time and stopping to sign autographs for kids and “make their day” on his way off the field.
He said he feels comfortable under center as well as in the shotgun the Tar Heels used for most of his college career. “Do the best you can and get ready for the next play,” he said with his patented smile and shoulder shrug. “Never too good, never too bad, just learn from it.”
On one hand, playing quarterback is the easiest position because he rarely gets hit while receivers are running all over the field and the linemen are colliding on every play. On the other, “It’s the little things. As a quarterback, you’ve got to learn to do it right.”
Besides the bullet throws, what we’ll see against the Panthers is recognizable. “Scramble throws, run around, make some plays. It’s still part of my game,” Maye said.
We can’t wait to see what the NFL No. 10 looks like.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20080824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Steven Senne
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Part of My Game’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If confidence means good execution, the Tar Heel defense should be very good this fall.
Despite being picked eighth in the preseason poll following the ACC Media Kickoff, the sixth UNC team for Mack Brown 2.0 is talking a mighty big game. At first, Brown went into training camp quelling expectations, but he can’t seem to help himself. He maintains “we’ve been this close,” but eighth is in the middle of an average league.
Carolina is on its third defensive coordinator in six seasons. Jay Bateman lasted three years and Brown’s old friend Gene Chizik stayed two during which UNC started fast but lost four games at the end of both seasons.
Their newest defensive coordinator, Geoff Collins, has received quite the build-up from Brown.
“He’s coached some of the best defenses that we’ve ever had in college football,” the 72-year-old head coach said on July 25. The best ever? He introduced Bateman and Chizik with lofty platitudes but nothing like that.
For the record, Collins was fired after four years as head coach at Georgia Tech with a 10-28 record and, presumably, was in charge of the Yellow Jackets defense. As for the “best ever” comments, Collins was the DC for two seasons at Mississippi State and two at Florida before he got the head job in Atlanta.
In 2013, the Bulldogs were fifth in the SEC with 350 yards per game allowed and the following year were eighth with 424 yards per game. In 2015 and ’16, Collins’ Gator “D” finished fourth and third in the SEC, not bad but far from a “best ever” defense.”
At Georgia Tech, Collins’ Yellow Jackets defense finished 10th, 14th, 12th and 12th in the ACC. Brown is a great promoter and salesman, but whoever looks up stats for him needs a new pair of glasses or a new job.
“In my entire career it has just been consistent. Success, success, success, success,” Collins said this week. “And then you go through that, and you become very reflective, self-reflective.”
Collins was soundly criticized by his predecessor at Tech Paul Johnson, who in 11 years led the Yellow Jackets to four ACC Coastal Division titles and two 11-win seasons and was named ACC Coach of the Year three times.
Of Collins, Johnson said last February, “He wanted to reinvent history. He just distorted everything when he got there. I will just call a spade a spade. I got no respect from the guy, he acted like we had not won a game and lied about who he inherited.”
At Carolina, the 53-year-old Collins inherited what Brown considers one of his deepest and most talented defenses. His third DC in six years needs to do better than Bateman and Chizik, or he too won’t last very long. “He hopes to be a head coach again,” Brown said, “so he’s got a lot to prove.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20080724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Success, Success’? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina still has a big connection to U.S. Women’s Soccer.
It is hardly like 35 years ago when it seemed half of the still-newbie U.S. Women’s National Team were teenagers who wound up at UNC after being coached and eventually recruited by Anson Dorrance, who had been hired to at least make the U.S. competitive in women’s soccer.
He certainly did that before he gave it up to concentrate on his own program, and the 1999 women’s World Cup team won the legendary 5-4 match over China before 100,000 fans at the Rose Bowl on a penalty kick by Brandi Chastain, who showed the world her sports bra.
Dorrance, of course, was at the birth of women’s soccer in this country by putting future Tar Heels Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Kristine Lilly on the national team as 14- and 15-year-olds who later invited the first African American soccer player
Kimberly Crabbe into their training camp.
And that was the start of the Dorrance Dynasty that brought back 23 national championships to Chapel Hill but has not won one since 2012 because the sport has reached international parity. And Tar Heels are still very much a part of it.
Two Tar Heels – Emily Fox and Crystal Dunn – are in Tuesday’s 12 p.m. semifinal in France. Dunn assisted on the lone goal in extra time by Trinity Rodman, who slashed through traffic and fired a left-footed laser into the upper left corner as the American team edged Japan 1-0 to reach the semifinal against Germany.
Rodman struck the winner in extra time, the latest the U.S. team has scored since Alex Morgan’s goal in 2012 against Canada. The team tackled Rodman and piled on to her for the goal that seemed to surprise even her. It is just the second time the U.S. has started the Olympic games with four straight wins since 2012 when it wound up beating Japan for the Gold Medal.
Prior victories came over Zambia 3-0, Germany 4-1 and Australia 2-1. Brazil and Spain are scheduled to play in the other semifinal at 3 pm.
Dunn is 32, 10 years older than Rodman who has her own story. She is the daughter of former NBA star and eccentric personality Dennis Rodman, who admittedly didn’t have much to do with her while she grew up in California. She briefly attended Washington State before ever playing a game for the Cougars and joined the Washington Spirit of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) at 18.
Having played in 14 games, Dunn is one of just three three-time Olympians on the U.S. roster. She earned a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (in 2021) and scored a goal in Rio in 2016, when the Yanks lost to Sweden on a penalty shootout after the match ended 1-1. It marked the first exit in the quarterfinals since women’s soccer debuted in the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/06/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080624.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Daniel Cole
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 2 Tar Heels Still Alive appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Julius Peppers story is worth celebrating, especially for his demented detractors.
Peppers put a cherry on the top of his sensational football career with induction into the NFL Hall of Fame over the weekend, the third in UNC history.
A unanimous first-team All-American at Carolina in 2001, he won the Chuck Bednarik Award as the nation’s top defensive player and the Vince Lombardi Award as the best interior lineman when he was 10th in the Heisman Trophy balloting. A first-team All-ACC selection in 2000 and ’01, Peppers ended his collegiate career with 177 tackles, 31 sacks, 53 tackles for losses, five forced fumbles and five interceptions. Remember the spectacular one at Clemson?
A first-ballot Hall of Famer, Peppers had been the second overall pick by the Carolina Panthers in the 2002 NFL Draft and played 10 years in Charlotte, four years for the Chicago Bears and three for the Green Bay Packers. He earned nine Pro Bowl selections, three first-team and three second-team All-Pro honors, Defensive Rookie of the Year and made the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2000s.
During his 17 NFL seasons, Peppers made 719 tackles, 175 tackles for losses and 159.5 sacks (fourth all-time in the NFL), forced 52 fumbles, recovered 21 and had 11 interceptions.
Mack Brown recruited Peppers but never coached him. “We couldn’t be prouder of Julius for the person, father, husband and friend he’s become and it’s so rewarding to see him recognized for his significant accomplishments on the football field,” Brown said.
Peppers was long gone from Chapel Hill and started to give back generously to UNC when in 2010 he was dragged into the infamous academic-athletic scandal by a couple of hacker nerds at N.C. State who found a Peppers transcript on the internet and circulated it.
As a sub-standard public high school student from outside of Wilson, Peppers was a so-called special admission at Carolina due to his immense football skills.
Thank goodness the political Board of Governors goons in Raleigh hadn’t forced the DEI curriculum out, or Peppers’ life would have been far different for him and all the other lives he touched — from the family he now has to those whose Saturday afternoons he helped make us all enjoy.
He thrilled alumni and fans by being given the chance to play college football. That is what this country has always been about, no matter what you look like or where you come from.
And Julius Peppers is the poster child for that opportunity. Warmest thanks and congratulations to him!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/05/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_080524.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/David Dermer
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Storybook Career appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Erin Matson’s first NIL deal was an awesome experience.
Back in 2021, Marc Pons of Chapel Hill Tire said his young daughter was a big field hockey fan and asked if his company could do something – anything – with UNC All-American Erin Matson.
“Maybe she would record some commercials for us?” he said, as part of his long-time partnership with WCHL. “We would pay her, but I don’t know how this new thing called NIL works.”
After another sponsor was asking about Carolina star Sam Howell doing something on the radio for them, I contacted UNC’s compliance office and was told if Howell had an agent we could not go directly to him.
I looked up Matson’s number and called her. She answered, and I introduced myself. She probably didn’t know me from Adam but sounded like she was happy to hear from me. That was a tip she was also pretty great off the field.
To make sure, I asked her if she had an agent. After all, she had already won a couple of ACC Players of the Year awards and led the Tar Heels to three national championships.
“No, no agent,” she said.
“Then it’s okay to ask you if you would record some commercials for one of our best sponsors, who would pay you?”
“Oh, my God!” she said. “Of course I would!”
I told Pons Erin would do it and said to call her directly. He gushed and said, “Do you think she would go to lunch with my daughter and me?” Ask her, I said.
Fast forward and Matson became our first NIL partner, recording several different spots for Chapel Hill Tire, whose business just happened to jump in the ensuing months. She also went to lunch with Pons and his daughter, happily.
We met with Erin periodically in our studio. With each meeting, she seemed to know more about NIL, in general, and how it worked at Carolina so she might be able to get some more deals. MIGHT be able!
Matson went on to write a personal blog for us in her final season and, of course, it was among the most-read posts on this website. She was so grateful for the opportunity, and we were so grateful to have her work with us.
We didn’t know that Karen Shelton would retire after winning her 10th national championship and Erin’s fourth. And that Matson was planning to ask Bubba Cunningham for an interview to succeed her hall of fame coach. Done deal, followed by Matson’s first NCAA title.
“She is the first head coach in the country who did NIL when she played and now can guide her players through it,” he said.
What a hire for Bubba, Marc and us.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20080224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jerome M. Ibrahim
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Matson Deal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina’s non-conference schedule looks daunting enough.
As usual, the first 12 games for the 2024-25 Tar Heels will give some indication of how they will fare during the ACC regular season of 20 games to follow. Hubert Davis’ fourth Carolina edition has a deceiving early slate, at least on paper.
There is an old axiom that the Heels must win 8-10 games before league play commences to have a good chance for 20 victories going into the ACC tournament in order to secure an NCAA at-large bid.
Home games against Elon, American, LaSalle and Campbell should give them four “sure wins,” as Dean Smith used to call them. Smith never disparaged any opponent but was candid when he thought his team was “more gifted.”
The first true test is a November 8 visit to Lawrence, Kansas, the start of a home-and-home series against the Jayhawks, the presumptive No. 1 team in many preseason polls. It will be UNC’s second trip to KU and the first since 1960. The Jayhawks come to Chapel Hill for the first time the following season. The blueblood programs have a combined 10 national championships (6 for the Heels, 4 for Kansas), 250 NCAA tournament wins in 105 appearances, and 37 Final Fours over the years.
There is a four-game trip to the Hawaiian Islands that begins with a November 22 visit to the University of Hawaii on Oahu, followed by the three-game Maui Invitational that returns from Honolulu to its long-time home after hurricane-induced fires destroyed much of the island.
The matchups have not been released, but the eight-team field has seven from the 2024 NCAA tournament, including two-time defending champion UConn. Other possible opponents are Auburn, Colorado, Dayton, Iowa State, Memphis and Michigan State.
So, depending how good Hawaii is, and the challenge of replacing star center Armando Bacot, the Heels could win all four out there or, more realistically, go 3-1 or 2-2. That trip looms important when you consider that winning at Kansas is a longshot.
They return home to face Alabama in the ACC-SEC Challenge, and the Crimson Tide looks to be as good, or better, than the team that bounded Carolina from the Sweet 16 in LA last season. The Tar Heels should be favored in tough games with Florida at the Jumpman Classic in Charlotte and UCLA in the CBS Sports Classic at Madison Square Garden.
Going into the ACC schedule with a 12-0 record is highly unlikely, but 10-2 with losses at Kansas and one in Maui is certainly realistic for the ballclub with two returning starters (R.J. Davis and Elliot Cadeau), three veteran lettermen (Seth Trimble, Jalen Washington, Jae’Lyn Withers) and 5-star freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell.
Carolina is a projected top 10 team in the preseason national rankings.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/08%20-%20August/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20080124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tough Start appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
All-American boy Steve Kerr is having a tough week.
Since that 1988 March afternoon, when his Arizona Wildcats knocked Carolina out of the NCAA Tournament, many of us have followed Kerr’s career.
He was not only on three of Michael Jordan’s six NBA champions, he also turned into America’s pro coach by leading the Warriors and Stephen Curry to four world titles.
He was awarded and named coach of USA Basketball for the Paris 2024 Olympics. So he obviously knows something about the international game. Or does he?
As a strategist and players’ coach, Kerr was considered a home run hire. Then came the opener in France against Serbia and NBA star Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and rated the fourth-best player in the world.
For some reason that even he could not explain, Kerr left Celtics star Jayson Tatum – a three-time All-NBA first teamer and the best player for the best team – on the bench for all 40 minutes of the 26-point win.
All he could say afterward was that he “felt like an idiot” for the benching. And fans across the country agreed with his self-diagnosis. Social media went berserk.
Charles Barkley was the first, saying “It’s the Olympics, and everyone has to play. If you are representing your country and travel halfway around the globe, everyone needs to get at least 10 minutes.” Tatum didn’t and sat for all 40 along with Tyrese Haliburton, another NBA star.
Screamin’ Stephen A. Smith blew out Kerr for not “finding a few minutes” for Tatum in the second-half runaway. And much of the blogosphere agreed with Stephen A.
International basketball is a shorter game than the NBA’s 48 minutes. Kerr implied that Kevin Durant, who was coming off an injury and made every shot in the first half, took Tatum’s minutes, even when Durant cooled off. But Kerr must have made that plan before the game because he told Tatum he might not play.
Kerr said Tatum handled it like a true pro and promised he would play Wednesday against South Sudan, which will be a bigger rout. And Kerr will be in a no-win situation. Tatum will play, but how long will be on Kerr. If it’s 10 minutes, why wasn’t he part of the rotation in the first game? And if he plays more, will Kerr be making it up to him and jeopardize the chemistry veterans LeBron James and Durant established?
Sometimes coaching can seem much harder than it is, and this is one of them. With three established head coaches on his bench, Kerr and his staff all failed.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/31/Art%27s%20Notebook%20073124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Steve Marcus
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No-Win Situation appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
N.C. State and Carolina open training camp too close to call in 2024.
In the first two ACC preseason polls released, the Wolfpack is predicted to finish fourth and sixth while the Tar Heels check in at seventh and ninth. The difference may be the new starting quarterbacks at both schools who all have experience elsewhere.
Either way, they are ranked higher than Duke and Wake Forest in the newly expanded 17-team league. The Blue Devils are picked in the middle and the Deacons at the back end of the standings in the early polls.
The Big Four brethren close the regular season on the same day, November 30. State is at UNC and Duke at Wake Forest with all four in probable contention for one of the 11 bowl invites the ACC could receive.
It is hard to imagine anyone else finishing first and second behind Florida State and Clemson, which play at FSU on October 5, likely setting up a rematch for the ACC championship on December 7.
State has beaten Carolina three straight years in two last-possession games and a blowout in Raleigh. The bitter rivals have combined to lose their last six bowl games to end relatively disappointing seasons. And both will have to count on capable quarterbacks to have a shot at going bowling again.
North Carolina State head coach Dave Doeren enters 2024 as one of the longest tenured coaches in the ACC and the program’s all-time winningest head coach. (Photo via AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker.)
The Wolfpack has fifth-year graduate student Grayson McCall, a three-time Sun Belt Player of the Year who threw for 10,000 yards and 88 TDs for Coastal Carolina, completing just under 70 percent of his passes, with only 14 interceptions in four years of mid-major football. The question is can he replicate on the big stage.
The Tar Heels featured two quarterbacks in the recent spring game, sophomore Conner Harrell and grad transfer Max Johnson, who both attended the ACC Media confab in Charlotte. Johnson played at LSU and Texas A&M and transferred to Carolina with his brother Jake Johnson, a tight end at A&M. A third quarterback, junior Jacolby Criswell, returned to Chapel Hill after a year at Arkansas and could contend for playing time.
The Heels will have their almost-regular challenges along their interior lines, hoping to avoid the injuries that have contributed to the last two late-season swoons. They want to run the ball more but not rely on All-ACC back Omarion Hampton too much, which will put more pressure on the new quarterbacks.
Following the August 29 opener at Minnesota, picked 13th in the Big Ten, Carolina has a soft September of three home games that should send Mack Brown’s sixth Tar Heel team (16th overall) to Duke on September 28 with a 4-0 record and plenty of snaps for the QBs who get them. The schedule only gradually gets harder from there except for a trip to Tallahassee on November 2. Then, it eases up again, giving UNC a chance for that elusive 10-win season that State is also chasing in Dave Doeren’s 11th year.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20073024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Still Seeking appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Did LeBron James make a game plan for his career and life?
James was born late in 1984 and turns 40 this December 30. By the time he was playing basketball, Michael Jordan was in the midst of winning six NBA championships, all with the Chicago Bulls.
As a high school phenom, James came along before the NBA implemented the one-and-done rule in 2006. In the 2003 NBA Draft, after he had graduated from high school in Akon, Ohio, James was the first overall selection by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
James won two rings with the Miami Heat, returned to Cleveland to win a third and has since won his fourth with the Lakers in the Florida bubble during the pandemic. He remains in the conversation about the GOAT as a 20-time NBA all-star and all-time leading scorer and many more individual honors too long to list.
But what else could he do to distinguish himself more than Jordan and Tiger Woods, besides becoming a billionaire like them?
Could LeBron become more active in the communities of American life? Timing allowed James a better chance to represent his country because Jordan played in only two Olympic Games in 1984, when USA coach Bob Knight called him the best player he has ever seen, and 1992 when he was a star on the first NBA Dream Team allowed in the Olympics.
James, at 39, is playing in his fifth Olympics, three more than Jordan, and if his prideful demeanor continues like in the opener against Serbia, he will win his fourth Gold Medal. Overall, his presence has been greater than other athletes in their respective sports.
Publicly, LeBron has been a much bigger philanthropist than Jordan and Tiger. And he has been far more outspoken in politics and social justice.
He condemned the killing of Trayvon Martin, and the deaths of other Black men and women during police actions, the racism of former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling; he participated in various NBA boycotts on civilian matters, endorsed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and questioned Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan, then called the president a “bum” when Trump rescinded an invitation for the Warriors to visit the white House after star Stephen Curry said he wouldn’t attend.
James supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election, and the world (sports and otherwise) awaits his endorsement of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to run for President, along with Taylor Swift and other celebrities who align more with the Democratic platforms and values than the Republicans.
It would make him different and, in the eyes of many, bigger than Jordan or Woods, who purposely stayed out of the public limelight for personal reasons. For all of the above, and many other reasons, LeBron is rightfully bestowed with the nickname King.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The King appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown needs to lower expectations but doesn’t seem to know how.
The Carolina football coach made his first official preseason comments at the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte. He had a great opportunity to downplay the fifth Tar Heel team of his second stint at UNC and just couldn’t do it.
When asked how he would replace Drake Maye, the All-American No. 3 pick in the NFL draft, he said the relatively unknown candidates to replace Maye are ready to play. He easily could have said, “They will decide that in training camp,” like he did before Maye won the job the last week before the opening game of his red-shirt freshman year after beating out Jacolby Criswell in a close race.
Brown said the 2024 Heels might have a chance to reach that so-far unreachable 10-win plateau. “With Drake and Sam [Howell], we were trying to win the Heisman Trophy and throw the ball on every down.”
Then he said, “Your new face is Omarion (Hampton),” the All-ACC leading rusher last season with more than 1,500 yards, many made possible by Maye spreading out the defense. Brown explained, “We feel like both quarterbacks can play.”
Brown did say that Hampton’s 253 carries last season were too many and that they will depend more on back-ups seniors Caleb Hood and grad transfer Darwin Barlow and freshman Davion Gause to spell the Big O.
And Carolina WILL run the ball even more this season, according to Brown, who wants more balance on offense but has to figure out how much his two or three quarterbacks will play even though Conner Harrell has more experience at UNC than Max Johnson, who transferred from Texas A&M, and Criswell, who returned from Arkansas.
Without Maye, aren’t defenses going to pack the box until juniors Harrell or Johnson (or Criswell) prove they can complete some one-on-one throws downfield and force drop coverage in the secondary?
Brown talks about hitting the wall after starting 9-1 and 6-0 the last two years. They can do that with another soft schedule in September, but finishing better is what the fan base is looking for and would be delighted if that happens. So even if the Tar Heels lose early, we will be pulling for them to play the second half of the season well enough to challenge for the ACC championship or make a prestigious bowl game.
Maybe Brown was projecting what will happen this season under second-year OC Chip Lindsey when he said, “We think we have a chance to be better without Drake,” dangling those expectations again.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What To Expect? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
For the second time in history, European basketball may have caught up with us.
When the U.S. men’s team opens Olympic play in Paris, the current members will have it as hard as ever to win the gold medal. It’s because the NBA players will be facing mostly their professional brethren.
Most of the 30 NBA teams have foreign players, who are the stars on many of them. Too many to list, but you know who I mean because your favorite team might have several.
The foreign-born players join professional teams in their homeland during the off-season, and the competition the U.S. faces will be stiff due to the talent of Europeans and their lack of fear playing against NBA stars on the Dream Team.
This happened one time before, in 1976 in Montreal, when Dean Smith coached the amateur Americans with four UNC players and seven from the ACC. Smith put together such a roster because he not only wanted talent but also players who knew how he coached and would abide by him.
Phil Ford, the point guard on that ’76 team, said he “knew how good the competition would be since they were professionals from other countries and we were college kids” with only a few practice games going to Canada.
Ford remembers the criticism Smith received after also naming Tar Heels Walter Davis, Mitch Kupchak and Tom LaGarde to the team, along with Duke’s Tate Armstrong, Maryland’s Steve Sheppard and N.C. State’s Kenny Carr from the ACC. Indiana’s Quin Buckner and Scott May, plus Notre Dame’s Adrian Dantley, Tennessee’s Ernie Grunfeld, and Michigan’s Phil Hubbard were also chosen.
The foreign opponents also had some great college players, such as Butch Lee of Puerto Rico, which lost 95-94 to the U.S. Lee played collegiately for Marquette, the school that would beat UNC in the 1977 NCAA championship game.
Yugoslavia lost two close games to the Americans, the second for the gold medal in Montreal. Their star was Serbian Drazen Dalipagic, the 1978 Yugoslavian athlete of the year who was named one of FIBA’s 50 greatest players in 1991. Ford calls Dalipagic one of the best players he ever faced.
“It stuck with me that was the first time I ever heard Coach Smith say winning is the most important thing,” Ford related. “He wasn’t preparing the team for life. It was put together to win the gold medal.”
And it did. “We went in thinking that we could win, but we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We didn’t go in really cocky thinking we were gonna walk through it. So we were prepared to play every game,” Ford said.
LeBron James and his teammates also better be prepared in Ol’ Paree!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Kin Cheung
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Walk in the Park appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The goings and comings as the ACC cranks up for another season.
With the annual ACC football kickoff in Charlotte this week, there are certainly some new – and a few old – faces in attendance. The Tar Heels’ press conferences are not until Thursday, which shows how much this event has expanded since the old days of one and done.
The quarterback battle at UNC will be in full bloom before training camp opens, since Mack Brown has brought Conner Harrell and Max Johnson to the Queen City along linebackers Power Echols and Kaimon Rucker (or should we say Kaimon RUSHER) who anchor the Tar Heels’ defense.
But the biggest name in the entire conference is potential ACC Player of the Year Omarion Hampton, who became a beast last season by easily leading the league with 1500-plus yards for a 130-yard average per game and 15 touchdowns. The Big O was fifth in the country in rushing, by the way.
Mack Brown’s public strategy will be interesting when he takes the microphone. It is the first season since coming back to Chapel Hill that he won’t have a sure-shot NFL quarterback running his team. That’s what makes the battle between Harrell and Johnson so interesting. And don’t forget returnee Jacolby Criswell who looks and talks like he’s the best of the trio.
Brown is the only Hall of Fame coach in the league, although Clemson’s Dabo Swinney will be there someday with a few other possible candidates. When he returned from Texas, Brown was listed in most top 10 national coaching polls. And after four seasons of relative disappointment, he is barely in the top 10 of the ACC rankings, No. 7 by CBS Sports and No. 9 by On3Sports. The two Daves – State’s Doeren and Wake Forest’s Clawson – are higher in both polls. So is the pressure on or off Mack?
For the comings, that dubious distinction belongs to three new members, two from the West Coast and one from the Great State of Texas. Stanford and Cal had to go as the Pac 12 was collapsing around them and SMU wanted to get into a Power 5 conference while a spot was available. All three schools agreed to take next to nothing in shared revenues to start.
Stanford coach Troy Taylor had to cancel a trip to Australia to open the 2025 season because he and Cal coach Justin Wilcox have been scheming and teaming how to negotiate the estimated 44,000 miles their teams will travel this year as members of the ACC. They failed in getting to play at Duke and UNC the same weekend, so they could fly on one very big plane.
Just kidding, or am I?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USA Today Sports/Joshua S. Kelly
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The New/Old ACC appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If the Kenan Stadium walls could talk.
When the Chelsea FC-Wrexham soccer match played a year ago at UNC’s football stadium, we were amazed at how snugly the six-figure turf fit onto the floor of the Old Lady in the Pines. And it will be just as lush for tonight’s higher-stakes friendly between Manchester City and Celtic.
It opened on November 12, 1927, against Davidson with a 27-0 victory and was dedicated two weeks later with a 14-13 win over Virginia. That foreshadowed when UNC unveiled the Smith Center almost 60 years later after it wasn’t ready for its opening game against UCLA, which was played in Carmichael before the Dean Dome debuted and was dedicated to its Hall of Fame coach with a thrilling win over Duke in January 1986.
But while Kenan has undergone five expansions over the years, it was actually down-sized from 60,000-plus to 50,500 capacity when seats taking up more room replaced the aluminum benches. Unwittingly, it created a supply-and-demand that makes tickets harder to get today.
But it wasn’t only college football and professional soccer. Kenan has hosted UNC lacrosse games and Tar Heel soccer matches. It staged a celebration of the 1982 NCAA basketball championship team and was scheduled for the same in 1993 before rain moved it into the Dome where the Tar Heels had played their seventh season.
Two U.S. Presidents gave commemorative speeches at Kenan, John F. Kennedy in 1961 to receive an honorary degree with more than 10,000 in attendance; and Bill Clinton in 1993 before 50,000 to help UNC celebrate its bicentennial and urge passing of the Brady Bill on gun control and health care reform, two problems we have yet to solve in this country.
Besides annual graduation ceremonies, Fourth of July fireworks went off after a concert there for years, hosted by retired WCHL morning man Ron Stutts and occasionally with local bandleader Kenny Mann and Liquid Pleasure performing.
The beloved spring weekend called Jubilee featured its main entertainment at Kenan, with my personal favorite 22-year-old local legend James Taylor singing and strumming from a stool in the middle of the field, surrounded by mesmerized students. In other live concerts, Jimmy Buffett came in 1979, the Beach Boys in 1980, Joan Jett in 1982, U2 in ’83 and for the last outdoor show Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen sold out the joint in 2003 with his album The Rising to honor those who perished in the 9/11 attacks.
UNC supported the coming of the NFL Panthers to the state by hosting an exhibition between the Atlanta Falcons and Washington Redskins in 1990, won by the Falcons in a great game, 31-27.
So enjoy the atmosphere tonight in our beautiful treasure in the trees.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072324%20-%20FINAL.mp3
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Treasure in the Trees appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Will athletes and entertainers get off the political sideline?
With President Biden dropping out of the race, some of the most famous and prominent celebrities may have a new reason to get back involved in local and national politics.
When COVID was raging through the country, a number of famous people took sides, reacting to the pandemic. Vaxxing or not vaxxing, masks or no masks, pro or con on businesses, churches and schools closing or not.
Since the country has returned to a state of normalcy, it seems like those high-profile peeps have returned to their insulated lives of leisure and wealth. It’s almost as if politics has gotten so toxic that most of them think it’s safer to not get involved.
With Biden’s stunning, but not surprising, withdrawal from the 2024 election, more athletes and entertainers may speak out for the following reasons:
So much about the Trump presidency and his bid to return to the White House has been about money and power and the issue of truth that it could be harmful to their own popularity to get involved.
Now, with so much focus on “two old white men” running being altered, the next three months may see a decidedly different reaction. At least I hope so.
Maybe women of all ages and colors will get even more engaged in the abortion debate because Kamala Harris is a strong proponent for the right to choose. There are certainly lady celebs of all ages who will step up.
Harris is likely the first woman of color to run for president, and minorities may also look at this race differently to make their opinions known about the importance of voting. Imagine how Caitlin Clark, the Williams sisters, Beyonce and Taylor Swift could influence voters.
And even the plethora of foreigners on the courts and fields, the stages and screens of America can weigh in on how this country embraces those not born here, which people can factor into their feelings on immigration.
And because gender and race are now going to be made even more public, the rich and famous could wind up more visible by remaining invisible. The citizenry can be swayed by hearing their opinions.
If it is accurate that aspects of democracy will now be on the ballot even more, athletes and entertainers may feel compelled to stand up for what they think is right, even if it won’t affect their lives at all.
I would love to hear what LeBron and his fellow NBA stars think we should do. The Swifties, it has been said, could hold the key to 20 million votes, one way or the other.
With the campaign getting a fresh breath of life, it’s time for more involvement from on high.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20072224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Matt Brown on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Life appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Unfortunately, UNC athletics is not playing with a full deck.
As a follow-up to Thursday’s column and the feedback from it, reality is biting Carolina and its long-heralded athletic prowess.
Remember when the Tar Heels made the initial commitment to a broad-based department that gives as many students as possible a chance to play a varsity sport? The price tag for 20-plus teams was far more manageable than it is today. Budget costs have risen from the multi-millions and much higher, factoring in a new basketball arena.
UNC’s fund-raising chops are envied by many major universities, with development surpassing almost every goal it has set over the last 20 years. Athletics is now rolled into that, and it is a very small piece of the pie. And the donors know it and feel it.
Carolina has many big-dollar donors, no question about that. But Mack Brown knows we don’t compare to Texas, where he won a national championship and left 10 years later amidst split alumni. Here, everyone is fishing in the same relatively small pond.
The Rams Club is also among the best in the country raising money through annual dues and gifts of all sizes. But most if that jack is for scholarships and capital improvements that have been on the planning board for years. The advent of NIL is putting a squeeze on those same givers, who are also being sent surveys about what they can afford to support for a new Dean Dome.
Alumni and fans who generously helped build the Smith Center in the 1980s got what turned out to be the gift of a lifetime (or two or three). Those private-seat licenses were good for the purchasing family and at least one generation of their offspring, erasing the urgency of giving more to get more. That has left many younger alums feeling entitled and tougher to cultivate than they should be.
If an arena is built or renovated, the price tag will be at least 10 times the $36 million Dean Smith helped raise. He wanted fans to have the best seats at courtside while denying those to students. The risers put in 20 years ago hold about 400 kids.
Historically, UNC can’t cover costs of new programs like NIL the way the Alabamas, Oho States and, yes, private school Duke can. They have less competition in their home states and/or alumni in the various wealth sectors. So Carolina is left with cutting sports and selling their advertising souls, neither of which it wants to do.
Meanwhile, the fund-raising for colleges all across North Carolina will get only stronger, compared to states with far fewer D-1 schools. UNC’s search goes on, but the findings are less than obvious in this new era of college ball. Comment below.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20071924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Tough Hand appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Is Old Well Management the collective that Carolina needs?
It is not unusual for conference powers to be fiddling with their NIL programs, since the enterprise of paying college athletes is still in its embryo stages. There are lots of ways schools are constantly maneuvering to get the best athletes.
Ohio State alumni were furious that Michigan – that school up north – won the national football championship, but that fury soon morphed into excitement of the almost immediate uptick in donations to The Foundation, Cohesion Foundation and the 1870 Society, the athletic collectives supporting Buckeye sports.
UNC was slow at the NIL switch, beginning with a couple of former football players making phone calls to Rams Club members and alumni trying to get more blood from the same stones Carolina has been mining for years. It didn’t work even after the football collective went formal with the name Heels4Life and later a campaign called Hold The Line.
Basketball followed with the Secondary Break Club, named for one of Dean Smith’s scoring innovations. That hasn’t come close to raising the money that Duke, Kentucky and more recently Arkansas have been piling up pursuing 5-star prospects. The result is a lot of social media buzz for all the great players putting Hubert Davis and the Heels high on their lists.
But the fact that Carolina is losing more transfers than it is signing up and not bringing in a busload of freshmen one-and-dones means it is still behind in giving out legalized recruiting money. And most of the Olympic sports coaches are beating the NIL bushes these days.
So consolidating is the latest move for a university that offers more than most schools except for NIL money. UNC’s program is solid in teaching athletes how to market themselves and get involved with some businesses, but there is no machine behind it all like Duke uses Creative Artist Agency (CAA) in New York as a partner.
Old Well Management, the new combined Carolina collective, sounds like its goal is serious money raising, organizationally at least. It has the ring of Franklin Street Partners, the long-time firm that has helped many athletes invest the money they make from playing professionally or business ventures.
The Tar Heel brand is still strong enough for the best athletes to visit and consider Chapel Hill, but most of them are looking for more NIL money than UNC can offer at this point. Two 5-star big men transfers visited but took seven figures to go to Kansas State, the Little Apple that could win its first national basketball championship this coming season.
With either of them, Davis’ fifth team has enough talent at the other four positions to get back to the Final Four and win it all. But they will open the season as a long shot because money talks and without it players walk to somewhere they wouldn’t even consider before NIL became the name of the game.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20071824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Money Still Talks appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The life of Carolina football during the death of College Football 2014.
Full disclosure, I’ve never owned a home video game and never played a game of any sort since Pac-Man. But the anticipation for this week’s release of EA Sports’ College Football 25 has taken the summer scene by storm, especially for the younger set and the slightly older set who played the last EA college football game from 2014.
The chief marketing officer for EA Sports is David Tinson, a 1996 UNC graduate and one-time media relations assistant making peanuts at Carolina and Texas who took a leap with his young family for a job with EA in 2002. The CMO at EA since 2020, Tinson’s peanuts have steadily grown into millions along with his success there.
Just before he took that last leap, Tinson hinted that EA was about to get back into the college sports gaming business and was exploring all avenues of the then-newly invented NIL, which allowed paying college athletes for the name-image-likeness they can now opt into with the various gaming companies. EA is a world leader in the field.
At the UNC press conference introducing the football transfers this week, the questions morphed from the mundaneness of summer workouts into how excited the players are about College Football 25 that will break sales records at EA and the global industry.
The way they talked about the details and nuances of playing the game was both fascinating and telling as to why most of the digital social life in this country has become gaming. So since EA got out of the college business stemming from lawsuits by former athletes like UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, what has happened to the real game at Tinson’s alma mater?
The football Tar Heels were between the Mack Brown eras in Chapel Hill and Austin (where he helped Tinson land a job there). Larry Fedora was signed to a seven-year contract because he wanted (and needed) time to rebuild from the dumpster fire that ended the Butch Davis days. Fedora’s inaugural 2012 team went 8-4 and would have made UNC’s first trip to the ACC Championship Game if not for an NCAA probation.
After going .500 the next two seasons, Fedora’s program did win the ACC Coastal and lost a close, controversial game to Clemson in Charlotte. Three years later, after two terrible losing seasons, Fedora was fired and Brown came out of retirement for his second UNC stint. His teams have been to five bowl games since but lost the last four.
At the press conference, the media asked each of the five summer incoming transfers about College Football 25, and they all seemed more excited about getting back to their dorm rooms and apartments after the drudgery of training camp and fire it up, that is if the Tar Heels can get a truck load of those games delivered.
If David Tinson has anything to do with it, they are in route.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20071724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC-Chapel Hill
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Game is On appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has added a familiar, fourth big arm to its quarterback room.
If it wasn’t for red-shirted Tad Hudson entering the transfer portal, Jacolby Criswell might not have made the unusual decision of coming back to the school where he began his college football career and played for two seasons.
After one season at Arkansas, where things didn’t go so well, Criswell found out that Mack Brown and offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey were looking for a fourth quarterback whom they knew could play at this level. Criswell, who has two years of eligibility left, doesn’t think there is a list. Everyone starts anew now that he’s home.
“It’s a rush,” he said Monday when reintroduced to the media. “It’s a great feeling coming back to something you’re used to. That was the main reason. It was like I was relieved. I didn’t want to have to restart my whole life knowing I have two years left because it’s so hard to get back on track.”
Criswell almost asked his strong right arm to say a few words, too, tapping the muscular forearm that supposedly threw the ball farther than Sam Howell in 2021. Asked about that, he said, “100 percent true” with a big smile on his face.
Junior Conner Harrell and junior transfer Max Johnson (who preceded Criswell at Arkansas) are in a battle for the starting position on August 29 at Minnesota. They have both had spring practice and the spring game while Criswell was finishing up the semester in Fayetteville.
Harrell had one start last season, when Drake Maye sat out the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, and had 224 yards of total offense, one TD pass and two picks against West Virginia. In 2021, Criswell played for the banged-up Howell against Wofford and completed 11 of 19 and ran for a touchdown. And there’s lefty Johnson, who was neck-and-neck with Harrell after the last spring game. He transferred from Texas A&M after leaving LSU.
So from an experience standpoint, the Tar Heels are loaded with three veteran QBs. The fourth scholarship quarterback is Israeli-born, Florida-bred Mike Merdinger, who starred at Cardinal Gibbons in Raleigh last year but hasn’t played a snap of college football and will at least open as fourth on the depth chart.
“Obviously, this is a new team, but I’m familiar with a lot of the guys, familiar with the coaches,” Criswell said. “And so it’s just like, okay, they’re familiar with me. All I have to do is adjust and play the way I play. You don’t play this sport to sit on the bench. I’ve been back and forth with great quarterbacks and I know my right arm is one of the best in the country.
“This is the money maker,” he said, tapping it again. “And I’m not gonna let it go to waste. I’ve got two years left, so at this point it’s do or die.”
Let the competition begin!
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 3 Veterans appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Vance Honeycutt got exactly what he needed, but Wake Forest stole the draft.
The Carolina superstar went No. 22 to the Baltimore Orioles, a first-round selection that could not be better for the Diamond Heel. He goes to a team that for years was the doormat of the American League East and is now a regular contender for the division.
If Honeycutt dropped toward the end of the first round because his strikeout and swing and miss rates are not what the big leagues want, the Orioles have proventhey can develop players and give guys with the potential a chance to make the show. And if Vance needs to swing at better pitches and whiff less, the O’s will give him the time.
The rest of the draft’s first day is a melting pot of players from power programs, a few from smaller colleges and a surprising number of bonus babies out of high school. But what is most glaring is that Wake Forest had three of the first 10 chosen.
Wake’s right-handed ace Chase Burns went second overall to the Cincinnati Reds. The Deacs’ pitching pipeline got a big transfer when he left Tennessee, which went on to win the College World Series without him. Burns became the fifth Wake Forest pitcher to go in the first round since 2018 as the highest draft in program history.
The No. 4 selection was Wake first baseman Nick Kurtz, a three-year star who hit .306 with 22 home runs last season while also drawing the most walks of any player in Division 1. At 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, he has already been compared to Anthony Rizzo for his power and eye at the plate and his defense at first. He has a chance to play for the lowly Oakland A’s pretty quickly.
Wake hit the first-round trifecta with the 10th pick, shortstop Seaver King, who like several Tar Heel transfers came from Division II where he starred for Wingate and hit .411 with a 47-game hitting streak before moving to Winston-Salem. In the ACC, he still batted .308 with a career-best 16 homers. He plays a slick short with the speed and arm strength to play all over the infield for the Washington Nationals someday.
Honeycutt, the great football-baseball star from Salisbury, is way too nice of a kid to be called the most polarizing player in the entire draft. He leaves UNC as a highly decorated Diamond Heel, his home run hitting maybe superseded by his potential as a Golden Glove center fielder in Baltimore, an easy drive for his family.
The Orioles system is so deep that the team can take a chance on the boom-or-bust hitter, who some scouts are likening to George Springer for his all-around skill.
Honeycutt will be helped by low expectations of a later first-rounder, which gives him time to prove any naysayers wrong in the long run.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20071524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/LM Otero
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Deacons’ Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Will Vance Honeycutt strike gold or just silver in the MLB Draft?
The all-everything star of the Diamond Heels has most things going for himself as a future major leaguer. He is a great athlete and all-around baseball player, the ACC’s Defensive Player of the Year his last two seasons, hits for average, is a home-run slugger and steals bases. He has most of it all.
Honeycutt’s one problem he strikes out too much. So did Babe Ruth, but the Bambino played long before analytics showed up in the game. There is something called a “chase rate” for swinging at bad pitches or just swinging and missing. He struck out 83 times in 62 games last season, a rate of 27.5 percent when 20 percent is the baseline for most pro scouts and teams.
Honeycutt broke UNC’s season record for home runs (28) and leaves Chapel Hill as the school’s all-time home run king (65). He hit .318, drove in 70 runs and had 28 stolen bases. But he fanned more as a junior than he did as a freshman, the sole reason Vance has been all over the mock draft boards from mid to late first-round with ESPN’s latest as an early second-round pick.
Now, that isn’t a big deal when it comes to signing rookie contracts in the big leagues. But no one wants to try to make the show with a bad rep hanging over his head. As a collegian, Honeycutt is reminiscent of UNC star Dustin Ackley, the second overall pick in the 2009 MLB Draft by Seattle who signed for $7.5 million and retired after seven full seasons with a .241 batting average.
Ackley has his name on the façade of Boshamer Stadium and will be joined there by Honeycutt someday. They have similar pedigrees with parents who were college athletes and coaches who swore by them. UNC fans refer to Vance as Honeyclutch, Moneycutt and other cool nicknames.
The walk-off meister was responsible for 38 percent of the runs the Diamond Heels scored in their NCAA Tournament run that ended at the College World Series. He hit a ninth-inning single to beat Virginia in the Omaha opener after his walk-off homer and other big plays helped Carolina win the NCAA regional rounds.
So we’ll see where he goes in the draft, which starts Sunday. One scout had this measured response to a question about Honeycutt: “The strike zone is the thing a lot of teams are becoming obsessed with. So what a lot of them think is most important is what he’s worst at. But he’s elite at almost everything else.”
An elite 21-year-old getting ready to take the biggest step in his young life.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/12/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_071224.mp3Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Most Of It All appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown needs to adjust his scheduling rap for his team and the ACC.
Mr. Optimism always talks about the challenges his football Tar Heels have to overcome before the season and midway through it. For example, last year, he called the first four games tougher than any he has had as a head coach. When his team lost twice after a 6-0 start, he returned to saying the ACC unfairly scheduled road games at Clemson and N.C.
State to end the season, which wound up 8-5 after another bowl loss.
Based on the early strength-of-schedule polls, Brown can’t play that hand this fall. The 2024 Tar Heels’ slate has been rated No. 15 in the now-17 team football conference, with only Cal and Syracuse facing easier schedules. Eight ACC teams have SOS’s between 35-and 55, which on paper looks harder for No. 66 Carolina. These Heels play Syracuse (61) and Pitt (70).
Carolina opens on Thursday night, August 29, on ESPN at Minnesota, which is picked to finish next-to-next-to-last in the Big Ten. Considering what follows, it could be a must-win opener.
The next three games are at home where it will be interesting to see how many fans show up for all of them against UNC-Charlotte, N.C. Central and James Madison, which could be UNC’s first close game. So, going 4-0 is almost a must-win first chapter. With all eight ACC games ahead. That could be good or bad.
Then comes a return at Duke as Brown gets to share the field again with Manny Diaz, new head coach of the Blue Devils, former HC at Miami and young defensive coordinator at Texas before Brown fired him. Then it’s back to Kenan against Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech (which has the No. 2 SOS in the nation) and a visit to Virginia. With the holes they have to fill, 8-0 still seems attainable.
Carolina will be a decided underdog on November 2 at Florida State, which may be a lame-duck member of the ACC by then. The Top 10 Seminoles replace Clemson as the old Atlantic Division tough-guy opponent. If 8-1 or 7-2 at that point, the Heels would likely be favored at home against Wake Forest and N.C. State around a trip to BC. The 10-win plateau that Brown has talked about but hasn’t reached in his return to Chapel Hill suddenly looks doable if the new QBs are any good.
Brown likes to say “we are this close” as he holds index finger against thumb, supposedly the total margin of victory that has slipped away. But his latest UNC teams have also been “this close” to losing some of the last-minute games they’ve played. Maybe he’ll use coach-speak and say, “We’re going to take them one at a time.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/11/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_071124.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘This Close’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Once Upon a time, the Olympic Dream Team might have helped college recruiting.
With the Summer Olympics about to open in Paris, let’s look back 32 years ago when the U.S. Olympic Committee dropped the facade of amateurism.
The so-called Dream Team was born with Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley and other NBA stars, plus one college player – All-American Christian Laettner from Duke.
An interesting juxtaposition since in 1992 Mike Krzyzewski served as an assistant coach to Chuck Daly in Barcelona and 16 years later began his three-peat as the head USA coach in Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro.
Coach K won three straight gold medals after Larry Brown’s 2004 team bombed out in Athens when 9 of his 12 players who had qualified with an undefeated record in Puerto Rico the summer before left the team for various reasons.
Oklahoma State’s Hank Iba coached the U.S. team three straight Olympics, losing in 1972 on crooked officiating on the last possession. Those Games in Munich was also where 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped, two killed.
Dean Smith coached the Gold Medal team in 1976 in Montreal, Dave Gavitt was appointed for the 1980 Games in Moscow, where our athletes stayed home in protest of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Bob Knight’s team won the 1984 Gold Medal in LA, John Thompson’s team win it all at Seoul in 1988 before Daly and Lennie Wilkens won Golds in ’92 and 1996.
In those days, alumni could not help coaches recruit by contacting them or giving them money or gifts. But the Dream Teamers, as long as they weren’t Dukies, could help Coach K recruit by calling prospects.
In Paris, Steve Kerr is the head coach with a team highlighted by his own Warriors star Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum of the World Champion Celtics and LeBron James in his fourth Olympics. Curry can’t help Davidson recruit, same for Tatum and Duke, which doesn’t need more recruits, and James can call whomever he wants and tell them to go anywhere they want.
Personal Footnote: Before Beijing, which was the first time the Summer Olympics was held in China, a young friend who was fluent in Mandarin Chinese wanted to see if he could help the U.S. team get acclimated when it arrived. I left a message with Coach K, asking if he would meet my friend. He never returned my call.
A few months later, I asked one of his associates, who laughed. He said, “We all thought the kid would teach everyone to say “Duke Sucks” in Chinese.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20071024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via The Sporting News
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Olympic Dreamers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Three Tar Heel national championship starters played one NBA season.
An ongoing debate is if college basketball stars who cannot have a big career playing professionally at home should go overseas, make good money and see the world.
Take Jawad Williams, Deon Thompson and Marcus Ginyard.
All three played on NCAA champions under Roy Williams but were not drafted and had careers playing pro in Europe and Asia and experiencing more than they ever could riding the bench for an NBA team.
The poster child for that is Jawad Williams. He was recruited by Matt Doherty and as a freshman was on the infamous 8-20 team of 2001-2002. Jawad is in the news for being back in the country, signing with the Sacramento Kings as an assistant coach.
Williams hung in there after Ol’ Roy returned to UNC and started 105 games over four seasons, ending his college career on the 2005 ACC regular season and national champion. He and fellow All-ACC defensive teammate Jackie Manuel went from one of the worst teams in the ACC to the best in the country.
A native of Cleveland and prep All-American, Jawad played part of the 2010 season for the NBA Cavaliers. He played 17 years overseas in Türkiye, France, Greece, Israel, Japan and Spain. Sorry, Jawad, I might have missed one! His wife and their children had a spectacular life over two decades.
Teammates Thompson and Ginyard started more than 200 games for the Tar Heels. Both graduated after the 2010 season and own championship rings from the 2009 team led by Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson and Danny Green. The 6-8 Californian is still playing in South Korea and had the destination wedding of all time for his family, former teammates and friends.
Ginyard was Mr. Basketball in Virginia. He came close to attending Duke but signed with UNC and started games every season before he was forced to take a red-shirt year in 2009 after being injured early in the campaign. Ginyard loved playing for more than a dozen pro teams all over the world, learning the languages and submitting travelogue columns from abroad.
Every Christmas, his mother Annise met Marcus in the country where he was playing and they had an unforgettable holiday. Ginyard finally retired from basketball, has worked for the Rams Club and is currently in commercial real estate in Raleigh.
We hear so much about the Tar Heels who had the talent and the good breaks to make it in the NBA and have had wealthy and wonderful careers in this country. But Jawad, Deon and Marcus did it their way and do not regret it. They always came back to Chapel Hill during parts of their off seasons to join the family that got them started in seeing the world.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20070924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Deon Thompson on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Seeing the World appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
College athletics is looking more like a three-ring circus these days.
Let’s see: the ACC started it all by trying to break the grant of rights that former commissioner John Swofford had all the remaining schools sign after nearly-bankrupt Maryland bolted like the Colts left Baltimore in the middle of the night.
Maryland’s Board of Trustees secretly approved the defection in a near-unanimous vote, with only former basketball star and Congressman Tom McMillen turning a thumbs-down in favor of cost-cutting suggestions.
Has anybody really missed the Terrapins, who seem assimilated to the Big Ten these days with new rivalries formed amongst member schools that at least have equaled playing Virginia, Duke and North Carolina in the good old ACC days?
Maryland is no longer hurting for money, which has led Clemson and Florida State to threaten leaving by filing lawsuits against the ACC they just might win in court rulings later this week. But where will the Tigers and Noles go?
What looked like a sure thing for Clemson and FSU is doubtful because the SEC doesn’t want schools with great football programs but small TV markets in states where it already has a large presence with the Universities of Florida and South Carolina.
Why share nearly a billion dollars of TV revenues with new entries that will be strong competitors to win the SEC but bring little else to the table? The league would rather have Duke and UNC, big brands in states where the SEC has no eyeballs — and would love to take over the great Blue Blood basketball rivalry.
Now, the onus is on the Big Ten, which supposedly only wants schools that belong to the snooty American Association of Universities (AAU) and has presidents who don’t want to share their enormous revenues with two academic misfits.
So the ACC will have decisions to make depending on Clemson and Florida State, who have unofficially been invited to join the rebuilding Big 12, whose TV revenues may be smaller than the ACC when new ESPN contracts are signed next year.
Then, of course, there are hedge funds and big corporations running numbers on what private equity might mean to the stability of the ACC moving forward as long as the Big Four schools and the two from Virginia are still in, attracting investors.
That influx of cash, which was never mentioned in the realignment of college athletics, could keep the ACC whole in terms of revenue distribution padded by outside money. What if Nike wants to own the ACC, put all members in their shoes and apparel and pay only the star athletes directly in NIL money?
Such an investment could create parity when it never looked possible before on playing fields and on the balance sheets of each school. The third ring of the circus.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20070824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl B. DeBlaker
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Options Galore appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Don’t you wish all these bitter QBs would get off Drake Maye?
Have you ever heard of Shaun King, the 47-year-old former NFL QB who had a cup of coffee with four teams over seven seasons? King played at powerhouse Tulane after Mack Brown coached there. Brown ought to tell the former Green Waver to get out of the blogging pool before he chokes on his own BS.
The caustic King is the latest of some who are still ripping Maye, the Tar Heel star who was only the No. 3 pick in the draft by the Patriots. King is by far not the first to diss Maye, but he truly shows his ignorance by saying Drake isn’t even a first-round draft pick.
Whaaaaat???
So King knows more than the 31 other NFL teams that, he says, should have passed on Maye and dropped him to the second round like some gridiron Kyle Filipowski. The 32 teams in the NFL have massive coaching, statistical and scouting staffs, using everything from veteran eyeballs to today’s analytics to evaluate talent. This is big-time Moneyball.
One such bungling blogger dismissed Brown for predicting future Super Bowls for Maye because he is a college coach with ZERO championships. This guy must not be of legal drinking age since he clearly doesn’t remember Brown’s undefeated 2005 Texas team winning the Natty by beating USC in the BCS championship game.
Who are these guys, anyway, who have infiltrated themselves into every debate from politics to poppycock? And all the news feeds think they need to post everything!
Shaun King has taken up sports commentary since last holding a college coaching role in 2019, where he was the running backs coach for USF. (Photo via the University of South Florida Athletics Department.)
Maye brought on opinions before the draft and they haven’t stopped coming despite getting mostly good grades from media watching summer practice outside of Boston. Sure, Maye probably won’t start the Pats first game and maybe none at all as a 21-year-old because Jacoby Brissett will beat him out.
Just like Alex Smith started for the Chiefs while Patrick Mahomes languished on the bench because he wasn’t quite ready yet. And Mahomes has only turned onto the best QB in the league, if not history, when he was ready.
Bloggers and long-time back-up quarterbacks say Maye didn’t have a great 2023 season after being ACC Player/Rookie of the Year in 2022. Sure that had nothing to do with a weakened supporting cast and bad coaching. Even Brown said he knew his Tar Heels would “get killed” at NC State and in the Duke Mayo Bowl against West Virginia.
Here’s an idea: Why doesn’t the blogger sphere, which is more infantile than informed, wait to see what Maye does when gets into a game. In this age of people trying to be influencers and turning out to be ignoramuses, the summers are filled with slow news days.
I should know. I wasted this column on a subject that doesn’t deserve it.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20070524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured photo via AP Photo/Jeff Roberson.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Another Maye-Day? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Dean Dome has been on the chopping block for more than 10 years.
So, are you among those who think the 38-year-old Smith Center is on life support? Well, it has been all the way back to before its namesake Dean Smith passed away in 2015. Talks were going on about renovating or rebuilding before then.
The 360 Architecture firm out of Kansas City actually provided UNC’s new athletic director Bubba Cunningham with some concepts back in 2013, charging UNC between $75-100,000. A year or two later, Bubba said “We’re good for now.”
That’s when major renovations inside the arena began, and it is a great building to watch basketball when you are not in a traffic jam or being crushed in the concourse. The latest study by another Kansas City firm Populous will cost $217,000 this time.
Hmmm, wonder what the Boards of Governors and Trustees think about that.
For some very good reasons, building a new basketball arena seems to be the favorite choice, such as:
– If built on a bigger plot of land, there will be more convenient parking.
– It can also have what the Dean Dome doesn’t, like a full underground level where TV trucks can get in and out and where there would be much more room for locker rooms, practice gyms, meeting and training rooms.
– And most importantly, those seat licenses for two generations of families who bought them could be torn up or renegotiated to open up massive revenue streams that do not exist in the Smith Center these days.
– There could also be concerts, which the Dean Dome had in its early years before Raleigh, Greensboro and Charlotte got the best acts for even more moolah.
But where to build it?
There is no empty land on or adjacent to campus, like Virginia had when it built the JPJ in 2006, almost 20 years ago. E-gads!
We’ve heard ‘tear down the Friday Center and put it there,’ which might have enough room for an arena and parking lots and decks. But how would students get there?
How about building it in the Bowles parking lot next to the Dean Dome, which would then be taken down to put parking up there. But where does the team play or the people park while all that is going on? And don’t say play the games in Carmichael for the 3-5 years it would take to build the new Smith-Williams Center. Lose millions in ticket revenues, that’s why.
The Smith Center was like the eighth wonder when it opened in 1986. It was built with $36 million in private funding; think UNC could raise 15 or 20 times that amount now? But what about scholarship costs, recruiting budgets and good ol’ NIL?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20070324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured photo via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Where To Build It? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Two issues about the Smith Center that don’t include the arena.
Last month, the Rams Club sent out a wide-sweeping and somewhat confusing survey about the future of UNC’s basketball palace. It deals with various options to renovate or replace what we have all come to know as the Dean Dome, which was built for $36 million of private donations in the early 1980s. Estimates for a new arena approach $1 billion.
Recipients were asked what they would pay for upgraded seats, some of which would be tied to new corporate boxes and other hospitality areas.
The arena with Roy Williams Court has been improved with more comfortable seats, a better sound system and four spectacular digital boards three times the size of the old ones.
Once comfortably seated, fans can have as good of a basketball-watching experience as any arena of its size in the country.
However, there are problems of entrance and egress that cannot be solved without a new facility, and this does not include permanent parking problems an sports arena in that location can never overcome.
For example, why would a basketball arena with @20,000 seats ever be designed with only one concourse? Large arenas like PNC Center at N.C. State and John Paul Jones at UVA have two concourse levels, which alleviate the pushing and shoving to rest rooms, concessions stands and aisles to your seats.
That is only on the way in.
When the Tar Heels are in a blowout, win or lose, some fans leave early and it helps with the flow from the building. But when the game goes down to the last minutes, as most do, leaving the Smith Center (especially at night) is dangerous and hazardous to navigate the narrow, poorly lit concrete sidewalks and stairs down to Skipper Bowles Drive to catch buses or walk to various parking lots.
A multi-million-dollar renovation could never solve those two major problems of an arena that was edged into a ravine at the bottom of a steep hill. It is surprising that no one has gotten seriously injured leaving the building, resulting in a major lawsuit against UNC. At the very least, more outdoor lighting is needed.
To athletic administrators, coaches, players and other VIPs who park behind the Smith Center, this is no problem. They easily get in and out at whatever time.
So, what are we willing to pay for options laid out in the survey? Most people I have asked found it too long and cumbersome to read and understand or found it centered, like everything else these days, around how much money would it cost on both ends of such a project.
In that regard it was ill-timed, and the phrase “donor fatigue” pops up like it has with many supportive alumni who are also being asked to give (more) NIL money.
Next, we’ll discuss where a new arena might be built and how much money that would cost!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20070224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Survey appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It’s going to be like old home week for the Utah Jazz.
Thanks to some local names, the Utah Jazz will have familiar competition in preseason practice trying to find a second postman to play with Lauri Markkanen, the team’s Finnish 7-footer who averaged better than 23 points and 8 rebounds in his seventh season as a pro.
Walker Kessler, who spent one year at Carolina and one at Auburn, averaged more than 8 points, 7 rebounds and 2 blocks per game for the Jazz last season. He has bulked up to 250 pounds on the skinny frame he brought to UNC, where he played behind Garrison Brooks, Armando Bacot and Day’Ron Sharp. Kessler shot 65 percent from the floor but still cannot hit the outside shot that led to his undoing in Chapel Hill.
So Kessler and Bacot will be back together at least through training camp, where the big news was the second-round pick of Kyle Filipowski from Duke (like Harrison Ingram with the Spurs). Kessler was on a team that beat the Blue Devils twice during the crowd-restricted COVID season. Filipowski went 2-2 against the Heels in his two years in Durham, and Bacot had two of his greatest games in victories over Duke in his All-American junior year.
Filipowski has the best chance to make the roster despite his poor outside shooting season in 2024. He has the stroke from 3-point land but made barely 30 percent as a sophomore. Lack of shooting range has been the biggest criticism of Bacot during his career when he became Carolina’s new all-time leading rebounder.
Utah’s top rebounder is also familiar to Tar Heel fans. Six-nine power forward John Collins played at Wake Forest and was a first-round draft pick in 2017 by Atlanta, where he put in six seasons with the Hawks. In his pro career, Collins has averaged nearly 6 rebounds per game and has never shot under 50 percent from the floor. His 3-point range is not bad, hitting 37 percent for the Jazz last season.
So it will be interesting to eavesdrop on those Big Four alums in the northwest. Can Bacot maintain a nose for the ball as an NBA pivot man, where he will face bigger and stronger opponents? And unless Mondo is developing a 15-footer during the off-season his chances on paper are not great. But his heart and spirit are enormous, as we know.
Shooting guard Cormac Ryan joined Bacot with what they call an exhibit 10 contract, Ryan’s with Oklahoma City, the top seed in the Western Conference in 2024. Ryan made 287 3-pointers in his five seasons as a college player.
Exhibit 10 contracts are for undrafted players who sign a one-year deal with an NBA franchise to go to training camp and try to earn at least a two-way contract to move back and forth between the big team and its G-League affiliate during the regular season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/07%20-%20July/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%200701%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Exhibitors appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Did LeBron and Bronny James upstage the great debate?
Less than three hours before two former U.S. presidents debated for the first time ever, a father and son teamed up to play together in the NBA for what will surely be the only time.
How did this happen on the very same day, and how will it be remembered?
LeBron James, who will be 40 in December, used his influence as one of the greatest players ever, to get his current team, the Lakers, to pick his 21-year-old son in the second round of the annual NBA Draft.
Combined, father and son are 20 years younger than the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who is only three years older than former prez Donald Trump.
Whenever they take the court together, the James duo will put up more points than either candidate hoped to score on the stage in Atlanta, a long-divided city where the NBA is represented by one of the 30 teams in the league.
Crazy, isn’t it! This day happened in the great parallel universes we find ourselves living in these days. Two men that have engendered so much bad behavior in this country and a game that millions attend and watch, cheering for the same team after leaving their political persuasions at the door.
Who has a brighter future, the father-son combo of the mega-wealthy NBA or the dear old USA? I certainly hope it is the latter, because basketball is only a game that will be played as long as this country doesn’t implode over strategies that few people agree on.
Think about it. A ticket of LeBron and Bronny might get more votes than either of these old dudes will land on November 5.
Athletes have forever been more popular than politicians, but this election and season takes that to an all-new level. The prejudice and hatred that divide us now dwarf a game between different races and nationalities, all working for a common goal.
How can that be, when most people pay more attention to the teams they follow than any political party they support. Yet building teamwork for our own good seems far more impossible than it does on the courts and fields of this country.
But whatever happens to how much and how well the great James experiment works, it is nowhere near as important as what is left of America by the time someone else is running for president.
Enjoy the results of one and let’s all try to tolerate the results of the other.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USC Athletics/John McGillen
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Day Like No Other appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What happened to Kyle Filipowski in the NBA Draft?
Celtics fans anxiously watched the entire draft to see who they would take with the 30th and last pick of round one. Many thought they were going for Duke’s 7-footer for various reasons, but if so they “flipped” on Flip.
It was another year where the Tar Heels whiffed in the first round and are hoping Harrison Ingram and maybe Armando Bacot go tonight in round two. But a consolation prize was that Duke only had one first-rounder, outstanding guard Jared McCain.
The last pick may have come down to Filipowski or Baylor Scheierman for the newly crowned world champions. And based on how much better he did at the NBA combine compared to the controversial Duke big man, the Creighton star shooter got the nod.
Either player could fill an important role for the Celtics, who have 38-year-old Al Horford as their primary back-up to injured-prone Kristaps Porzingis. They also want to lengthen their bench, where behind Horford were Sam Hauser from Virginia and Payton Pritchard from Oregon, both long ball marksmen with deficiencies on defense.
Filipowski fell off from his first season at Duke, when he won ACC Freshman of the Year and was preseason pick for Player of the Year as a sophomore. But even with two surgically repaired hips, Flip did not challenge UNC’s R.J. Davis for the honor. His scoring and field goal percentage improved slightly but his free throw shooting and rebounding were down. He did make first-team All-ACC for the second season.
Scheierman was unanimous first team All-Big East along with Devin Carter, who was Player of the Year and the 13th pick in the NBA Draft. He averaged more points than Filipowski and more rebounds, and shot much better from 3-point range. He is not the back-up big man the Celtics are still seeking, but the 6-6 lefty will add much needed depth.
As a 23-year-old transfer from South Dakota State, Scheierman worked hard to become a great major college player and will be a prototypical Celtic in practtice and games to help their attempt to return to the NBA Finals. Filipowski would have been the third big man behind Porzingis and Horford, slowing his development as a pro.
Wherever Flip goes in the second round tonight, his first-night snub is a shocker to Duke and the ACC. He was not among the most popular players in the league and college basketball last season, involved in several in-game and post-game incidents that added to his snarky reputation.
The Celtics could have used him to provide help in the paint, but in what was a weak draft for college players Scheierman’s climb into the first round was a more pleasant surprise for their rabid fan base.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/27/Art%27s%20Notebook%20-%20062724.mp3Featured image via Duke Athletics
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Flip Flopped appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Harrison Ingram picked a good year to enter the NBA Draft.
When the 6-5 Ingram transferred to Carolina from Stanford, he had two years of eligibility remaining, and it was almost a sure bet he would use them both to finish up his college career with the Tar Heels.
After all, Ingram was not a big star for the Cardinal after winning Pac 12 Freshman of the Year honors. In the bigger, more physical ACC, he figured to be a “tweener” – a little small to play power forward and not quite a good enough shooter to be a threat from the perimeter. His heart didn’t factor in.
Ingram was at the core of the Heels’ resurgence into the NCAA Tournament, and Hubert Davis talked about him as much off the court and in the locker room as when he suited up to play all 37 games and post the best numbers of his college career – 12.2 points, 8.8 rebounds and 43 percent shooting, including 38.5 from outside.
When Ingram decided to enter the NBA Draft after the season, most of us thought he would get feedback from pro coaches and scouts that he needed another year in college. Then two things happened. He played better than expected against other NBA aspirants and the draft class turned out weak.
So Ingram stayed in the draft past the deadline for him to withdraw and return to Chapel Hill for his senior year. And after not appearing on many mock draft boards, he began showing up in the second round, closer to the top than the bottom. And it looks like he will get selected on Thursday night.
The latest boards have him around No. 45, which is about the middle of the second round, and hopefully he will be a great fit for whichever team picks him. The general managers and head coaches surely know by now that he will be a team player all the way, whether getting critical minutes or as a reserve.
The draft’s dearth of foreign players will also help Ingram. The 14 lottery picks include six foreigners, but another is not projected for the rest of the first round. That is a shortage from the regular European and foreign influence on the NBA that has mushroomed in recent years.
Ingram leaves a gaping hole at the power forward and small forward positions for the Tar Heels. Hopefully, Cade Tyson and Ven-Allen Lubin will bring from the portal what Ingram provided. We’ll miss him but wish him the very best.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tweener No More appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Willie Mays played longer and better than Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider.
I have friends who grew up in New York City, and as young kids they were in a constant battle over who was the best centerfielder in their town. Beware a spoiler.
In every statistical category and all other manners of speaking it was Mays, the Say Hey Kid who died last week at 93. He played for the New York Giants, but only five full seasons at the Polo Grounds because Mays missed a year and half in the Army and spent the last 14 in San Francisco after the Giants moved to the West Coast in 1958.
With no interleague play back then, Mays’ biggest rival was the Dodgers, who fled to LA in ’58; both teams remained in the National League and still have a rivalry on the West Coast but are now hours apart compared to the short subway ride between Brooklyn and Harlem.
Snider was the Bums’ star centerfielder who played 11 of his 18 seasons at Ebbets Field. He was a lefthanded slugger but not the athletes Mays or Mantle were. Beloved in Brooklyn, he was an eight-time all-star who won two World Series and led the league in home runs and RBIs for one season each.
Mantle played his entire career, 18 seasons, for the American League Yankees, but was in the argument over the favorite centerfielder in New York. He was a switch-hitting speedster who stole 153 bases and occasionally beat out a bunt when the infielders were playing back. The Yanks won seven World Series in Mantle’s day.
Statistically, they were all pretty close and worth the arguments and occasional fist fights that broke out between opposing fans.
Mays had the highest career batting average, just over .300 and slammed 660 home runs while winning the National MVP twice and finishing second in the voting two other times. He was the fastest of the Gotham trio with 339 career stolen bases and dozens of sensational plays in the outfield.
Mays broke into the big leagues in 1951 and went on to be one of the most spectacular players of all time. The New York Giants won five National League Pennants in 28 seasons but only one World Series, in 1954, when Mays made the reputed greatest catch ever with his back to the plate on a long ball hit by the Cleveland Indians’ Vic Wertz.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New York’s Finest appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Duke needs football more than it once did, even if it’s not for money.
Back in the 1990s, the Duke athletic director, the late Tom Butters, said the school didn’t need to make a profit from football. Butters had hired championship coaches Mike Krzyzewski and Gail Goestenkors and turned the Iron Dukes from a break-even organization to a multi-million-dollar cash cow. So if football bombed, big deal.
Duke now has an Ivy League-type endowment that funds everything from academics to athletics, and in that process of getting rich figured out how to field a winning football team. David Cutcliffe started it, Mike Elko continued it well enough to be hired by Texas A&M and now it is Manny Diaz’s turn.
The latest from the constantly speculative rumor mill is that the SEC is courting Carolina AND Duke to the league and NOT Clemson and Florida State which, as written in this space, already have TV presence in South Carolina and Florida. What the SEC hasn’t had for 12 years is an NCAA champion in men’s basketball.
If Duke is willing to take the big payoff from the SEC, it could make a profit from football whether the Blue Devils ever win a game. And in the last two seasons, Elko has had them competitive every week on the way to bowls.
If these reports are true at any stage of negotiations, the first big meeting taking place would be about bringing the Duke-Carolina home-and-home series in basketball to the SEC with a completely new and separate national television contract. Like Notre Dame has in football. That would help turn our state into SEC Country.
The SEC already has Vanderbilt, which is generally average in football and would be a good annual opponent for the Dukies, who have already upgraded in the sport and might hold their own on the gridiron against everyone except Alabama and Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma.
There is supposedly a day approaching where the courts will make some kind of judgment about Clemson and FSU leaving the ACC, even if the Tigers and Seminoles have nowhere to go unless the Big Ten changes its tune about taking them.
Wherever all this settles, I am about saving the ACC. But if realignment happens, the Duke-Carolina thing makes sense because no one wants to lose the best basketball rivalry in the country, the only one that still matters during the regular season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Duke Athletics
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: SEC Country? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
J.J. Redick was a better hire for the Hornets than the Lakers.
I opined a while ago that the Charlotte Hornets should hire the former Duke star, NBA veteran and recent broadcaster. Instead, Charlotte hired Charles Lee off the staff of the world champion Boston Celtics, which certainly isn’t a bad hire.
Lee is one of those coaches who wasn’t much of a player but concentrated on a coaching career after he was done lacing them up. Dean Smith and Bobby Knight in days of yore, and currently Joe Mazulla are proof of taking that path.
Redick would have come to Charlotte without coaching experience, but his proximity to the Queen City and the state plus tepid pressure to win would have helped him through a typical adjustment period for a new coach.
With the Lakers, it is a completely different story. He is the 29th head coach of the storied franchise but the seventh since Phil Jackson led the 17-time NBA champions to five titles. Since then, they have earned one NBA crown, and that was 2020 in the COVID bubble of Florida, which needs to come with a big asterisk.
Since Jackson left, the Lakers have had Mike Brown for one season, Bernie Bickerstaff as an interim head coach, Mike D’Antoni for three seasons, Byron Scott for two, Luke Walton for three years, Frank Vogel for three (including that COVID title) and Darvin Ham for this past season before being fired after the Lakers were bounced from the playoffs in five games by defending NBA champion Denver.
All that adds up to a short leash for Redick, who is looking to hire some up-and-coming assistants like Sam Cassell of the Celtics, former Lakers Rajon Rondo and Jared Dudley and maybe even an ex-head coach. That’s a lot of basketball brain power, but also could be some guys angling for the head job if Redick gets off to a bad start and the wealthy ownership grows impatient.
J.J.’s lack of coaching experience isn’t a killer, since he is a basketball lifer and knows the game from his 19 years as a college and pro player and as a podcaster and broadcaster since hanging up his sneaks.
The LA job may just be too big for him. How could it not be for a pro basketball team worth $7.34 billion, third most in the NBA behind the Warriors and the Knicks, but with a golden past and outlandish expectations?
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/21/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Phelan M. Ebenhack
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Wrong Place appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Congrats to the Diamond Heels, a very good but not great baseball team.
As the NIL era continues to evolve and mature at major colleges, you get the feeling the acronym doesn’t stand for Name-Image-Likeness as much as it means Not In (their) League for schools that can’t keep pace with the SEC and Big Ten.
Of all four ACC teams at the College World Series that did not make it past Wednesday, the remaining SEC entries look different and play a different brand of ball. Their athletes are more buffed and bearded and seem like what they are – paid to play.
Like the class gap, wealth gap and societal gap, the college athletics gap could mean Carolina will field good teams but not as many championship teams. From the oldest and more experienced coaches like Mack Brown and Anson Dorrance on down to the great Olympic sports programs.
UNC is competing, all right, with its brand awareness, alluring campus and men and women who love the games they play. But the money gap is also widening and schools that raise more NIL funds will continue to show that result on the fields and the courts.
It is hard to say who was best in the ACC this baseball season, even though the Tar Heels under fourth-year head coach Scott Forbes won the regular season title. They did not play Florida State, which beat them soundly in Omaha, after they were pummeled by Tennessee, the top-seeded team in the College World Series.
Forbes has done an excellent job keeping the program at the postseason level, but unlike the Mike Fox juggernaut era Carolina is relying on more very good transfers from outside the power conferences and in some cases from Division 2 and 3 schools.
Vance Honeycutt emerged from a prep travel team in which he batted eighth in the lineup to a heroic longball threat and likely a mid-first round pick in the next MLB Draft. One scout who attended the regional rounds in Chapel Hill said Honeycutt has a high 27 percent chase rate of swinging at bad pitches and misses too often. The Heels’ 114 homers tied for 15th in the NCAA; five SEC teams and three ACC teams hit more.
In the NIL arms race, most ACC coaches in all sports are finding their job descriptions to include raising money, and their programs are not close to what many SEC schools apparently have to lure athletes. That could affect UNC winning percentages in the future.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20062024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USA Today Sports/Dylan Widger
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Wealth Gap appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
How do you spell RELIEF? C-E-L-T-I-C-S when they win.
Trust me, it’s no easy job being a sports fan from Boston, where the expectations of their pro teams are from Fantasy Land. I know, I have lived it and when they lose a big game, I am glad I live down here and not mope around for weeks like up there.
The Tom Brady Patriots won six out of nine Super Bowls in 20 years, but it was like murder had been committed when they lost to the Giants twice and the Eagles once.
The Red Sox won four World Series in this century – the Yankees have only one – yet the owners get mad when people claim they aren’t trying hard enough to win.
The Bruins and Celtics are known for having great regular seasons and flaming out in the playoffs. The Bruins have done that for the last two years.
Brad Stevens is the former Butler coach who lost to Duke in the 2010 NCAA title game and then decided he would try coaching the Celtics. He liked it and was pretty good at it, but then wanted to spend more time with his family and became general manager.
The owner, a Boston billionaire named Wes Grousbeck, called a meeting with Stevens and new 34-year-old coach Joe Mazulla a year after the team lost in the NBA Finals to the Warriors and then lost the seventh game of the conference finals. Grousbeck told them that wasn’t good enough and asked what they needed to win the NBA Finals.
Mazulla played for West Virginia where he was a troublemaking guard. Then he coached at two small colleges no one ever heard of and for the Celtics G League team. After the head coach was fired, the three top assistants left and Mazulla got the job.
They already had all-stars Jalen Brown and Jayson Tatum, so Stevens traded for Derrick White and Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis and with little depth off the bench Mazulla’s second Celtics team dominated the regular season with a 64-18 record.
They went 16-3 in the playoffs, won the first three in the NBA Finals over the Dallas Mavericks, losing Game Four by 38 points. Their fans were furious. They won the fifth game at home and will raise the franchise’s 18th banner, one more than the Lakers.
And now the Celtics are getting the Duck Boat Parade that all Boston championship teams get, and before the boats are out of the water, the fans will presume they will repeat.
What do you do with the youngest coach in the NBA who just won the world championship?
Easy, you asked him – and then expect him – to do it again next year. That’s Boston, a city that roots hard and is harder to satisfy.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Krupa
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Young and Restless appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Pinehurst No. 2 looked spectacular… the Diamond Heels, not so much.
Rarely, if ever, has the state of North Carolina received national attention as it did for eight hours on Sunday. The U.S. championship of professional golf was on display from Pinehurst followed by the UNC baseball team from the College World Series.
The course management crew that allowed the historic Donald Ross layout to survive the blistering heat were as much the superstars as the golfers who delivered a classic return of the U.S. Open to the Sandhills.
And on the 25th anniversary of the late Payne Stewart’s dramatic win on No. 2, one of his disciples beat the heat and the pressure to be the first American to hoist the Open trophy there since Stewart in 1999, four months before his tragic death in a plane crash. Down the stretch, it looked like Ireland’s Rory McIlroy would keep that streak alive.
Thirty-year old Bryson DeChambeau was five when Stewart won and perished, but he heard about it from his father so much that he decided to attend the same college and play golf for SMU. When DeChambeau made a near impossible up-and-done from a bunker 50 yards away on the final hole, he pointed to the sky to honor Stewart.
Bryson DeChambeau celebrates with fans and the trophy after winning the U.S. Open golf tournament Sunday, June 16, 2024, in Pinehurst, N.C. (Photo via AP Photo/Frank Franklin II.)
McIlroy, the controversial but popular star, was trying to win his first major in 10 years and appeared to have done it with a two-shot lead on the final holes of the back nine. But he missed two three-foot putts that he had not done this entire season so far.
The tournament on NBC ended just as ESPN was showing the first pitch of the Carolina-Tennessee game in Omaha after both teams had rallied to win first-round walk-offs Friday in the NCAA baseball championship tournament.
The Volunteers are the No. 1 team in the country and showed why they have 177 home runs this season, 26 more than the second team in that stat category. They broke open a scoreless game with two blasts deep into the stands at expansive Charles Schwab Field and sent the Tar Heels into a win-or-go-home game against Florida State Tuesday at 2 p.m.; the winner faces top-seeded Tennessee on Wednesday at the same time.
North Carolina coach Scott Forbes embraces pitcher Cameron Padgett before removing him from the mound in the eighth inning against Tennessee in game six of the College World Series on Sunday, June 16, 2024 at Charles Swab Field in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo via Robert Willett/The News & Observer.)
Besides Vance Honeycutt’s 27th home run of the season, Carolina was neutered at the plate with four singles in the 6-1 defeat.
UNC has looked like a very good offensive team all season, especially going 37-3 at Boshamer Stadium (only 11-12 out of Chapel Hill). The Volunteers sent up bigger, free-swinging batters and had three pitchers who shut down the Heels before and after Honeycutt’s homer.
The same day Carolina defeated Virginia 3-2 on Honeycutt’s RBI, Florida State had 13 hits against Tennessee and led 11-8 going to the ninth inning before the Volunteers scored four runs to walk-off the win.
Carolina will have to recreate at least some of that Boshamer magic to stay alive and play another day in Omaha.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good And Bad Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has played two other ACC teams in the College World Series.
The Diamond Heels reached Omaha seven times during the Mike Fox era, and it is safe to say they played worse the last five years after reaching the championship round on the second weekend in 2006 and ’07. They never got back there.
Carolina’s first visit in 17 years featured a second-round win over Clemson, 2-0, on Robert Woodard’s shutout and three-hit pitching gem. They went on to the championship round by beating Cal State Fullerton twice and won the first meeting with Oregon State, 4-3, when Chad Flack scored on a passed ball. The Beavers got even in the second and then won the winner-take-all title game, pushing across the winning run in the eighth inning of a 3-2 victory.
UNC was right back in the championship series in 2007 against Oregon State, which swept the first two games by a combined score of 20-7. On the way there, the Diamond Heels beat South Carolina, once in the ACC, and Louisville, which joined in 2012.
Fox’s program did not return to the championship best-of-three in their last five visits. And several times their ouster was quick, like in their third of four consecutive trips to the CWS.
In 2008, while Boshamer Stadium was under renovation, the Diamond Heels played in Cary and swept four games from UNC-Wilmington and Coastal Carolina in the Regionals and Super Regionals but were sent home from Omaha on losses to Fresno State.
In 2009 and 2011, they lost twice to each Arizona State and Vanderbilt, and two years later in 2013 they had their next meeting with an ACC rival, splitting two strange games with NC State, losing the first 8-1 and then blanking the Pack 7-0 before being eliminated by eventual national champion UCLA.
Five years later came Carolina’s seventh CWS appearance under Fox, who retired in 2021. And it was old nemesis Oregon State that eliminated his club, scoring 4 runs in the eighth inning and 4 more in the ninth after the Heels built a 6-3 lead.
So waiting in their first visit to Charles Schwab Field since then is local rival Virginia, boasting one of the best offenses in the country, with the second-highest batting average (.326) and a top-10 stat of 61 home runs.
Carolina shows up with the same number of dingers, 26 by Vance Honeycutt, but is just 31st in team batting average (.304). The Diamond Heels are 12th in walks (355) and No. 15 in earned run average (4.22) where the Cavaliers are not in the top 50.
So it looks pretty even on offense, and UNC’s pitching could get them through Bracket 1 with fewer than two losses and, at long last, send the Tar Heels back to that national championship round.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/14/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/John Peterson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Local Rival’ Awaits appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Did you ever hear the story about former UNC athletic director Homer Rice?
Rice died at 97 this week after an honored career as a football coach and college athletic director. He was so good at the latter for Georgia Tech that his bronze statue stands outside Bobby Dodd Stadium on the Tech campus.
He led the dormant Yellow Jackets, who had just entered the ACC, to a resurgence that included a national championship in football, a Final Four in basketball and six other Olympic sports programs that won ACC titles and reached the top of their rankings.
Rice helped Georgia Tech personify the much-maligned tag of student-athlete through his Total Person program that stemmed from a book his father had given him when he was 12 years old entitled “I Dare You.” He said it “stimulated” him to search for secrets to successful living. Almost everyone he mentored bought in.
At his core, Rice was a football coach from the high school level to Division 1 in college to the NFL, where he had his only losing record because owner Paul Brown wouldn’t give him the resources to sign players. That’s when Rice took over at Georgia Tech.
Rice had been the athletic director at Carolina from 1969 through 1975, when Bill Dooley built his juggernaut and Dean Smith won two ACC regular season and tourney championships. He succeeded Chuck Erickson, who served through the ’50 and ‘60s.
During training camp for the 1969 season, a player named Bill Arnold collapsed on the practice field late on a blistering hot day and eventually died of complications from heat prostration. UNC put medical doctors and trainers in charge of practice and from there built one of the best sports medicine programs in the country.
But it seemed Rice could not get as close to athletes as he was as a coach, and he became itchy to get back on the sideline. Now comes the story that may surprise you.
Long-time N.C. State football coach Earle Edwards retired in 1970 and was replaced by assistant Al Michaels, whose Wolfpack went 3-8 for one season before State took a chance on quirky William & Mary coach Lou Holtz.
Before that hire, Rice and State AD Willis Casey had struck up a friendship during ACC meetings, and Casey tried to hire Rice as his new football coach. Rice seriously considered the job before he was convinced that both arch-rival schools would never get over it. Rice stayed in Chapel Hill for three more years before he left to be the head coach and athletic director at Rice, no relation.
Bill Cobey succeeded Rice and has long championed the leadership lessons he learned from his predecessor. So did John Swofford, who was a Morehead Scholar and football player during Rice’s tenure and eventually succeeded Cobey. Strange but all true.
Read Steve Hummer’s fascinating story about Rice in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rice’s Legacy appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It’s time for the U.S. Open — and it is also the 25th anniversary of Payne Stewart’s legendary win at Pinehurst.
Two U.S. Opens have been played on No. 2 since Stewart won there in 1999, but the statue of Stewart’s right leg in the air and his extended right arm behind the18th green will again be the most popular photograph snapped this weekend.
Stewart’s life story of finding inner peace and winning the Open before dying tragically in a plane crash four months later will hang heavy and could be extra motivation for the top two golfers in the world, Scottie Scheffler and Xander Shauffele, to be the first Americans to win there since Stewart holed the famous 15-foot putt in the mist on the 72nd hole Sunday.
Payne Stewart celebrates after winning the U.S. Open golf championship at Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, N.C., June 20, 1999. The U.S. Open returns to Pinehurst for the fourth time, June 13-16, 2024. (Photo via AP Photo/Chuck Burton.)
There is no better story, with the commemorative title ‘One Moment In Time,’ than Lee Pace’s recounting in his 2004 book The Spirit of Pinehurst. Pace, the brilliant golf and football writer, covers Stewart’s personality and golf transformation on display that weekend, when wearing his traditional plus-four knickers and English flat cap he beat Phil Mickelson by one shot and Tiger Woods by two, dropping the putt into the hole that will be in a similar position this Sunday.
Pace covers everything, from the panoramic photograph taken by Rob Brown on the roof of the Pinehurst clubhouse to Stewart remembering to congratulate playing partner and expectant father Mickelson on the birth of his first child as madness erupted around them.
Pace also gives tribute to the late Dick Coop, the UNC education professor and sports psychologist who helped Stewart find the balance in his life that maximized his game by not taking it quite so seriously. When he died at 42, Stewart still had his best golf ahead.
Far warmer and dryer weather is forecast for the 124th U.S. Open, where thousands of patrons will find parking spaces miles away and ride shuttle buses to the charming village and perhaps the most famous course Donald Ross ever created. There are story lines galore – from McIlroy’s off-and-on marriage to Tiger’s balky ankle to who will best navigate the inverted salad bowl greens to keep their balls on the putting surface.
The thought of Payne’s private plane crash in October of 1999 will underscore the event, which has returned there in 2005 and 2014, with New Zealander Michael Campbell and German Martin Kaymer winning the American national golf championship. It is time for the red-white-and-blue flag to again be next to the winner on Sunday’s leaderboard.
Pace’s tome is rich with the public and private figures who have made, and still make, Pinehurst No. 2 one of the great experiences – a definite bucket list item for most serious golfers.
The U.S. Open will return in there in 2029 and 2035, but as several officials and residents said after Stewart’s winning putt of 1999 made history in photos and clay, “There will never be another one like this one.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured photo via Pinehurst Resort.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Never One Like It’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The 2024 College World Series is another ACC-SEC Challenge.
For the first time in history, the CWS has all eight teams from just two conferences, which are easily considered the best baseball leagues in the country.
The ACC entrants are Carolina, Virginia, Florida State and N.C. State. The SEC is sending Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas A&M and Florida, which is making its third consecutive trip to Omaha.
If the ACC-SEC Challenge sounds familiar, it exists in men’s and women’s basketball, which annually produces some hard fought and intense matchups.
There is another angle, as the ACC may lose at least one of its participants to the SEC in the next round of conference realignment. Florida State is in the midst of lawsuits with the ACC over the Grant of Rights of television revenues; Carolina and Virginia are regularly mentioned as possible future members of either the Big Ten or the SEC, neither of which has a presence and TV exposure in the Tar Heel State or The Commonwealth.
A year ago, the ACC had two teams make it to the CWS (Virginia and Wake Forest) and the SEC three (Tennessee, Florida and LSU, with the Bengal Tigers beating the Gators in the best-of-three for LSU’s seventh national championship).
There are usually representatives from the Big 12 and the Pac 12, and this year Oregon State lost in the Super Regionals, which could turn out to be the last official contest played by the Pac 12, which loses 10 members to realignment beginning next season.
And the eight-team brackets could have swung more in favor of the ACC or SEC, with Clemson losing at home to Florida and Georgia losing at home to N.C. State in the finals of two Super Regionals.
Two intra-conference games are paired with Carolina facing Virginia in the opening Bracket 1 Friday at 1 pm on ESPN and Texas A&M and Florida playing in Bracket 2 at 4 pm on Saturday. It is a double-elimination tournament with the winners of the two brackets facing off in that best-of three series next weekend.
In their three-game series in Charlottesville during the ACC regular season, the Cavaliers won the first two games, 14-11 and 7-2, while the Tar Heels won the third game 12-7 on their way to the outright conference championship.
For the eighth time since the current format was introduced in 1999, seven No. 1 seeds from the 16 regionals advanced to Omaha, the Tar Heels among them, which is slightly better than the average of six No. 1s advancing. Florida, a No. 3 seed, is the only exception.
Conversely, 2007 saw just three No. 1 seeds in Omaha — a 21-year low-mark. Oregon State became the first 3-seed under the current format to win a national title that year, beating top-seeded Carolina in the finals for the second straight season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20061124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Nati Harnik
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Familiar Foes appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
West Virginia has a heartwarming baseball story, too!
The Mountaineers don’t have nearly the history of the Diamond Heels, especially over the past 20 years, 12 of which have been under retiring head coach Randy Mazey.
The 58-year-old Mazey, who coached East Carolina for three seasons, has a 541-423 career record as a head college coach. He said he wanted to spend more time with his wife and two children, a family that has had its share of heartbreak and delayed happiness.
Having won only 12 of 40 games over their last 12 NCAA tournament appearances, the Mountaineers finished sixth in the Big 12 this season and were squarely on the bubble waiting for the at-large bids to come out. They got one and went to the Tucson Regional, where home team Arizona is always tough to beat.
But West Virginia (36-22) did not have to face the 13-seeded Wildcats, who were sent into the losers’ bracket by Grand Canyon, the team the Mountaineers beat twice after a victory over Dallas Baptist.
So Mazey’s last ballclub in Morgantown did not face the kind of competition as the Tar Heels, who beat defending NCAA champion LSU twice to stay alive and host the Super Regional. But West Virginia does have a good pitching staff that could give Carolina trouble in the all-important first game of the best of three for a berth in the College World Series.
Still, Carolina has to be a prohibitive favorite in its 11th Super Regional since 1989 and its second in the last three years. But this time, an underdog opponent comes to Boshamer Stadium with something to prove and keep Mazey’s coaching career alive.
Mazey’s story is one that also tugs at the heartstrings. In 2021, his son Weston suffered a fractured skull, a brain injury and several broken bones after a full- speed collision with a teammate. Weston spent a week in intensive care but recovered fully to play in high school and will in college.
Randy and his wife Amanda teamed up with West Virginia’s Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jeff Hostetler to raise $200,000 to support families of other children with serious injuries. Weston committed to West Virginia in the high school class of 2025.
Mazey had to miss Weston’s game in the West Virginia high school tournament. And his family will be at The Bosh this weekend.
Every college program has occasional tough stories about its former and current players. But Mazey leaving his current team will provide extra motivation that Carolina must match with its own goals to win another Super Regional and return to the CWS.
“I’m going to try as hard as I can to win the Super Regional so our players can experience the College World Series,” said Mazey, who was an assistant on the TCU team that went to Omaha in 2010, “you can’t put into words what that feeling is like.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20060724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Rick Scuteri
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Motivated Mountaineers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The NBA Finals have a lot of local angles, mostly about Duke.
What should be a tremendous NBA Finals tips off tonight in Boston where the regular-season supreme Celtics face the surging Dallas Mavericks; despite the seedings, it should be one helluva series.
The top-seeded Celtics ran away from the NBA East with a 64-18 record, sixth-best in league history. They entered the playoffs with home-court advantage all the way through, dispatched the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers, both 4-1, and swept the Indiana Pacers — all while not losing a single road game.
The Mavericks, the fifth seed in the West, demonstrated their late-season chops by beating the fourth-seeded Clippers, top-seeded Thunder and third-seeded Timberwolves, all who owned home-court advantages. Dallas won an amazing six times on the road.
Boston has the best starting lineup in the NBA, with high statistical standing on both offense and defense, led by Dukie Jayson Tatum and Cal-Berkeley’s Jaylen Brown, obviously two pretty smart guys; comeback player of the year Derrick White and trade steal Jrue Holiday. Al Horford, 38 and a sixth man all season, has started at center in the playoffs until Kristaps Porzingis returns, which is expected tonight.
Dallas has perhaps the best two-man combination in the league with a backcourt of perennial MVP candidate Luka Doncic and 2011 top draft pick Kyrie Irving (another Dukie and former Celtic). Their deep bench includes 7-foot rookie Dereck Lively, yes, another Dukie, and one with Carolina ties, Dante Exum, the son of former Tar Heel Cecil Exum.
Porzingis spent three seasons with the Mavericks, after being traded by the New York Knicks who made the 7-2 Latvian the fourth pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The 240-pound Porzingis has been injury prone during his career and missed 25 games this season either rehabbing or resting, now reportedly recovered from a leg injury.
So how the TD Garden crowd treats Irving tonight and other home games in Boston, plus the rabid Mavericks fans welcoming back Porzingis, will be interesting sidebars and fodder for talking heads on ABC, who hopefully won’t include screaming Stephen A. Smith.
In the prime seats will be the team owners, Dallas multi-billionaire Mark Cuban who originally got rich by starting the first radio streaming website called broadcast.com and selling the rights for millions. He is also well-known for starring on the Shark Tank TV reality series. Cuban was originally the principal owner of the Mavs before selling the majority interest.
On the other side of the scorer’s table will be the Grousbeck family, which owns the Celtics and is among the Boston billionaires. Even wealthier than the Grousbecks is minority owner Stephen Pagliuca, a private equity investor worth more than Cuban. Pagliuca is a 1977 Duke grad who played freshman basketball. His son was a walk-on for Coach K, graduating in 2017, Tatum’s one-and-done season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/06/Art%27s%20Notebook%20060624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Finally, The Finals! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The NCAA and the Power Five Conferences can take a deep breath.
Whenever, and if ever, their multi-billion-dollar settlement with college athletes happens, it won’t be in the foreseeable future. That gives the ruling body of college sports, and its biggest and richest members, more time to figure out their future, right or wrong.
It may also give college jocks time to study how Dartmouth athletes unionized and be prepared to counter the settlement and muddy even more the collective-bargaining waters that are coming.
A 74-year-old judge with at least 15 years of handling antitrust cases involving amateur athletes has indicated she will not give rubber-stamp approval to whatever proposal the parties crafted and theoretically agreed upon. Of U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, experts say there is a reasonable chance Wilken will eventually deep-six the entire deal.
She won’t even review the supposed settlement for months because there is no actual agreement to read and examine. There is only a term sheet including just big picture items that must be sorted out and communicated to the member schools and athletes.
The new model could unknowingly trigger more legal problems under Title IX, the employment of athletes, and many other laws associated with paying students who’ve been competing for nothing more than their scholarships for more than a hundred years.
The bewilderment and vagueness over how much money the athletes will make and how much money schools must earmark for them has spawned fear of unintended consequences like when the transfer portal and new rules arrived just as NIL exploded. Presto, we had pay for play when nobody thought about that ahead of time.
One of the consequences may be athletes refusing to participate because of such uncertainty and then grouping to file class action suits against their particular schools and the NCAA. And excluding athletes from before 2016 has not been explained. Don’t you think Tyler Hansbrough – the face of college basketball for four years – is wondering? Another class action suit in the wings.
When all is down on paper, Judge Wilken must decide whether the so-called settlement is fair to all parties (under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure laws). Extended haggling will make millions more for attorneys who, at this point, are the only people on the payroll.
The Google Books lawsuit, which took more than 10 years in court before settling, is being studied by those lawyers as a comparison. Google wanted to copy pages of copyrighted publications and sell them without compensating the authors and their agents. There is a Federal Copyright Act that Google was trying to dodge for a decade, leaving thousands of writers without payment or royalties of any kind.
The NCAA and its members have no one to blame but themselves for leaving athletes without any of the benefits THEY were receiving as revenues moved into the billions and very little was done for the athletes solely responsible for generating that growth.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20060524.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/David J. Phillip
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not Even Close appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
A heart-wrenching evening turned into a beautiful night at the Bosh.
The Diamond Heels certainly proved to be a mentally tough team when their offensive execution wasn’t so great.
But that is why baseball is a game of resiliency since, for example, even the best hitters fail about 70 percent of the time.
And as Scott Forbes went deep into his bench, his kids kept trying and found a way to tie the game and win it in extras.
Boshamer Stadium looked to have more fans when the 4-3 win over LSU ended, as word may have spread around campus and town that something was going on that needed their help.
And while clutch defense and shutdown pitching were the keys to keeping the game close, offense had to come from somewhere. And in the nick of time, it did.
While freshman Gavin Gallaher and his fellow infielders made enough plays to shut out LSU for the last seven innings, someone had to step up at the plate.
Gallaher, who had gone 0 for 3, began UNC’s last chance in the ninth with a double down the left field line. After Alex Madera — who had played his first four seasons of college baseball at the Division III level — barely missed bunting Gallaher to third, ninth-batting shortstop Colby Wilkerson drove him home with a bloop single to left. The nail-biting Boshamer crowd suddenly went bonkers.
Closer Dalton Pence kept LSU from winning in the bottom of the ninth, and in the 10th the Heels got the break they needed.
Johnny Castagnozzi, who had come in as a pinch hitter in the eighth, laced a liner to deep right that the LSU outfielder misplayed into an error, allowing Castagnozzi to reach second. Forbes replaced him with the fleeter Jackson Van De Brake, a senior reserve.
Madera, who had seven assists at second base on the night, singled to right with Van De Brake scoring the go-ahead run.
The Heels had lost the coin toss before the game and were the visiting team on their home field, so they needed one more clean inning from Pence to complete the wondrous win and move on to the Super Regional this weekend against unseeded West Virginia back at The Bosh, where Carolina will be a strong favorite to win two out of three and return to the College World Series for the first time since 2018.
Pence delivered with three fly balls, two to right fielder Anthony Donofrio and the last to centerfielder Vance Honeycutt, the star of the team who thrust his arms in the air before joining his mates in the mosh pit on the mound.
It capped a maddening night when the bats weren’t always working, but faith was alive and well.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20060424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Carolina Baseball on Twitter.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Wondrous Win appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
So for the Diamond Heels, it all comes down to this.
Playing a non-contact sport, baseball teams are not generally measured by their toughness. But, clearly, the toughest team is going to win the NCAA Chapel Hill regional in the win-or-go-home final Monday night.
Carolina and LSU are two ballclubs with pedigree from the best baseball leagues in the country, the ACC and SEC.
The Tar Heels have shown their resolve throughout a record-breaking campaign, going 34-3 at home and winning their regular-season conference championship to earn the top four NCAA seed. They rallied from three runs down in the ninth inning against LIU in the first game of the tournament. They certainly toughed out a 6-2 win over LSU in the second game Saturday night.
In April, the Baton Rouge Bengal Tigers were considered a longshot to even make the tournament they won last year, showing their mettle since then to get an at-large bid and on the verge of going home several times this weekend here. They rallied to win their first game over Wofford with a walk-off home run. They survived a losers’ bracket rematch after falling behind 5-0 in the first inning and then coming alive to win 13-6.
And with only a three-hour break before the elimination game against UNC Sunday night, LSU blew out to an 8-1 lead against the weak-hitting Heels, who finally shut down and outscored the Tigers 3-0 over the last four innings that should provide fuel and help regain some momentum for the do-or-die third meeting.
Both teams have to feel good about their chances to advance to the Super Regional, which for Carolina would be back at Boshamer Stadium this coming weekend. The Tar Heels need to get their big boppers in the groove, as home run heroes Gavin Gallaher and Vance Honeycutt went hitless on Sunday night.
And they will need their weary pitching staff to turn into stoppers like LSU’s Thatcher Hurd, who had not pitched more than three innings since April but came back to go 5 2/3 innings while giving up only 6 hits, striking out 6 and walking no one as his team built its big lead. Neither starter was announced after the game, but the Diamond Heels’ late pitching and defense has to make them feel better after being outscored so badly.
So, yes, baseball is a game of toughness, maybe as much mental as physical. And the team that gets ready to play and gets off to a better start will have the best chance to win and move on. For both, it will be to save a season that had decidedly different goals two months ago.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/06%20-%20June/03/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK%206-3-34.mp3Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Do Or Die appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Can Scott Forbes ignite the same magic as Mike Fox?
The Diamond Heels have been to the College World Series seven times in this century. They began with a four-peat from 2006 through 2009 and went back to Omaha in 2011, 2013 and 2018.
In the last six of those seven trips, Carolina played the NCAA Regional and Super Regional at friendly Boshamer Stadium. But making that first CWS under Fox was something akin to the Tom Brady “tuck game” in 2002. If what looked like a sack had not been overturned into an incomplete pass, the Patriots would not go on to the Super Bowl and maybe not turn into a dynasty team.
The Tar Heels were not quite a dynasty from 2006 to 2018, having never won the NCAA championship at the College World Series. But how they got there the first time under Fox is one of the most magical stories in UNC sports history. Here is how it happened.
Carolina was nationally ranked much of the season but not among the top eight seeds invited to the NCAA Tournament. In the Regional at the Bosh, the Diamond Heels beat Maine and Winthrop twice to advance to the Super Regional at Tuscaloosa against the Alabama Crimson Tide of the powerful SEC.
In the best-of-three Super Regional to reach the CWS, they stunned Bama in the first game 11-5. But the next night, the Tide jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the seventh inning before clean-up hitter Chad Flack carved a place in Tar Heel history. His three-run bomb helped Carolina take a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Alabama, playing as the visiting team, scored three runs in the top of the ninth to go back ahead 7-6.
Reid Frank walked with one out in the ninth and was replaced by Matt Spencer, who advanced to second on a wild pitch. Shortstop Josh Horton struck out swinging on a 2-2 pitch, bringing Flack back to the plate with two outs.
The clutch first-baseman already had two hits and those three runs-batted-in from the eighth-inning blast. With the count at one strike, Flack launched another ball, this one to right field, that just cleared the fence to give Carolina an 8-7 victory and a ticket to Omaha, where the Diamond Heels reached the championship series against Oregon State before losing.
Fox said he “felt like there was something special about this group all year long” after the dramatic win. “Chad Flack is about as clutch of a player I have ever coached.”
Forbes had rejoined the UNC coaching staff that season and was with Fox for all seven of his trips to the CWS as a head coach. Hopefully, in his fourth season as head man, Forbes will start his own string of memorable NCAA victories on the way to Omaha.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/31/ART%20CHANSKY%20SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_MAY%2031.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Flack Back appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Is Drake Maye the richest rookie in UNC history?
Any Carolina athlete drafted higher, such as Mitch Trubisky (No. 2 by the Bears in 2017), did not earn as much as the third pick by New England in the recent NFL Draft. Trubisky signed for only $29 million over four years.
You can go all the way back to Michael Jordan in 1984 (No. 3 by the Bulls), and inflation doesn’t make it close. Maye signed a fully guaranteed four-year contract with the Patriots for more than $36 million with a $24 million signing bonus at 21.
Rookie salary caps in the NFL will limit Maye to between $6 and 7 million in his first season, but he can surely get by on that even with the much higher cost of living in New England. Maye left UNC already wealthy from the NIL payment his family received after his star-studded freshman season, said to be well over a million bucks.
Now, the massive amount of money automatically makes Maye the future quarterback of the Patriots even if he doesn’t start a regular-season game in 2024.
He could lose that priority position if he does not produce once he becomes the starter. The Pats’ last first-round QB pick (No. 15 Mac Jones from Alabama’s national championship team) started for three years before the franchise moved in another direction and traded him to Jacksonville.
And Maye, though taller, faster and with a stronger arm than Jones, could have a different path by playing behind NFL veteran (and former N.C. State QB) Jacoby Brissett for his rookie year while the former Super Bowl dynasty rebuilds under new head coach Jerod Mayo and the Patriots upgrade their receiving corp.
The biggest, and probably overstated, criticism of Maye is his footwork, which some pro scouts say gives him “happy feet” from playing mostly in a shotgun offense at Carolina. One of Drake’s best attributes is his ability to break contain from the rush and take off with the ball although he will be trained to be a pocket passer in the NFL.
Adjusting to life as a pro, which is both under center or in the gun for most NFL quarterbacks, seems like a matter of coaching and repetition during summer drills that are already under way and training camp in August.
Mack Brown’s constant praise of Maye highlighted how fast he picked up the college game and his accuracy at full speed, aided by redshirting for a season behind Sam Howell, who was traded from Washington to Seattle in the spring.
So while starting with a multi-million-dollar contract is the goal of all pro athletes, proving that they are worth the investment is even more important.
After all, that’s what all the hype is about.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20053024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Steven Senne
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Million-Dollar Maye appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Please, we don’t want another unrealistic repeat of 2023!
The Tar Heels’ late sprint to the Final Four in 2022 resulted in a preseason No. 1 ranking the next summer. Four starters were back, but Pete Nance turned out to be no replacement for the consequential Brady Manek.
Is it happening again, with even less reason for a high ranking heading into the 2024-25 season?
Hubert Davis’ first year at the helm was unforgettable. First, the team looked like it had a new head coach for most of the season. Then, the Heels got hot and avenged a 20-point home loss to Duke with one of the greatest wins in Durham among the many Carolina has had over there.
In the NCAA Tournament, big shots by departed Dontrez Styles against Baylor and controversial Caleb Love versus UCLA – plus a HUGE break when Saint Peters upset Purdue in the Sweet 16 – left the Heels as a prohibitive favorite to reach the Final Four.
And then they did it again, behind just about everyone from Bacot to Leaky to Love to R.J. to Manek, and beat Duke for a second time in a month. Despite losing a 15-point lead and the national championship game to Kansas, the two beDeviling wins and a return to the Final Four sent Carolina fans to the moon.
When the 2023 team slipped off the NCAA bubble late in the next season and became the first projected No. 1 team to not punch its ticket to the Big Dance, expectations fell drastically after seven players transferred and two graduated.
Davis pieced together the old (Bacot and R.J. Davis) and the new (Cadeau, Ingram and Ryan), as the revamped Tar Heels won their first outright ACC regular season since 2017 and reunited with the NCAA tourney as a No. 1 seed. Even a disappointing Sweet 16 loss to Alabama hasn’t calmed the excitement.
The latest “way too early” polls find UNC in the top five, the top three in some rankings. How can that be with an almost brand-new front court and one of the smallest, yet slickest, backcourts in the country? Cormac Ryan will be replaced by transfer Cade Tyson, Ingram by transfer Van-Ellen Lubin and Bacot by a committee led by junior Jalen Washington.
Are we being set up for another 2023 fall? Recruiting from the portal may not be over, but no one is left who can come close to Bacot’s place as a leader and rebounder. And until Carolina can score consistently from inside and dissuade the double teams on R.J., all we can do at this point is hope that true 5-star freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell set the world on fire.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Adrian Kraus
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Calming the Masses appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Remember the good old days – in 2021?
You know, when the California legislature voted to allow college athletes in the state to profit from their names, images and likenesses.
And the NCAA, which was backed into its biggest corner since organizing in 1906, decided it did not want to be faced with declaring hundreds of athletes ineligible and placing dozens of schools on probation.
No, thanks, said the NCAA. “Why don’t you figure out how you want to do NIL and let us know and maybe we’ll oversee what you’re doing?’’ (or something like that.)
And except for some general guidelines that many of the schools ignored from Day One, it turned into the first Wild West attack on the long-restrictive NCAA rules.
Meanwhile, NIL became the most famous acronym since Triple-A. Schools interpreted what their state legislatures, their college conferences and/or their athletic directors would define as the new rules. Or keep doing what you’re doing, since everything you do is now legal.
In retrospect, that was easy compared to what the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences have wrought by reaching a settlement on four antitrust lawsuits valued at $2.8 billion, which will come from NCAA reserve coffers and the schools to pay current and alumni athletes directly $21 million per school annually over 10 years, in part to compensate not being paid for use of their NIL on national TV games.
Those bargain basement prices were announced by the NCAA and P5s late last week. Besides some extremely general projections that had been done by financial advisors, the cost to the NCAA/schools of all existing and future lawsuits would be closer to $4 billion and might bankrupt the college sports we have known for decades.
The only monetary prediction anyone can offer right now is the $900 million in legal fees for all the lawyers, who guaranteed will be multiplying like chickens from here.
How much NIL money athletes may be paid by their schools will not be sorted out for at least a year and will bring more barristers into the equation. Most questions asked these days prompt the response: “We’ll have to see.”
For example, how will paying the athletes work? How will collective bargaining and revenue-sharing work? How about the future of Title IX? Women’s and all Olympic sports? Is it fair that athletes before 2016 not get paid and won’t that prompt more suits (and lawyers filing them)? Will athletes unions (like at Dartmouth) be recognized?
Plus, the plaintiff athletes can “opt out” if they think they can make more money by suing someone on their own.
The answers to those and dozens of other questions will not be definitive for years, during which the bigger and richer schools will earn more victories and money.
Because they will have to change the least and can spend the most, life for them will get even better while the era of “We’ll see” turns the West Wilder than it’s ever been.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The ‘We’ll See’ Era appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Ven-Allen Lubin gives the Tar Heels flexibility in so many ways.
The 6-8 transfer from Vanderbilt will do some of what Harrison Ingram and Armando Bacot did, playing power forward but also inside, rebounding the ball at the same pace over his last 10 games at Vandy as Ingram did all season. He may even be better on the offensive end, where 70 percent of his shots came from the paint or at the rim and he was among the best in the SEC at putback percentage.
His time inside will leave plenty of minutes for fellow transfer and marksman Cade Tyson to get comfortable at small forward and shoot the 46 percent from outside that he did at Belmont with a chance to be the new Cormac Ryan.
Per all reports, Lubin will give the program what it lost in Ingram, Ryan and Bacot, guys who came to play for the UNC brand more than the NIL bucks and were as good in the locker room as on the court. He arrives with the same two years of eligibility left as Ingram, who played so well he opted for the NBA Draft after one season.
Lubin’s recruitment seems to have come with no strings attached. Having scholarships left, Hubert Davis and his staff may keep looking for another big who can produce in the paint or protect the rim or block some shots and at the very least be a valuable practice competitor and an occasional contributor in games like James Okonkwo.
And don’t forget projected starter Jalen Washington, first forward reserve Jae’Lyn Withers and promising sophomore Zayden High are returning and will be joined by incoming freshman James Brown.
In short, Lubin will help. He is a solid player whose stats could be misleading, either way, having played on a bad team whose coach Jerry Stackhouse was fired with a 70-92 record after five years, 9-23 last season. Stackhouse, the legendary Tar Heel of the 1990s, earned SEC Coach of the Year in 2023 with a 22-15 record.
“He’s a really good post player,” Stackhouse told Inside Carolina of Lubin, “throwing it down there to him, and he’s a really good passer when teams bring the double team. He has a knack for finishing, with really good touch around the basket.”
All in all, Lubin looks like a good fit for the Carolina Basketball Family.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USA Today Sports
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Good Fit appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The criticism of Carolina Athletics comes from lack of dollars and no sense.
The UNC Board of Trustees levelled some misguided ridicule of the athletic department and director Bubba Cunningham recently. And most of it comes from “bad data” that had been provided to the committee by who knows.
The most interesting bit of data was the $135 million athletic budget proposed for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. Here is some data for you that should make the Trustees put their collective tails between their legs.
After the winter season, the annual Learfield Directors’ Cup standings had UNC in third place overall trailing only 26-time winner Stanford and two-time winner Texas, which have endowments and/or budgets that dwarf UNC. The Tar Heels program won the initial Director’s Cup for overall excellence in 1993-94. Since then, Stanford has won 26 times and Texas has won twice.
Stanford had a $159 million athletic budget for fiscal 2023, but its endowment is valued at $36.5 BILLION. Texas, which fields only 20 NCAA varsity teams (compared to UNC’s 28), has a budget that exceeds $200 million. In the winter standings, Stanford is in first place and Texas is in second place.
After Carolina, the next eight schools are Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Alabama and Tennessee – all whose budgets are close to double Carolina’s. So where is the credit to Cunningham, who has led his program to a top 10 finish in seven of the last eight years. Overall, UNC has been that high 24 times, battling schools with far greater resources.
You notice, all of the above schools are current members of the Big Ten and the SEC, which is adding Texas and Oklahoma beginning in 2024-25. According to David Glenn’s recent “Holding Court” column on this website, the Trustees “have been handing Cunningham budgets that are smaller than the Power 5 average and barely in the top 40!”
Glenn, an award-winning journalist and attorney, emphasizes that under Cunningham Carolina “consistently has been producing top 10 results on the court/field.”
The Trustees also criticized the UNC AD for missing a meeting in March, when Cunningham was serving on the NCAA Basketball Committee, on which he has been for the last four years will be the chairman this coming season. Obviously, they should have known about that conflict.
Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts came to Cunningham’s defense, and that of his budget, after the board’s denouncement. It was too little too late. So next should be a public retraction and apology.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured photo via Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unfriendly Fire appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The chaos has reached the parallel universes.
I’ve spent the last few years marveling at how sports seem to be the only place where fans leave their politics and vicious opinions at the door. Isn’t it amazing to see a packed house in the Dean Dome where everyone is rooting for the same thing? I often wondered how this contradiction works.
Well, apparently, it doesn’t work anymore. The country is divided in ways we’ve never seen. Two political parties have lost their families and friends while a so-called third of the country pays no attention and lives life.
It may stay that way in pro sports, where they have player unions, arenas are sold out and the competition is fierce. I love the rules instituted years ago that opposing players and coaches must congratulate each other after a best-of-seven series and championship games end.
College basketball and most college football do that after every game. The hoopers form the handshake lines and the gridders look to find opposing players they know from home or meeting on recruiting trips.
Who knows where, or if, the madness will end in politics. You think an election in November is going to settle anything or fan the flames of division even more? Well, at least we have our favorite college teams to watch and cheer for.
Not so fast, you alumni and fans.
Have you attempted to read anything about House v. NCAA, where settlements are ready to be announced that will make some amateur athletes pro millionaires almost overnight? NIL payments are trying to be regulated. Ha!
That is the proverbial tip of the iceberg, where the NCAA luxury liner is about to get shattered where everyone aboard will lose something. Non-revenue or Olympic athletes won’t get paid anything from the billion-dollar settlement that could also destroy the NCAA by the millions big schools will spend to pay past athletes and keep the current games going. Certainly, some HAVES will get richer. Many HAVE NOTS may be out of the sports business.
Just as House v. NCAA is releasing information about exactly what is happening in court, the first major lawsuit over NIL misdeeds came out when a player from California was supposedly offered $13 million from a coach, big boosters and collectives at the University of Florida before reneging on the deal.
He hired a famous lawyer who has defended athletes for years, while the Gators will likely lose a coach and millionaire car dealer who made illegal promises then backed off at signing day. The kid has since transferred to Georgia, where there is supposedly enough money and control to do NIL right.
We’ll see how all that turns out. But free agency and collective bargaining are in college athletics to stay. The games they play to win will be the big losers.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Big Losers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Hubert Davis just turned 54. How does he compare?
Let’s see, Hubert has been Carolina’s head coach for three years and has an 78-31 record and ACC mark of 43-17, both for winning rates of 72 percent. He has finished second, 8th and 1st in the conference, won one regular-season championship with an ACC tournament record of 4-3 and zero titles. He has gone to two NCAA Tournaments with a 7-2 record and made one Final Four appearance. His record against Duke is 3-3, winning twice at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
When Roy Williams turned 54, he had finished his first season at Carolina as a head coach after serving 15 years at Kansas, where he had taken the Jayhawks to consecutive Final Fours. His first Tar Heel team went 19-11 overall and 8-8 in the ACC, lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament and second round of the NCAA Tournament. He then won his first of nine ACC regular-season titles and first of three NCAA championships when he was still 54 (birthday August 1).
Dean Smith turned 54 in February of 1985 and went on to win his fourth consecutive ACC regular season championship and reached the 11th of 23 straight NCAA Tournaments, a record that Michigan State’s Tom Izzo tied this past season. Smith retired after the 1997 season with a major-college high of 879 victories (also 77 percent), a ceiling later surpassed by Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski.
At 54, Hubert Davis has had one consensus All-American player, R.J. Davis. At that age, Roy Williams had yet to have his first at UNC, although he did have a consensus second teamer in 2005, when Sean May was the Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four that Carolina won in St. Louis.
Williams had won 470 games of a career 903 victories and would join Smith (inducted 1982) in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2019, Williams’ 31st season, he surpassed Smith’s 879 career wins in his 36.
By the time Smith was 54, he was already a Hall of Famer and had coached dozens of All-ACC and All-American players, including ACC Players of the Year Michael Jordan, Phil Ford and Larry Miller — plus UNC’s first black scholarship athlete Charlie Scott.
Smith had five children, Davis three and Williams two.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/21/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: When They Were 54 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
U.S. golfers have a chance to break a 42-year drought in the majors.
Xander Schauffele’s wire-to-wire win in the PGA was the second of four majors won by American golfers. It keeps alive the Yanks winning the Masters, PGA, U.S. Open and British Open the same year for the first time since 1982.
Forty-two years ago, Craig “the Walrus” Stadler won in Augusta, Tom Watson won his first U.S. Open and his first of two straight Open Championships in Great Britain, and North Carolina native and Tar Heel alumnus Raymond Floyd won the 1982 PGA championship.
That sort of makes sense with the way Americans have struggled in the Ryder Cup over the last 11 matches, losing 8 to Europe. But perhaps with the influence of Tiger Woods over the last 30 years, more of our kids grew up playing golf.
We’re on the way, though, with Scottie Scheffler, a New Jersey native who went to the University of Texas, won his second Green Jacket in three years in April and was three shots behind in the PGA after the mild-mannered man was arrested by Louisville police Friday morning on the way to his early tee-time at Valhalla. It was a misunderstanding, but he blew up to a 73 in the third round.
Schauffele, who grew up in San Diego and played at San Diego State, won a stunning battle with Bryson DeChambeau – another Californian playing at SMU – who birdied his 72nd hole to pull into a 20-under-par tie with Schauffele, the leader by one stroke after three rounds.
Facing the pressure of winning his first major, the 30-year-old Schauffele chipped it to five feet on the par-5 18th green and rimmed in the birdie putt to send the crowd wild and win the Wanamaker Trophy from the PGA of America. He will move up from No. 4 in the World Rankings, where Scheffler is No. 1.
Schauffele opened with a 9-under-par 62 on Thursday, went 68-68 on Friday and Saturday and finished with a 6-under par 65 for a total of 263. The scores were so low they made the golf course seem a little easier for a major.
Look at the final leaderboard, and you will find 10 American golfers in the top 20 finishers and 6 in the top 10. Schauffele and Scheffler are at the top of the FedEx Cup standings and in the U.S. Ryder Cup scoring lead and will try to win back the cup at BethPage in New York next March.
The 2024 U.S. Open is on the fabled Pinehurst No. 2 course for the fourth time, beginning this June 13. The Open championship, and the last major of the year, will be at Royal Troon in Scotland in July. Go Yanks!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20052024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Go Yanks! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If the ACC privatized its athletic departments, no school would have to leave.
Here is the Rubik’s Cube of realignment in college athletics. Let’s take the ACC because, frankly, that’s the only league I care about.
Clemson and Florida State want to bolt and make more money from athletics than either school is getting right now. The latest projections for future football TV rights fees are that the ACC will distribute $40 million per year per member while the Big Ten and SEC are estimating at least $70 million.
But it seems like those mega-leagues don’t want Clemson and FSU for various reasons. What do the Tigers and Seminoles bring to the SEC?
Football teams that would challenge Georgia and Alabama on the field and small TV markets that would not increase the TV rights per school? The SEC already has South Carolina and Florida, with bigger fan bases than Clemson and FSU in those states. And Disney/ESPN doesn’t have unlimited cash it once did.
Have you seen anything from SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey saying, “We can’t wait till they get here?”
Comparatively, the Big Ten doesn’t want them because they are not members of the AAU (Association of American Universities). The B1G covets UNC and Virginia (both are in the AAU) and new TV markets in the Tar Heel State and The Commonwealth, where there is no Big Ten presence.
So while they sue the ACC to get out, Clemson and FSU are learning it may cost them each $500-600 million to leave without invites from the SEC and B1G, where coaches, ADs and presidents don’t want them for reasons stated above.
That is why you are reading code words like “we’ll see how it plays out.”
So where else could ACC schools get the money to be competitive in NIL, coaching salaries, recruiting budgets and facilities? Why not privatize?
For example, instead of going back to the same donors and alumni they hit up for everything else, could UNC sell a majority stake in its athletic department to private equity that would make them whole financially and attract investors that could turn the venture into a profitable win-win?
Meanwhile, the UNC Board of Trustees chair is pushing departure to the Big Ten, which would mean the end of the ACC we have loved for 70 years, all for the extra money it would bring while putting little thought into the negatives and unintended consequences.
Thinking out of the box, there are other ways to do it without jeopardizing the rest of their varsity (and women’s) sports and lose unrivaled assets like the Carolina-Duke basketball home and home series, which would be forever altered by realignment.
Right now, everyone seems trapped in their own Rubik’s Cube with no way to solve the puzzle.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Karl B. DeBlaker
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Out of the Box appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina can’t afford Coleman Hawkins, period.
Unless Harrison Ingram pulls a surprise 360 before the May 29 NBA draft deadline and returns to UNC for another year, the Tar Heels may still be without the additional inside presence they need heading into the new season.
After losing a bunch of big men transfer prospects, Carolina is eyeing two players who are reportedly interested in spending the 2024-25 season in Chapel Hill. One is Vanderbilt’s 6-8 Ven Allen Lubin, who is a little bigger than Ingram but reportedly not as good of a shooter. Lubin just finished a visit to campus and could commit any day now. The other is 6-10 Coleman Hawkins from Illinois who like Ingram is both in the transfer portal and still eligible for the NBA draft.
Hawkins is in a bit of a pickle after saying he wants to go to the NBA but on a guaranteed contract, which is usually only given to first-round picks. On most mock draft boards, he is not listed in the first round. The 230-pounder who is the only player in Illini history to have more than 900 points, 500 rebounds, 200 assists, 100 blocks and 100 steals in his career could be the possible missing piece for the Tar Heels.
He is leaving a return to college open but is apparently looking for the same kind of guarantee that a first-round NBA contract provides. His father, a former college player long before NIL came onto the scene, has advised him that his next move should be a “business decision.”
UNC players make some NIL money, usually after they are already in school. Carolina is not known to enter bidding wars for any recruits that might pay more money than a returning player gets, like All-American R.J. Davis. That would go against principles that Hubert Davis adopted from Dean Smith, whose enrolled roster was always his top priority.
Hawkins has backed off that somewhat by saying, “Even if I did go back to school . . . I would never share that information because it’s kind of selfish. . . . for your teammates knowing what you made. I wouldn’t have those conversations with my teammates and want anyone to know what I did make.”
So you can see why, no matter how much better the Tar Heels would be with Hawkins, that’s not the kind of business decision UNC makes. Hubert Davis counts on the exposure and success playing for one of the biggest college brands resulting in more NIL money and/or a better NBA contract down the road.
Perhaps NIL will be regulated one day, where every player gets the opportunity to earn money from his name, image and likeness and not be “paid to play.” As for now, that isn’t the world we live in.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/16/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Nam Y. Huh
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The World We Live In appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It feels like this is the year Carolina returns to Omaha.
We remember Mike Fox’s magical run as UNC’s baseball coach. Seven trips to the College World Series in 13 years after the Diamond Heels had only been there four other times in the 77-year history of the event.
When Fox took over for Mike Roberts as head coach, he seemed like a good hire after playing for Carolina in the 1978 CWS, the first of two times his predecessor got the Heels to Omaha in his 20 years at the helm. Walter Rabb took them there twice in his 30 years as head coach. That was it.
What did Fox do that was so different? He enlisted the help of other coaches, like his good friend Roy Williams, to help lure some of the top high school players in the country to Chapel Hill. He was also involved in a refurbishment of Boshamer Stadium that made the old ballpark sparkle for recruits and fans who came more than ever. It resulted in a school record of 840 wins for a 70-plus winning percentage in his 21 years before retiring.
Granted, Fox was fortunate to coach during the growth of college baseball, when players could still turn pro out of high school but once they enrolled in college were not eligible for the Major League Draft until after three years in school. Football and basketball have had different iterations, but none has been as successful as the baseball rules that helped build a dynasty here.
Fox retired two years after his seventh College World Series team in 2018. The Heels were never as close to winning as in 2006 and 2007, heartbreaking losses to Oregon State in the championship round. Carolina had most of its greatest players and future pros during that span, and Fox’s successor and former assistant Scott Forbes continues to put talented teams on the field led by such stars as Vance Honeycutt, UNC’s home run king.
But while other ACC schools have been to the College World Series during Carolina’s run under Fox, Forbes’ seventh-ranked team has won the ACC Coastal Division and goes after its second conference tournament title in three years next week in Charlotte. The Heels are an ACC-best 20-7 and 39-11 overall before ending the regular season at Duke this weekend.
Forbes’ club carries an ACC-third .304 team batting average and has swatted 65 home runs in league play, 16 more than the second-most by Florida State. Their earned-run-average is 4.75 and they have allowed only 137 runs, best in the league.
It’s a long, tough road once the NCAA pairings come out, but Carolina is in a positive position to host a regional and super regional at The Bosh, from where they will have a well-earned advantage to get back to Omaha.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Baseball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Getting Back appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I remember vividly the day the ACC screwed Chris Kupec.
Some of you may remember Chris Kupec, Carolina’s All-ACC quarterback in 1974 with a 69 percent completion rate, 12 touchdowns versus 3 interceptions for Bill Dooley’s three yards and a cloud of dust offense. To clarify, Chris was the older brother of Matt Kupec, who starred for the Tar Heels five years later.
Chris Kupec, an esteemed financial services attorney in Charlotte with a loving family, died last week at age 71. He was a tall, terrific passer with a quiet leadership demeanor and beloved by his teammates and coaches. This is a story about how unfair college athletics was to Kupec, who became an NFL prospect the next year.
In 1973, Kupec won the starting quarterback position as a junior after playing the prior year behind option QB Nick Vidnovic in the Tar Heels’ 11-1 ACC Championship season. Early in the second game of 1973, Kupec suffered a severe knee injury and was done for the season. He recovered and was the ACC’s all-conference QB as a senior, leading the ’74 Heels to the Sun Bowl.
That spring, the NCAA amended its medical red-shirt rules, allowing injured players who missed the first two games of a season to claim an extra year of eligibility. And the rule change was retroactive for any player who was currently on an active roster. That would have given Kupec another season to play, if not for the unforgivable selfishness of other ACC schools.
NCAA rules had to be ratified by each conference, usually a rubber stamp. But at the ACC Spring meetings, the conference voted NOT to adopt the rule change, which meant that Kupec was finished after only playing one full year for the Tar Heels. If the ACC had done what was best for its athletes, Kupec would have played another season for UNC, which went 3-7-1 in 1975 without him.
I was covering the story for the old Durham Morning Herald and met with Carolina’s Faculty Athletic Chairman Gerald Barrett after he returned from Greensboro and the spring meetings. Barrett was a brilliant, but mild-mannered law professor at the time, and he was smoking hot.
“They voted it down because they didn’t want to play against Kupec for one more season,” Barrett said. “I guarantee you, when the vote comes up again next year, it will pass.” And it sure did, just as Barrett predicted.
That was my first look at the underbelly of college athletics, and as we all know 50 years later that underbelly can now fit inside an elephant. Kupec believed that, with one more season of college experience, he would have been drafted by the NFL. Instead, he went to UNC law school, which he certainly could have done eventually.
But thanks to the certain members of the ACC, it was his only option.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/14/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USA Today Sports/Brett Davis
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Underbelly appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Ro-ry! Ro-ry! The echoes rang out from Quail Hollow.
The Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte had the right sounds due to the guy who was causing them, its adopted son.
Northern Irishman, and now Florida resident, Rory McIlroy, thrilled the crowd with his eight-under-par stretch over eight holes to run away from Xander Schauffele, the fourth-ranked player in the world, to win his fourth Wells Fargo title as one of the stand-up and honest guys left in professional golf.
McIlroy, 35, and currently the No. 2 player in the world, has endeared himself to the traditions of golf while pushing for improved members’ benefits to the staid old PGA Tour.
While old heads like Phil Mickelson and young guns like Brooks Koepka, fled for the money offered by the controversial Saudi-backed LIV tour, McIlroy stayed true to the tour that made him famous, bursting onto the scene in 2010 at 21 and winning more than a dozen tourneys, big and not so big, in his first seven years. When the tours announced a merger in 2023, McILroy said he felt like a “sacrificial lamb” and said he still hates LIV golf and hopes it goes away.
He will also be a strong favorite of the galleries in Louisville to also win his third Wanamaker Trophy at the PGA championship at Valhalla this weekend. That winning purse will be $4million, compared to the $3.6 million McIlroy earned at Quail Hollow that shot him to the top of the FedEx Cup standings, the sport’s professional championship at the end of the season.
Rory is a fierce competitor but keeps his emotions in check and has become a hero that the PGA tour needs with quiet winners like Americans Schauffele and the world’s No. 1 player, Scottie Scheffler. He has had his moments at a younger age, tossing a club into the water at one event and apologizing for it afterward.
“The support I get here is just tremendous,” Rory said, slightly embarrassed by hitting it into the water over the 18th green for a double bogey that still allowed him to shoot 65, the lowest round of the day in the five-shot victory, the second time he has won in Charlotte on Mother’s Day. He said afterward that he is a mixture of his mother’s gentle nature and father’s fiery personality.
Standing even par after 7 holes on the final round, McIlroy played the next eight holes in eight-under par, which included eagle 3s on the two par 5s.
Though he lives in the U.S., Rory continues to play for Europe in the Ryder Cup and several other tournaments against his American tour mates, including playing for Ireland in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Carlson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Favorite Son appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UNC has another chance to show the tennis and golf worlds what it has.
The Class of 2024 is graduating this weekend, but two of the Tar Heels’ nationally ranked athletic teams aren’t going anywhere. Women’s tennis, the defending NCAA champions, take another step toward defending their title, while the men’s golf team can climb that same pedestal.
The women netters defeated Navy and Wisconsin rather easily last weekend at the new Chewning Tennis Center and earned the right to host the Super Regional Friday against 13th-ranked Texas A&M. The match begins with three doubles at 6 pm, followed by six singles at their new home just off campus. The winner advances to the national quarterfinals in Stillwater, Oklahoma, next week.
Nearby at the refurbished Finley Golf Club, beginning Monday, the top-seeded men are vying to be one of five teams qualifying for the NCAA Championship, where they finished tied for third last year last year. UNC hosts 12 other teams in the Chapel Hill regional, from where five and the top scorer from the non-advancing teams will reach the championship in Carlsbad, California.
Last week, in the tennis regional, Brian Kalbas’ touted squad recorded his 770th career victory. He has built the women’s program into a true juggernaut behind a bevy of stars led by Fiona Crawley, who made it into the main draw of the U.S. Open last summer and will try to do it again this year.
UNC is looking for its fourth consecutive undefeated season at home with at least a 15-0 record. In COVID-shortened 2020, the Heels were 11-0 at home and went 17-0 in 2019.
Crawley may be matched up with Texas A&M’s Mary Stoina, teammates on the U.S. squad that won the Gold Medal at the Master’U BNP Paribas international tournament last December. Entering the Super Regional, the Tar Heels are 165-58 in singles and 54-6 in doubles. Tickets at the Chewning gate cost $10.
Admission is free at Finley (free parking is available at adjacent lots with signage.) The revamped par-70 course has been closed this week and is in pristine condition to welcome the top collegiate competition in the country. Spectators will notice that the old back 9 is now the front 9 with one new par 5 and two new par 3s. The Tar Heels are led by five All-ACC players, brothers David and Maxwell Ford, Peter Fountain, Dylan Menante and Austin Greaser under ACC Coach of the Year Andrew DiBitetto.
Hopefully, the weather will cooperate to showcase the $13 million renovation.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20051024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.v
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Show Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Reaction to Carolina’s latest recruiting is all over the map.
All interested Tar Heel fans know by now that Hubert Davis and his staff have struck out with the so-called “level 1” big men prospects they were chasing to hopefully replace the defense and rebounding of Armando Bacot.
UNC hoops has everything to offer qualified recruits – playing time, the prospect of joining a ranked team and on the biggest stage in the sport. Yet, the top targets went to other schools that, reportedly, offered more NIL money than Davis and Carolina could or wanted to.
The latest rejection was from Rutgers transfer Clifford Omoruyi, who according to sources close to the basketball program wanted housing provided for his brother and a hefty Bitcoin account because he is Nigerian and can only qualify for scholarship benefits in the United States. UNC reportedly offered Omoruyi more than a million bucks, but apparently did not match Alabama.
“Where are you going to get that money for a 6-11 man who can’t shoot or pass?” said one Facebook post.
“We don’t stoop that low at UNC. Winning is not everything. Quality players (Manek, Ryan, Ingram) have recognized our heritage and tradition and will again,” wrote a second poster.
“Carolina’s best days have come and gone,” posted another. “If this is UNC’s trend of thought about not making big NIL deals, then Carolina should leave the ACC and join the Colonial Conference where they can compete.”
“Is it not possible that a kid just wants to go play somewhere else? Yes, we have a richer basketball transition than Alabama. Does that mean we get every player we are after,” came another post.
And the retort: “Yes, it is possible a kid wants to play somewhere else. However, when UNC misses on every big man they spoke with, there’s an issue. And in today’s game the issue is likely money.”
“So now we have to rely on significant minutes from (Zayden) High, a kid who Hubert wouldn’t play last year.”
And, of course, “We beat Duke. Get off our page, we don’t need another loser.”
Next up, reported by several websites, is Van-Ellen Lubin, a 6-8, 230-pound sophomore from Vanderbilt, who averaged 12-plus points and 6-plus rebounds for Jerry Stackhouse’s last Commodore team. Though undersized, Lubin could be in the post-rotation with J-Wash and J-Wit and High.
Also a possibility is Illinois 6-10 transfer Coleman Hawkins, who entered the portal as he goes through the NBA draft process. As a senior, he averaged 13 points a game and shot 45 percent from the floor and 37 percent from the arc. Hawkins says he is “more likely than not” to play his fifth college season.
Stay tuned. More names, and comments about their decisions, coming.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Rutgers Athletics/Ben Solomon
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Comments, Comments appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Tar Heels and Blue Devils do not dominate the NBA like they once did. Carolina easily had the most in the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s – from Lennie Rosenbluth to Michael Jordan and dozens in between. Duke had Jeff Mullins to Grant Hill. Both bluebloods have continued to dot rosters through today.
Except, they are also a study on how popular pro basketball has become, from great players in high school to all-stars that are still playing the game. Barring retirements, Carolina will finish the current season with 13 players on NBA rosters, Duke with 24 and more all-stars.
With the 2024 NBA playoffs down to eight teams, Jayson Tatum of the Celtics and Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks are the best of four Blue Devils still playing. The Tar Heels had 12 before all of their teams were knocked out. Coby White and Cameron Johnson were the best of those.
Unless you are a true NBA geek follower, the best players in the NBA are either guys you have never heard of, guys you have no idea what schools they went to or guys who didn’t go to school at all. Some fans are already hailing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a Canadian who played one season at Kentucky who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder, as better than Tatum. Anthony “Ant” Edwards, who plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves, is being called the next MJ. Where did he play? Georgia.
Slovenian Luka Doncic of the Mavericks is one of many foreign players at the top of the NBA stats, the leading scorer averaging 34 points. Then there is the Greek Freak, Giannis, who is injured and his Bucks team is out of the playoffs. Serb Nikola Jokic is the NBA’s third-best rebounder for the defending champion Denver Nuggets, who’ve lost the first two at home to the T-Wolves.
The leading rebounder is Lithuanian Dom Sabonis who plays for the resurgent Sacramento Kings who were knocked out in the play-in round. The NBA assist leader is Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers after playing two years at – guess where? – Iowa State. The Pacers are going against the New York Knicks for a spot in the NBA Eastern Conference finals.
Did you know the Knicks have three starters and former national champions from Villanova, scoring ace Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo, who won three NCAA titles – one against Carolina – in the 2010s.
So my point here is have your phone in hand while watching the amazing NBA playoffs, go to ESPN and the box score of the game and click on the names of players who you are hearing but don’t know where they are from.
That’s the NBA of today.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/David Zalubowski
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Grab Your Box Score! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Looks like R.J. Davis and Deja Kelly will have a long-distance friendship.
The good news that Davis is returning for his COVID fifth season spawned positive speculation that Kelly would do the same for the UNC women’s team. After all, they arrived in Chapel Hill the summer of 2020 and struggled through the no-crowd COVID campaigns their freshman years, and since then have been identified as one of the best-known “Carolina couples” on campus.
One of UNC’s most herald recruits, Kelly entered the transfer portal and is moving 3,000 miles away to play at Oregon, where the Ducks must have plenty of NIL extras thanks to Nike founder and owner Phil Knight. Deja will also be a little closer to her family in San Antonio now that her new school is joining the Big Ten and will play some road games in the Midwest.
The geographic splits also shine an unwanted spotlight on Courtney Banghart’s team, which despite the head coach’s popularity among alumni and fans is now in the “honeymoon is over” phase of Carolina women’s basketball.
Banghart has retained some of her best players – as graduate All-ACC star Alyssa Ustby is returning to add to her records and honors over four seasons.
But there also were surprise transfers beyond Kelly, such as North Carolina native Kennedy Todd-Williams, who departed for Ole Miss, and Raleigh’s Anya Poole, who will be playing her fifth season at Clemson after her lowest scoring average (2.8) in 2023-24. Banghart’s roster has been in constant flux due to injuries, outgoing and incoming transfers, the latest being junior Trayanna Crisp from Arizona State and fifth-year point guard Grace Townsend from Richmond.
Entering her sixth season at UNC, Banghart’s program has a 96-56 record. She has a career mark of 350-159, including 254-103 in 12 years at Princeton, where her 2015 team went 30-0 and earned one of her seven Ivy League titles. She played at Dartmouth and still owns the Ivy record for career 3-pointers.
Banghart has led the Tar Heels to four consecutive NCAA tournaments, including a Sweet 16 trip in 2022. Her 2023 team finished 22-11 and was ranked as high as No. 6 in the AP poll. Last season’s team went 20-13 and advanced to the NCAA second round, losing to eventual national champion South Carolina in Columbia by the embarrassing score of 88-41.
Her record in the ACC Tournament is another dark spot for the head coach with a 1-5 record and never reaching the semifinal round. Despite losing Kelly and Poole, the 2024-25 Tar Heels do have a solid nucleus back, including fifth years Utsby and Lexi Donarski, in what looks like a pivotal year for Banghart.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Darron Cummings
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pivotal Season? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If the Omoruyi decision was NIL, UNC was never in it.
Carolina does not, and likely never will, play the NIL game like the majority of Power 5 schools. The Tar Heels have now lost every quality big man transfer they were chasing.
If it had not come down to that, Clifford Omoruyi would have had every reason to wait and see how the transfer portal settled for all the schools he was considering.
Alabama has a couple of big guys returning and Jarin Stevenson testing the NBA waters before making his decision. And although Stevenson hit five 3-pointers in the Elite 8 win over Clemson, he was shooting under 28 percent from the arc and had made only 25 of 90 for the regular season before his NCAA quintet. So he is likely going back to Tuscaloosa for his sophomore season.
Carolina was the only place Omoruyi could be assured of a position and playing time at a ranked program. At 6-11 and a two-time Big Ten all-defensive teamer at Rutgers, Omoruyi had Armando Bacot’s position and minutes almost assured with Jalen Washington and Jae’Lyn Withers coming back to fill out the two-post rotation.
The Tar Heels also have a bigger basketball name than ‘Bama and a regular weekly spot on ESPN compared to the SEC Network for the Crimson Tide.
So it must have all come down to guaranteed NIL money, which Bama put on the table and was ready to increase if need be after Omoruyi’s visit to Chapel Hill.
Reports are that UNC is getting better at NIL but still not as successful as schools that are doling out “pay for play” dough. Emails to T.J. Beisner, new NIL manager for Carolina’s Secondary Break Club collective, were not returned, so it is still unclear as to how Carolina hoops handles NIL. Obviously, not like the upfront money other schools are paying to enroll.
Carolina’s run to winning the ACC regular season and on to the Sweet 16 featured Bacot and Elliot Cadeau in national television commercials. That proved what the UNC brand could do down the road.
Despite three returning guards and a dead-eye perimeter shooter coming from the portal, the Heels are still without a rebounder even close to Bacot and very little shot blocking and rim protecting.
Maybe there is still some big man out there who wants to be recruited more of the old-fashioned way like Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/06/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Another Loss appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Charlotte Hornets should hire J.J. Redick as their new head coach.
Redick was a two-time All-American and national player of the year at Duke, despite being one of the most harassed members of the Blue Devils during a college career where he admits to almost bottoming out due to depression.
Redick played in one Final Four for a team ranked in the top ten for four years, and his missed shot at the end of the 2004 national semifinals loss to UConn still haunts him while at the same time he is glad he missed it.
He says that was the lowest moment of his life and considered leaving Duke after that season. He claims if he had made that shot and played Georgia Tech on Monday night (a game Duke would have certainly won), his life would have continued down the wrong path. With the help of his family, teammates and coaches, Redick went through intense therapy and returned to Duke happier.
That allowed him to deal with future disappointments, like losing his Senior Game to Carolina in 2006 after a record-breaking season when he made the most consecutive free throws and scored the most points in ACC history.
The 11th pick in the NBA Draft, Redick was a solid pro for 15 years playing for six teams. After retirement, he turned to podcasting, where he was so good he quickly moved to ESPN as an analyst and eventually broadcasting games. He did not combat the talking heads and earned the respect of Stephen A. Smith, who wanted a table-mate who he said was as smart as he was. Smarter, I think.
But the fact that he did not win an NCAA championship or an NBA title is pulling Redick back into the game as a coach. And he is a finalist for the head job with the Charlotte Hornets, who should hire him for these reasons.
Redick really knows the game and is a terrific communicator, which means he can handle the sometimes agent-driven stars of the NBA. With a net worth of $50 million, he would not have to worry about job security.
He has been away from North Carolina long enough that his reputation in the Tar Heel State has changed, and his familiarity and new-found popularity will be a draw in Charlotte and with most Hornets fans.
And, clearly, he is still uber-competitive and will be allowed to help rebuild a roster now that UNC alums Mitch Kupchak and Michael Jordan are no longer running the franchise and the majority owner.
Just as Redick is great on radio and TV, he would be just as good putting a staff together, teaching the game in practice and coaching from the bench. The Hornets have had a history of making bad moves. This is the right one staring them right in the face.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via ESPN Images/Gabriella Ricciardi
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Right Move appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
That makes three straight No. 1 NCAA seeds for Carolina.
It began with perhaps the biggest surprise. Hubert Davis’ third UNC team rebounded from being left out of the 2023 NCAA Tournament field, thanks to Armando Bacot’s return for a fifth season, R.J. Davis’ emergence as the best shooting guard in the country and welcoming transfer starters Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan and freshman point guard Elliot Cadeau.
The overall talent level went up, and if the Tar Heels developed better chemistry on and off the court they would return to the Big Dance. But few were expecting a sweep of Duke, the outright ACC regular-season title and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA West Region, where they advanced to the Sweet 16. The disappointment of losing to Alabama indicated how much they expected to return to the Final Four they almost won in 2022.
The hoop Heels began the postseason on a pseudo home court at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, where they ran off the 16th seed and then ninth-seeded Michigan State.
A month later, after winning their ACC championships, two other Tar Heel teams drew No. 1 NCAA seeds that came with the reward of playing their regional rounds on home grounds that are new and refurbished.
The defending national champion women’s tennis team gets to open its quest to repeat at the new Chewning Tennis Center behind the Friday Center just off campus. Brian Kalbas’ dynamic program has reached its 25th straight NCAA Tournament and is a heavy favorite to beat Navy (24-6) on Friday at 6 p.m. after Wisconsin and William & Mary square off.
The winners meet Saturday to advance to the Super Regional the following weekend, which would be in Chapel Hill if UNC wins and improves on its all-time NCAA record of 62-23.
The men’s golf team, which won its first ACC championship under seventh-year coach Andrew Dibitetto, gets to host 12 other teams and 10 individuals on May 13-15 at the revamped Finley Golf Club course as one of six NCAA No. 1 seeds across the country. Admission is free.
The Tar Heels are led by junior David Ford, who was selected for the second straight year to represent the United States in the Arnold Palmer Cup, an international amateur event on July 5-7 at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland. Ford also played on winning teams for the U.S. last year in the Walker Cup at the Old Course in St. Andrews and the World Amateur Team Championship in Dubai. Now we get to see Ford and his teammates at home.
And the ACC baseball tournament is still in sight for those Tar Heels.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Women’s Tennis on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: We’re No. 1s! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Two more unintended consequences of the transfer portal.
While the Tar Heel basketball program is waiting on word from Rutgers big man transfer Clifford Omoruyi, Tar Heel football got a surprise transfer it was not expecting until a few days ago.
Quarterback Jacolby Criswell competed for the starting position with Drake Maye in 2022 and after the season transferred to his home state university Arkansas. He announced he was transferring back to Carolina after playing in four games for the Razorbacks with three touchdown passes and no picks last season.
Did we even know that was possible, transferring twice without losing a year and returning to your first school (Seth Trimble did it, but never enrolled anywhere else)? It could have had something to do with Mack Brown saying at a pre-Spring Game press conference that “we need three quarterbacks.”
The grid Tar Heels have two good ones in junior Conner Harrell and grad transfer Max Johnson, for whom UNC is his third and last school. Both played well in the controlled scrimmage at Kenan Stadium on April 20, but Harrell had the edge while Johnson is still learning the offense.
Brown had an amusing anecdote about how his staff will know which players are leaving. “The portal opened on spring game day,” he said. “I told the coaches, if you walk by a guy at pre-game meal and he doesn’t look up and doesn’t speak, he’s gone. That’s just kind of the world that we’re living in now.”
Omoruyi’s world is international. The 6-11, 240-pound Nigerian would make a great addition to Hubert Davis’ latest rebuilding job. He played four years for the Scarlet Knights and has one season of eligibility remaining. As a senior, he played 27 minutes a game and averaged more than 10 points and eight rebounds, plus 3 blocks. Sounds like a good replacement for Armando Bacot.
But one reason it may have taken Omoruyi so long to decide is because he is not an American citizen and is over here on an education visa, which allows athletes to have a scholarship but not to get paid. So NIL can get tricky.
Kentucky is among the schools that got around the problem by hooking players up in Canada or other foreign countries where they got paid for their NIL, which seems to be perfectly legal if illogical.
We should know something pretty soon, as Omoruyi is reportedly visiting Chapel Hill Thursday to meet with Davis and his staff and the available returning players. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/05%20-%20May/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20050124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Rutgers Athletics
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Portal Madness appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Clearly, Kenny “The Jet” Smith is the point guard of Inside The NBA.
Smith was a consensus All-American at Carolina in 1987 and won back-to-back NBA championships with the Houston Rockets (during the two seasons his old UNC teammate Michael Jordan was trying professional baseball).
Smith may be the former basketball star with the lowest net worth among his two sidekicks, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, who leads the group with a net worth of $500 million. Barkley is next with $60 million. Smith reportedly is worth only $22 million, maybe because he has had two wives and three kids.
But make no mistake, The Jet is the straw that stirs the drink on the TNT pre-game, half-time and post-game shows for the NBA and college basketball during the NCAA Tournament. He shares the NBA table with Sir Charles and Shaq, and they all now make between $5-10 million per season.
Barkley may be the most popular with the general public because his average knowledge of technical basketball is far exceeded by his sense of humor and his sometimes-outlandish predictions. O’Neal is a serial tycoon of an entrepreneur with great wealth, and he is on to calm the waters more than crack jokes.
In short, Inside the NBA is a show full of highlights and hijinks.
Smith is the one that host Ernie Johnson turns to when some serious analysis is needed, and the still-in-shape Jet turns and jogs back to the big screen for video highlights that he obviously picks for the producers during the first half of each game because if there is a post-game show it is usually brief.
Barkley and O’Neal also have Carolina connections, but more minor than The Jet. Barkley beat out two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Jordan for the honor in 1993 when he played for the Phoenix Suns. And O’Neal supposedly committed to UNC in the spring of 1988 and shook Dean Smith’s hand on it before he changed his mind and went to LSU.
While O’Neal, the 7-1, 300-pound center, and the 6-6, 250-pound Barkley were banging bodies in the paint, Kenny Smith led the Rockets and Hakeem Olajuwon to consecutive NBA titles by controlling play as their point guard.
Smith usually says the least but what he says means the most, as Inside The NBA has won numerous Emmys and has no peer among the dozens of other pregame shows in college and professional sports.
All four of them have talked about leaving Inside the NBA in recent years, but each time Ted Turner and his network have come up with offers none of them can refuse.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/30/Art%27s%20Notebook%20043024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Warner Bros./Discovery Sports
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hoops and Hijinks appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
New England had quite the blowout weekend.
It began Thursday night on ESPN when Drake Maye was picked by the Patriots No. 3 overall in the NFL Draft. Maye has a few detractors, but my hometown is going whacko to land him due to his All-American look and his size similarities to the GOAT, Tom Brady. Maye even gave a shout out to rabid Boston fans.
In the fourth round, Tez Walker was drafted by the Ravens and Cedric Gray by the Titans, who play the Patriots in Nashville this fall. If Gray makes the roster, he could face Maye in a real pro football game instead of a college practice.
The Tar Heels just happen to play at Boston College on Saturday, November 23, so when the NFL schedule comes out maybe the Pats are home the next day and Mack Brown will take his sixth UNC team to see Drake Maye’s new team and cheer them on.
Saturday was a big blowout day for Boston sports teams, beginning with the Celtics bouncing back from a Game 2 loss to Miami by jumping on the Heat early and winning by 20. Full disclosure, I really like Jayson Tatum but I don’t love him and that has nothing to do with him being a Dookie. Granted Tatum is one of the best players in the NBA, but don’t you think he controls the ball too much when he gets it and takes some forced shots, some of them he makes?
Also, on Saturday, the Boston Bruins completed a two-game sweep of the Maple Leafs in Toronto to take a 3-1 lead in their best-of-seven and are drawing closer to possibly meeting the Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Canes lead the Islanders 3-1 with the fifth game set for Tuesday night at home. I’ve seen several Boston-Carolina games at PNC, and they have a fierce rivalry that flies under the radar due to geography.
And to top the New England week was the Red Sox blasting the Cubs Saturday by the football-like score of 17-0. In Maye’s game, that is two touchdowns and a field goal, but the team that is expected to finish last in the American League East for the third straight year capped off a weekend that could not have gone better for the town that will be looking to hang two more championship banners this spring.
And to end the weekend back home, the hoop Heels got the transfer they needed and were hoping for. Cade Tyson, a 6-7 forward who can shoot the lights out from downtown, has a chance to earn the position vacated by Cormac Ryan. The younger brother of former Clemson star Hunter Tyson gets rave reviews from teammates at Belmont University not only on the court but in the locker room, classroom and community the way Hubert Davis wants it.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20042924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Wilfredo Lee
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Boston Blowout appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Merrill Hoge sounds like he is still a little woozy from his football days.
Hoge is one of those social media ex-players who likes to be a contrarian. He is the guy who swam upstream against all the coaches and scouts in the NFL by declaring whoever drafts Drake Maye will fire its coach within three years. That team, the Patriots, took him with the 3rd overall pick.
If any of the other NFL experts saw Hoge’s posts and took another look at Maye, they all must have concluded that he is a little nuts after a concussion-ended career in the NFL. Still, the day before the draft, Hoge doubled down and said the same thing about the Tar Heel star.
Did Hoge actually watch any games that Maye played? If he did, he must have caught the three or four halves when the Tar Heels were not very good on offense, like the first half at N.C. State last fall. Carolina had lost to Clemson the week before when starting linebacker Kaimon Rucker broke the middle finger on one hand to join the list of walking wounded. Even Mack Brown said that before the State game, he “knew we’d get killed.”
For the record, Hoge was a big star at middle major Idaho State, where as a running back in the mid-1980s he set the NCAA record with 5400 all-purpose yards. Good for him, but does that make him much of a pundit?
Did Hoge even bother looking closely at Maye’s resume? In his All-ACC first year of college football, Drake completed 66 percent of 517 passes for 4300-plus yards and 38 touchdowns. He rushed for 700 yards and seven TDs. As a sophomore without his two best receivers from the year before, Maye threw for 24 touchdowns and ran for nine scores while quarterbacking the nation’s No. 19 rushing offense.
Besides that record, Maye’s 6-foot-4, 225-pound size makes him a prototypical NFL quarterback, a similar frame as Tom Brady with better speed and arm strength coming out of college. And it looks like Maye will spend his rookie season learning the nuances of the pro game under veteran QB Jacoby Brissett.
Maye has family and Carolina pedigree after star QB father Mark and All-ACC basketball brother Luke, who were all with the elated youngest son in Detroit for the draft before what looked like a million fans watching live.
The Tar Heels’ ninth first-rounder since 2008, which ranks third in the overall ACC, and UNC’s 10th quarterback drafted, Maye joins one the storied programs in all of sports, a six-time Super Bowl Champion under former coach Bill Belichick.
If Merril Hoge thinks New England’s new head coach Jerod Mayo will be fired after the 2026 season, I’ll take some of that action on FanDuel or DraftKings or in the local barber shop.
Hoge was heard, all right, and let’s not forget his silly proclamation.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/26/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_042624.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Lewis
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye Day Unspoiled appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Are you glass half-full or half-empty about Carolina basketball?
Those who have followed Hubert Davis’ roller-coaster ride as head coach are excited and concerned about the current offseason. To me, it doesn’t feel quite like the summer of 2022 after the Tar Heels’ surprising run to the NCAA championship game, and Carolina Nation was on fire.
With four starters back (losing Brady Manek), the expectations were bubbling about continuing their hot finish into 2022-23, especially when UNC was the consensus pre-season No. 1 pick. But after stumbling into some close losses, the Heels found themselves back on the bubble and eventually slid off.
They became the first pick to win the national championship failing to make the NCAA Tournament, an embarrassing and puzzling development that looked like both chemistry and coaching problems. After a roster overhaul, Davis assembled a team with three new starters and apparently the right stuff.
The high point was winning the outright ACC regular season title and earning a top seed in the Big Dance with R.J. Davis emerging as one of the best ballers in the country, ACC Player of the Year and Jerry West Award winner.
After losing old saw Armando Bacot and new sparks Cormac Ryan (for sure) and Harrison Ingram (who still has a path back), and the transfer portal and NIL inducements wide open, the debate over what Hubert will put on the floor this fall is a lot hotter than it was two years ago.
The only “good” transfer news so far is Seth Trimble, who entered the portal and – apparently not finding the right fit anywhere else – decided to return. Social media from his teammates welcomed the reversal. But it doesn’t necessarily solve the backcourt needs for more size and better shooting.
Even with R.J. Davis now expected back for a fifth season, Hubert Davis finds himself with the same undersized guard rotation. Incoming prep 5-star wings Ian Jackson and Drake Powell (both 6-5) are billed as so-so shooters. Thus far, there’s no answer for Ryan’s slingshot and savvy, or Ingram’s gritty grit.
The big woe for the glass-half-empty crowd is inside, where junior Jalen Washington and grad student Jae’Lyn Withers along with sophomore Zayden High are back to be joined by unknown 6-9 freshman recruit James Brown.
That foursome is not enough rebounding power to replace Bacot and still lacks a proven rim protector. Most of the big men Carolina went after are going elsewhere or leaning away from Chapel Hill. Schools with big reps and/or big money are making offers most kids can’t refuse. And like the season after outside threat Manek departed, the Tar Heels will be easier to defend with R.J. getting extra attention.
As the glass-half-full crowd reminds us, there is still some time to bring in new help and a lot of time to see what we have on the practice floor. So take a sip and hope for the best.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20042524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Thirsty Debate appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Two new facilities, two ACC titles. Any connections?
The UNC women’s tennis team, the defending national champion, won its first ACC Tournament title since 2021. And the Carolina’s men golfers earned their first conference crown since 2006. What do they have in common?
Well, besides being damn good at their respective sports, they have been practicing and playing at new multi-million-dollar facilities just off campus. And it looks like the money spent has been well worth it.
National Coach of the Year Brian Kalbas’ women finished their first full season sharing the Chewning Tennis Center with Sam Paul’s men.
It is a spectacular complex, with elevated seating for spectators behind both baselines of the hard courts, each with a digital panel keeping track of the ongoing match and the big scoreboard on the east end tallying of all the matches. It is a home worthy of the juggernaut Kalbas has built over his 21 years at the helm and the competitive men’s team Paul always puts out there.
In tennis, the 22-3 Tar Heels defeated No. 4 Virginia behind Elizabeth Scotty battling back from losing the opening set 6-0 and Reilly Tran winning in straight sets to clinch the title after three doubles victories.
The men’s golf team of Coach Andrew DiBitetto also shares a brand-new practice range with Aimee Neff’s competitive women at the Finley Golf Club, where the old holes 10 and 11 have been turned into long and short-range areas adjacent to the covered practice tees. In the process, Finley has been converted to 34-36 par 70 course long enough to challenge the scholarship golfers and is a fun layout for weekend players and hackers alike.
Peter Fountain, Austin Greaser and David Ford all won their respective matches to defeat Florida State for the ACC golf title at the Charlotte Country Club. It is the first conference championship for DiBitetto in his seven seasons. All five Tar Heels in the lineup earned points in the 3-1 championship match against the Seminoles and the 3-2 semifinals over Wake Forest the day before.
“It’s always about the guys, I’m really happy for them,” DiBitetto said. “They’re amazing young people who put some much into it. The ACC is loaded with some of the best players and teams in the country.”
Both the women netters and the men golfers move on to their NCAA championships, with the pairings for both teams coming out next week.
It is no coincidence that these two terrific Carolina programs used their new home courts and course to recruit great players and construct the best teams behind generous gifts from loyal Rams Club alumni and fan members.
That’s the common denominator between support and success.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/24/Art%27s%20Notebook%20042424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Common Denominator appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has some nice kids who are trying to get not-so-nice on defense.
Between the anticipated interviews of quarterbacks Conner Harrell and Max Johnson after the Spring Game Saturday, defensive lineman Jahvaree Ritzie strode into the press conference still wearing his uniform pants. The 6-5 senior with the pleasant personality gave some hints on how the Tar Heels will improve against the run this season after finishing 12th in the ACC in 2023.
Some of it has to do with new D-Coordinator Geoff Collins, the charismatic former head coach at Georgia Tech and, for Ritzie, elevated defensive line coach Ted Monachino, who spent 16 years where Ritzie and many of his teammates want to go – the NFL.
“You’ve got to give credit where credit is due,” Ritzie said. “Coach Ted came in. He’s coached a lot of guys and is doing what he needs to do with us.”
Monachino was promoted from analyst to head of the D-line after winning a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens and coaching the likes of all-pros Terrell Suggs, Khalil Mack, Elvis Dumervil and C.J. Mosely. After being more of a personal advisor in 2023, he is now the man Ritzie and his trench-mates work under every day.
“For me and Coach Ted, we talk every single day,” Ritzie said. “He just makes sure I’m good mentally because that’s where it starts for real. He wants us well prepared for each and every day. You can’t go play the game if your mental health isn’t right. So Coach Ted makes sure our minds and bodies are good, he makes sure our family’s good. And that’s been one of the biggest things I’ve seen with Coach Ted towards me, that’s what we all need.”
Ritzie is also looking out for 6-6, 330-pound junior tackle Travis Shaw, who limped off the field at the end of the spring game, but says he is fine.
“Travis Shaw, man, his work ethic has just taken off,” Ritzie said. “I’m really proud of Travis because coming in as a young guy, he had his ups and downs, but Travis is about to blow up this year and I truly believe it.”
Mack Brown also believes it is Shaw’s time to thrive as a former five-star recruit. “A times, he’s shown that he can be a first rounder,” Brown said. “He was doing so well two years ago when he got hurt against Pitt and that really set him back and then he missed the spring. But he is showing evidence this spring he can be a high draft choice. He’s just gotta do it all the time.”
Ritzie says it’s time for a deep defense with a bevy of young talent also behind Kaimon Rucker, Power Echols, Des Evans and Kevin Hester, to grow up and show up all the way down the line.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/23/Art%27s%20Notebook%20042324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Down the Line appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Ingram is gone but is Trimble coming back?
It sure seemed like Harrison Ingram would play his senior season at Carolina, didn’t it? He is a kid who was quickly beloved by Tar Heel alumni and fans. An obvious team leader with an infectious work ethic, a prototype we’d all like to get to know better even from the upper deck.
And while his late season play boosted him onto some NBA mock drafts, Ingram looks like an in-between player for pro ball. Not quite big enough to play inside, not a great shooter required of small forwards in the show.
Did he lose his chance to be remembered fondly as one of the best all-around Tar Heels, since most one-and-dones lose that gravitas a few years after they leave? But Ingram said thanks to everyone and so long in a statement to the bloggers, although there is an NCAA path for him to change his mind.
That’s another bad thing about the transfer portal: apparently schools cannot issue official statements about transfers leaving (or coming until they show up). So scuttlebutt on Seth Trimble permeated the weekend.
Trimble had issued an official statement to the media but has not made speculative lists of other schools. A native of Wisconsin, Trimble was expected to be linked to Marquette in Milwaukee or the Badgers in Madison.
Then came the new UNC buzz. And any mention of Trimble brings up the rumors on why he left in the first place. The since-removed post by his unhappy mother after Seth did not play much in the second half loss to Alabama? And what about R.J.?
It was believed that whether or not ACC Player of the Year Davis returned for his fifth season, Trimble was still leaving because he wanted to be more than a sixth man as a junior after finishing third in the ACC balloting for that honor in 2023-24.
Davis has not announced his plans, but the upside of Trimble entering the portal was to some people a sign that R.J. was coming back. Now, no one seems to know anything for sure, and a low-level panic is setting in because several transfers who strongly considered Carolina have gone elsewhere and the portal closes on May 1.
With Elliot Cadeau apparently playing one more year, the Tar Heels need better size and strength in the backcourt; what if it’s a bigger third guard that could result in Trimble perhaps playing even less than he did as a sophomore?
And then there is the NIL money that some athletes are expecting and some schools are dangling. Negotiations are going on, but without some oversight bad decisions are bound to be made in this new Wild West.
Here’s hoping Ingram and Trimble aren’t making them.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20042224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Going and Coming appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Coby White, you left us way too soon.
Remember Alec Jacoby White from Goldsboro on the 2018-19 Tar Heels? He was a one-and-done and the seventh pick in the 2019 NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls. White had to go, of course, but he was the poster child (19 at the time) for leaving us before we got to know him.
Now, the Bulls know him well in his fifth season of steady improvement. A starter at lead guard with the same big hair but now a thicker beard, White is a burgeoning superstar of the Bulls. At the United Center, they chant his name “CO-BEE! CO-BEE!”
That star landed with a career-high 42 points, eliminating Atlanta in the NBA play-in tournament. Tonight, the Bulls are at Miami and try to beat the Heat and get into the full draw as a No. 8 seed against No. 1 Boston in the first round of best-of-seven. Wouldn’t it be great if White could stun the Celtics something like No. 23 did back in 1986 (with 63 points against Larry Bird and Co. in game two at Beantown)? Yes, White is the first UNC player drafted in the first round by Chicago since Michael Jordan in 1984.
He is giving fans hope after the Bulls are on the brink of their second playoff appearance in three years, losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in five games in their prior trip. He has earned his way into the starting lineup, where he will remain a fixture around whom they will continue rebuilding their team.
Coby showed signs his rookie season, as the first NBA player born in the 2000s, when he debuted coming off the bench in a one-point win over the Hornets with 17 points, 3 rebounds and 7 assists. Three weeks later, he set a franchise record with seven 3-pointers in the fourth quarter against the Knicks.
At UNC he wore No. 2 and helped the Tar Heels to the Sweet Sixteen after they finished tied with Virginia for first place in the ACC and lost to Duke and Zion Williamson in the ACC Tournament semifinals.
He averaged 16 points and 4 assists a game and the pros saw the 6-5 guard as a future star. This season, his fifth in the NBA, No. 0 averaged 19 points, 5 assists and 4.5 rebounds as a starter in 78 games and playing more than 36 minutes.
He has much more game than in college, almost unstoppable when he drives, crosses over, penetrates, spins and scores in the lane. He averages just under 38 percent from the longer 3-point line. And he does it all with almost effortless grace.
Tune in. He is amazing to watch, and you don’t have to be a Tar Heel to appreciate his brilliance with the ball.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041924%20-%20FINAL%20UPDATED.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Nam Y. Huh
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Amazing Grace appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The pressure is gone, but the challenge is just beginning.
Over his last five years back at Carolina, Mack Brown has talked about being “that close” to reaching his goal of winning the ACC title and making the College Football Playoff. That hasn’t happened, and before the coming season Brown says his team is not in the conversation and knows it.
“They don’t like not being given respect,” Brown said. “They read everything. They know everything that I know. So I don’t have to say you’re not in the top 25. They know nobody’s talking about them not being in the mix. Nobody’s talking about you being in the playoff. You are not mentioned.”
The Hall of Fame head coach claims the Tar Heels have been right on the doorstep with two NFL quarterbacks under center. He points back to being 9-1 in 2022 and clinching the ACC Coastal Division before losing to 21-point underdog Georgia Tech at home and to State, Clemson and Oregon and finishing 9-5. Last year, they were 6-0 and ranked No. 10 before losing at home to a 1-5 Virginia and going 2-4 down the stretch. They also won seven games by less than a touchdown, so they might have lost more. Is that “being close?”
Brown has a roster filled with veteran players, but he is rolling out a new QB and has suffered enough injuries during the off-season to put his long-sought depth in question again going into Saturday’s Spring Game at Kenan Stadium.
“They do feel challenged,” he said. “And if you’re in the preseason conversation every year, you expect it. And when you expect it, then you have to handle it better than we have. We lost some games that I thought we should have won. And is that on the coaches? Absolutely. A hundred percent. Is that on our players? Absolutely and they’ve gotta step it up. It’s on all of us.”
The Heels do want to regain their relevance. “We are a team that they look at in the top three or four every year in this conference,” Brown said, somewhat lowering the bar from his hype that didn’t last.
He adds, “This team’s very similar in attitude to the team two years ago. The people don’t expect ’em to be very good, and they expect to be good. They’re kind of running under the radar ’cause you lose Drake. You lose some really good players and nobody’s talking about us. And that’s a good place to be. You’ve got a lot to prove.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Under the Radar appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
How about Drake Maye and Tez Walker back together?
Carolina’s spring game is Saturday afternoon in Kenan Stadium, where a brand-new quarterback and another who has barely played will be throwing to a mostly green wide receiving corps.
But somehow the 2024 season won’t officially be upon us until the NFL Draft the following Thursday, where there are several options surrounding the Tar Heels’ last quarterback and one of his best receivers.
If the pundits are right, Caleb Williams will be drafted No. 1 overall by the Chicago Bears, who have moved on from UNC’s Mitch Trubisky in 2017 and Ohio State’s Justin Fields in 2021. Da Bears think that Williams from Southern Cal by way of Oklahoma is their answer.
After that, it is fish in a barrel between Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels of LSU, national champion J.J. McCarthy from Michigan and Carolina’s Maye, who has no banners but a bunch of individual records.
Maye has gone from the biggest, best athlete and strongest arm in the draft to someone who one writer guaranteed will get the coach fired by the team that drafts Drake. Yes, Maye must improve footwork, but rookies are rarely ready.
If Washington picks Maye over Daniels, the Commanders have a position open right away after they traded returning starter and Drake’s BFF Sam Howell to Seattle. It might have been sticky if the two Heels were fighting it out.
Washington avoids that scenario of Howell the teacher and Maye the pupil. But most draft experts think the Commanders will take Daniels, who they say is better prepared for the option game of new head coach Dan Quinn.
At this point, it is not set. Most pickers say New England will take Maye No. 3 and give him a shot to beat out veteran Jacoby Brissett from N.C. State as the Patriots move on from the Super era of Bill Belichick to Jerod Mayo.
And guess who is on the board as Pats’ second or third pick but Tez Walker, whose controversial eight-game final season of his college career ended with both he and Maye sitting out the bowl game to get ready for the draft.
Walker has his critics, as well, saying his speed is great but his moves are not crisp enough for the NFL. Let’s see what happens, and then Go Heels!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/17/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Draft Buddies appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Finally, Tiger Woods has become a sympathetic character.
There is no telling where the greatest golfer of his generation would be today if he hadn’t sabotaged his own career while he was dominating the sports headlines for more than 20 years.
The one credit Woods can certainly take is expanding the game to fans and kids who had never watched a tournament before. That is how dynamic and how unusual his rise to fame was after leaving Stanford and turning pro at 20.
His net worth of $1.2 billion is more than twice what any other golfer has accumulated, winning his first of five Masters at 21, his first of four PGA championships at 23 and his first of six U.S. Opens and British Opens at 24. He was a good bet back then to surpass Jack Nicklaus’ career mark of 18 majors.
His armor began to chink during his six-year marriage to Elin Nordegren, the Swedish beauty who was working as a nanny for Tiger’s friend and fellow pro Jesper Parnevik when they met. They appeared to be a magical couple until the National Enquirer exposed one of what turned out to be many extramarital affairs, after which he won only one major over the next 15 years.
He apologized and said he “thought I could get away with anything I wanted to . . . and felt I was entitled.” Most of his fan base was forgiving as long as he could still thrill them on weekends during the golf season. His amazing Masters victory in 2019 signaled he was still among the best golfers on the planet even at 44 years old, but it turned out to be his last hurrah.
Even through a series of arrests for impaired and reckless driving, Woods didn’t do his career harm until that single-car accident in California in 2021, when he had to be airlifted to a hospital and, according to doctors, very nearly lost a leg and has had numerous surgeries and procedures since then.
It has been a continuum of medical rehabs, and watching him try to walk the sloping terrain of Augusta on a still-healing ankle over the weekend was proof that he will never win another major against the dozens of younger golfers for whom he was once their hero and inspiration.
Woods has kept his personal life as private as possible, and the happiest he looks on a golf course is when playing alongside 15-year-old Charlie Woods in father-son tournaments. From all reports, he is a loving, caring dad.
He is remarkably gracious to fans on the course, doffing his cap to them far more than he once did as the tenacious Tiger. Woods certainly respects the game and has become an advocate for the PGA and USGA; as his younger indiscretions also fade away, he may become beloved more than ever before.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/16/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/David J. Phillip
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Beloved Again? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina basketball needs more than lightning in a bottle.
Hubert Davis has established himself as the leader of a basketball program with what the Tar Heels did in two of his three seasons at the helm. But there was a lot of good fortune that helped him through his learning curve from a player, ESPN analyst and assistant coach.
Now, Davis and his staff have a chance to prove they truly know what they are doing with the entire sport in flux due to the transfer portal and NIL money that induces players to jump from school to school to school.
It wasn’t like that when Hubert got the head job in the spring of 2021.
The first of three significant transfers who did not come for money was Brady Manek, the fifth-year player from Oklahoma whose 3-pointers helped turn Armando Bacot into a rebounding legend at UNC. Manek’s accuracy supplied some big baskets that moved Carolina off the NCAA bubble and, with the help of Bacot and Caleb Love, all the way to the unforgettable wins over Duke and into the NCAA championship game.
Manek was succeeded by transfer Pete Nance, who had a decent season but never shot the ball as well as he had at Northwestern. Poor shooting was a big part of the preseason No.1-ranked team in the fall of 2022 not making it back to the Big Dance. Nance still made it to the NBA in a reserve role.
Coach Davis lost seven players and banked on two high-profile transfers, Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan. Hubert knew of Ingram from having recruited him out of high school before he chose Stanford. Ryan came with the resume of good outside shooting, defense and teamwork at Notre Dame. Both said that wearing the North Carolina jersey and all the exposure was a big part of it.
Throughout helping the Tar Heels to their first outright ACC regular season championship since 2017, the duo fit perfectly into a team that needed them to be as good as advertised, and they were. That they left their prestigious universities was more about playing on a bigger stage than NIL.
With the college basketball portal wide open and filled with hundreds of players wanting other schools, can Carolina catch that lightning like they did in 2022 and last season? With NIL pay-to-play rampant, UNC has its national reputation as a carrot, but won’t get into any big bidding wars.
Attracted will be players from mid-major schools, such as 6-foot-7 three-point shooter Cade Tyson, who hit better than 46 percent from the arc at Belmont. Several other players have been linked to Carolina, which is still awaiting Ingram’s and R.J. Davis’ decisions on coming back.
Playing in Chapel Hill is a big deal for almost any player, but the brand no longer means as much as bigger bucks offered elsewhere. Hubert and the Heels are using only the potential of earning NIL money during the process, so they will need a combination of good scouting, good recruiting – and good luck.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Mike Stewart
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Little Luck Will Help appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has to play another game of roulette with its quarterbacks.
It happened twice before in Mack Brown’s second stint at UNC, having a freshman quarterback beating out older guys to start the first game. For the 2024 season, it is graduate transfer Max Johnson and redshirt sophomore Conner Harrell.
In 2019, true freshman Sam Howell won the job from redshirt frosh Cade Fortin and Jace Ruder. In 2022, redshirt freshman Drake Maye beat out red-shirt sophomore Jacolby Criswell. In both cases a more talented but less experienced player started the first game.
Only this spring, the transfer portal is in full swing, and Harrell will have to at least consider leaving UNC for a school where he may play more if Johnson, with two years of eligibility left, wins the starting job for Minnesota on Thursday night, August 29, on ESPN.
“We’re eight days away from the portal on the 16th,” Brown said this week when asked about his potential dilemma. “And we won’t even play our spring game till the 20th. So we could have somebody leave the 16th and not be here for the game. We could have somebody tell somebody they’re going into the portal on the 20th, play in the spring game and walk into my office afterwards, ‘I’m outta here. I’m going to the portal.’”
Johnson has already transferred twice (from LSU and Texas A&M) so UNC will be his last school. Harrell will be the one facing the decision if he doesn’t win the job after summer training camp, when the portal will be open again.
The 6-5, 225-pound Johnson has started 22 games in the SEC. Harrell has started one game (against West Virginia in Mayo Bowl), but Brown says he is capable of being a good college quarterback.
“You try to keep an open conversation with them,” Brown continued. “And at the same time, we’re in the kid business, so we want what’s best for the kid. And like our past quarterbacks, we don’t know which is gonna start.”
Clearly, he likes both and their talents and says has been “dreadfully honest with every young person trying to tell him exactly what we see and where you stand here and if you don’t feel good about this and you don’t think you can change it, then let’s help you go somewhere else. We try to help every young person, and that’s some tough conversations, but it’s been good.”
Brown has an idea who his next quarterback will be if Harrell leaves or should Johnson get hurt, but adds, “We’re trying to get a first right now and trying to get two that can play until we get to a third.”
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Carlson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Quarterback Dilemma appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Here are five reasons why Seth Trimble entered the transfer portal.
The news has been met with widespread debate that runs from understanding the move to being blindsided by it. So here is my speculation on why the athletic, 6-3, 195-pound Trimble will be wearing a different uniform next season.
1) As an upperclassman, Trimble faced the possibility of again being a sixth man (where he finished third in the All-ACC voting for the honor). If not starting, most college basketball subs want to play more, and it is no secret that the Tar Heels need bigger, stronger shooting guards who, like UConn’s, are also physically imposing while setting screens and guarding man-to-man.
2) Trimble portal-ing could be a sign that R.J. Davis will come back for his fifth “COVID” season, which with the prospect of both Elliot Cadeau and Davis returning would leave UNC and Trimble in the same place. If Davis doesn’t return, the hunt for a bigger backcourt escalates.
3) When Cadeau reclassified last summer and announced he would be coming to UNC a year early, signee Simeon Wilcher asked for release from his letter of intent and received it. Trimble is a competitor and said he welcomed contending for more playing time at point guard. With two years of eligibility remaining, he has every right to think he might wind up playing fewer minutes.
4) Hubert Davis is reportedly looking for proven outside shooters in the portal, and if R.J. turns pro or transfers, the head coach would have even more reasons to recruit others who are proven marksmen. The days of UNC not “recruiting over” returning players are gone, because the personnel has become so fluid that coaches aren’t doing their jobs if they don’t look for available players who better fill a defined need.
5) Although Trimble improved his 3-point shooting to 42 percent as a sophomore, he is still known more for his defense and passing. And even if Cadeau shoots 100,000 three balls over the summer, opponents will still “lay off” him until he knocks them down consistently in games. That might indeed result in LESS playing time for Trimble behind a new, bigger shooting guard.
The angry post by Trimble’s mother didn’t help after her son (and Cadeau) sat for most of the second half against Alabama.
Parents can call the head coach, scream at him and storm into his office. But the one thing they shouldn’t do in this crazy world of social media is send out a tweet that puts their child, the one they love, in the worst possible position that turns a reasoned decision harder to explain for their flesh and blood.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Dakota Moyer
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Trimble’s Travail appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Let’s compare UConn to the 2009 Tar Heels, shall we?
Connecticut’s newest national champs broke Carolina’s record for average margin of victory in six NCAA tournament games. The Huskies beat their opponents by 140 points or an average of 23-plus points. In 2009, UNC won its six games by 121 points or an average of 20-plus points.
BUT, there are several “buts” that show Roy Williams’ second national champions were a better team than Danny Hurley’s.
UConn finished the 2024 season with a 37-3 record (18-2 in the Big East). Carolina, 2009, was 34-4 (13-3 in the ACC), entered the NCAA tournament ranked No. 2 and finished at No. 1 after stripping the nets in Detroit.
BUT, the Huskies had an easier road to and through the Final Four than did the Heels.
UConn played four ranked teams in the most recent Big Dance – No. 24 San Diego State, No. 10 Illinois, No. 19 Alabama and No. 3 Purdue for the title. That’s an average ranking of 14th.
The Heels of Hansborough defeated No. 21 LSU, No. 10 Gonzaga, No. 7 Oklahoma, N. 11 Villanova and No. 8 Michigan State for the NCAA crown, an average ranking of 11th, three higher than this UConn team.
Statistics show that Carolina put a better team on the floor, with senior All-American Tyler Hansbrough, junior ACC Player of the Year Ty Lawson; All-ACC guards Wayne Ellington and Danny Green plus junior Deon Thompson. Two seniors and three juniors.
Connecticut started a pair of All-Big East seniors Triston Newton and Cam Spencer, two sophomores up front, All-Big East honorable mention center Donovan Clingan and forward Alex Karaban. Plus All-Big East freshman swingman Stephon Castle. The Huskies aggregate scoring average for those five is way under UNC’s for 2009.
Both teams were obviously great, both went to back-to-back Final Fours and UConn won consecutive NCAA championships.
BUT, Carolina’s 2009 team was better, in my humble opinion.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/10/Art%27s%20Notebook%20041024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via USA Today Sports/Bob Donnan
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ’09 Was Better appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Fifty years later, UCLA of the East may have finally arrived.
When Maryland hired the late Lefty Driesell away from Davidson College, someone remarked that the Terrapins could become perennial national champions like John Wooden’s Bruins who were in the process of winning 10 NCAA titles in 12 years.
The theory was that if Driesell could recruit top ten teams to tiny Davidson, imagine what he could do at Maryland of the ACC, then considered by some the best basketball conference in the country.
Lefty said he liked that UCLA of the East pronouncement and didn’t dissuade anyone supporting his program from using it.
Driesell did sign great high school recruiting classes with the likes of Len Elmore and Tom McMillen, and in 1974 he might have had the second-best team in the country. The Terps lost the overtime thriller for the ACC tournament title to David Thompson and N.C. State, which went on to upset UCLA and then Marquette for its first NCAA championship.
It was the days when only one team from each league was allowed into the-then-not-so-Big Dance. The closest Driesell came to the Final Four was when his ranked Davidson teams lost in the Elite Eight to Carolina in 1968 and ’69.
UConn may be on its way to becoming another UCLA-type dynasty. The Huskies’ second straight national championship sets them up to have their own unbeatable entry.
Danny Hurley has entered the conversation as best coach in the country after a lifetime in the shadow of big brother Bobby and his father Bob Sr., known as one of the best prep coaches for many years.
The younger Hurley son rose from mid-major coaching obscurity to take over a UConn program that had already won four NCAA crowns.
Hurley doesn’t have one dominating big man like Wooden did with Lew Alcindor (later Kareen Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton. But UCLA did win five championships with teams that looked like what Hurley has created.
He is reputedly an excellent tactician, which is evident by how the Huskies play unselfishly on offense and hard on defense. And now he can recruit star high schoolers or transfers from anywhere by saying, “Come and help us win more Big East and national championships.”
His 2024 team was made up that way, with talented and tough kids who outclassed their opponents over the last half of the season. A great example of that is senior Tristen Newton, the MVP of the Final Four and leading scorer with 20 points in the 75-60 win over Purdue Monday night.
Newton is from El Paso, Texas, who starred for three seasons at East Carolina before he entered the portal and listened to Hurley’s sales pitch.
Newton is one example why it is hard to pick the best player on this UConn team, which has three starters back and looks to be the new Beast of the East.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/09/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Beast of the East appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Three of UNC’s favorite basketball stars were honored over the weekend.
R.J. Davis, already ACC Player of the Year and consensus All-American, became the first Tar Heel to win the coveted Jerry West Award for the top shooting guard in college basketball, an accolade presented by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame named for the legendary 14-time NBA All-Star.
His namesake, but no relation, the late, great Walter Davis was elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame for his silky-smooth career in Chapel Hill and as the all-time leading scorer for the Phoenix Suns.
And Vince Carter, the only active player in the NBA for four different decades, joined Sweet D in the Hall of Fame. “Vinsanity” began as an All-American at Carolina where he helped the Tar Heels reach two Final Fours.
The news about all three cheered us up during a bittersweet weekend when we had hoped the 2024 team would return to the Final Four after becoming UNC’s first outright ACC regular season champ since 2017.
R.J. finished his fourth college season with 784 points, the fourth-most at UNC behind all-time leader Tyler Hansbrough’s 882. Davis led the ACC in scoring and set the school record with 113 three-pointers made. He also holds Carolina’s highest free-throw percentage (.858). A nominee for National Player of the Year, Davis is currently deciding whether to take his COVID season like teammates Armando Bacot and Leaky Black did over the last two years and return for the 2024-25 campaign.
Walter “Sweet D” Davis, Hubert’s uncle, has been among the most beloved players in Tar Heel history. He scored 19,521 points in the NBA and 1,863 at UNC. Millions of fans remember his All-ACC senior season when he returned to play in the 1977 NCAA tournament with a broken first finger on his shooting hand and, to show their solidarity, fans tied two fingers together with a light blue ribbon all the way to the Final Four and NCAA championship game in Atlanta.
Like Walter Davis, Carter played for Hall of Fame coach Dean Smith and like “Sweet D” in 1978 went on to be NBA Rookie of the Year (1999). Both won Olympic Gold Medals. Carter totaled 25,728 points and made more than 2,000 three-point shots in the NBA playing for eight teams. He also did so much for Carolina off the court. The generous highflyer donated the money to build Letterman’s Way between Koury Natatorium and the Smith Center lined with plagues that have every UNC basketball letterman engraved.
Three sensational players were honored while we all spent the Final Four weekend with heavy hearts.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Triangle of Tar Heels appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
N.C. State has a rare big moment on the biggest stages.
I went to my one Hurricanes hockey game each year, as my friend from New England Chip Hughes takes me when the Boston Bruins come to town. Each time I go to the PNC Arena, I am amazed at what a great facility it is and how rabid their fans are for professional hockey and college basketball.
The Canes are a favorite this season to win the Stanley Cup, which would be their second after the franchise survived a tough move from Hartford, Connecticut.
That Lord Stanley’s Cup was hoisted in 2006, which was decades after the State men’s basketball team won their two NCAA championships.
Early in the Canes’ 4-1 loss to the Bruins, the picture of the Wolfpack men and women who are in their respective Final Fours drew a large roar when it appeared on the giant video boards.
What an amazing accomplishment for Kevin Keats and women’s coach Wes Moore. The fans of UConn are used to that double play, but State is the second school in the ACC besides Duke to ever do that in the same year.
I also wondered about the State men who are mostly transfers playing their last year of college basketball, catching lightning in a bottle for a program with veterans D.J. Burns and D.J. Horne that will have to rebuild again after this season.
How has the State program not been better than that?
Besides playing in a state-of-the art building, the men have a rich history that goes all the way back to David Thompson and the 1974 national champions and nine years later to Jimmy V ‘s NCAA Cardiac Pack.
State is clearly making a move in football, but playing basketball in the tradition-rich ACC should be easier to compete for conference and national honors.
The Carolina-Duke rivalry has dwarfed UNC-State in the interceding 50 years. The Pack has had five coaches since the late Valvano, who despite the trouble he got into at the end of his tenure is still the standard.
Finally, Keatts has pulled a rabbit out of the hat with the historic late-season run. But, win or lose in Arizona, State has a chance to build on this exciting experience so the Pack might be able to do it again rather than slipping back into mediocrity now that the two DJ’s have turned the table in the right direction.
State has a chance to beat Purdue in the men’s semifinals in Phoenix, but whoever wins that game will be a serious underdog against defending NCAA champ UConn, the only school whose men own five national championships but have had more than twice that success with their women.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/LM Otero
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The State of Things appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has already set a precedent when it comes to R.J. Davis.
We are waiting patiently (maybe with bated breath) about Davis’ future plans: will the reigning ACC Player of the Year and consensus All-American take his fifth “COVID” season and return to UNC, a la Armando Bacot and Leaky Black?
Hubert Davis has been meeting with his players, and the head coach keeps all of that confidential until decisions are made. But Tar Heel fans are already comparing the situation with that of football star Drake Maye.
Yes, it is another sport, and COVID did not come into play with Maye, who elected to remain at UNC for his third year (and second active season) amid reports that some major universities were waving hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars at Maye to transfer with an NIL bonus.
R.J. Davis has a separate set of circumstances. He arrived as part of the highly-touted freshman class of 2020 and played alongside Caleb Love in mostly empty gyms during the COVID-affected 2021 season. While entrenched as a starter, Davis entered his senior year without All-ACC preseason recognition, but was so good that he gradually became a national name.
Maye has a different, if not more distinguished, relationship with UNC. Father Mark Maye starred for Dick Crum teams in the 1980s; his mother met Mark when they were students in Chapel Hill. Two older brothers, Luke an-All ACC star and Beau a walk-on, were Carolina basketball athletes. He professed love for his school and even as ACC Player of the Year as a freshman maintained he would not consider NIL offers from other universities.
Still, some wealthy alumni wanted to show their appreciation toward Maye and his family and came up with a $1 million-plus NIL payment as a gesture of goodwill for staying. After another great season as a sophomore, Maye opted out of the bowl game and declared for the NFL draft.
Will Carolina, or prominent alumni, do the same for R.J. Davis as he decides between turning pro and/or receiving feelers from other schools that can pay athletes six or seven figures to enter the portal and sign with one of them?
The 6-foot Davis does not have the same prospects as a future pro and would likely have to make an NBA team as a free agent. But he has already proven his superstardom on the college level.
So will he take the guaranteed money from another school or decide to play professionally here or in Europe? Even with many NCAA rosters in flux heading into next season, the most college cash may be his best bet.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye to R.J. appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Why women’s basketball is gaining popularity on the men’s game.
It is really simple: the women’s game is getting more accepted every season by doing what the men did all these years, or until one-and-dones, the transfer portal and NIL came along to completely change it.
The proof was revealed Tuesday night when ratings came out on the NCAA Elite Eight game between LSU and Iowa. More than 12 million viewers tuned into the highly anticipated women’s rematch of the fiery game last season between Angel Reese and the Tigers and Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes.
The audience peaked at 16.1 million viewers, boosting women’s basketball more than 127 percent from the 2023 tournament, and they haven’t even played their Final Four yet. It was ESPN’s highest viewership for any basketball game since the 2018 NBA Eastern Conference finals.
The women have established stars who are the greatest players in their game, like Clark and UConn’s Paige Bueckers, who will square off in the prime time Final Four game Friday night after South Carolina and N.C. State in the first game. Clark had 41 points including nine 3-pointers in the win over LSU in which Reese played most of the game with a sprained ankle. Bueckers missed an entire season recovering from knee surgery and stayed in school to play again.
That’s the difference between the men’s game, which has great players who are unknown because they have bounced around in the transfer portal and through so-called NIL sponsorships that are really illegal pay for play.
We can thank Purdue’s Zach Edey, the 7-foot-4 center who has stayed all four years and is the sentimental favorite to win the Boilers first national championship, and N.C. State phenom D.J. Burns, a virtual unknown until his distinctive style emerged in the ACC and NCAA tournaments.
Burns transferred to State from Winthrop College after attending Tennessee as a freshman and has a uniquely skilled inside game that has caught the country by storm. A 6-9, 275-pounder, Burns has a personality to match his skill set and also plays three instruments: the tuba, piano and sax.
This is the last college season for Edey and Burns, further hurting a sport where the rosters are in constant turnover and players don’t stay long enough to get famous beyond their own fan bases. The women have far more stability of their stars and its NCAA tourney is exclusively on ESPN, which promotes the heck out of it.
The men’s game will settle down in a few years once Congress or the NCAA get a grip on NIL and the portal, but a large portion of the general public has lost its interest.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/03/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Hans Pennink
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Women Rising appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
R.J. Davis is not alone in elimination game misses.
So many things went right for Alabama and wrong for Carolina to not advance to the Elite Eight versus Clemson, which the Tar Heels would have been favored to beat and move on to the Final Four.
Davis, regrettably, had the worst shooting game of the season and perhaps his career, Alabama’s Grant Nelson had his best game for the Crimson Tide and the Heels only lost by two points after leading by three with 1:32 left on R.J.’s last of eight free throws.
Davis remains one of UNC’s greatest players wherever he suits up next season. He is part of an infamous legacy of Tar Heel shooting guards who had poor games from the 3-point line in NCAA Tournament losses.
In the 1991 Final Four, for example, All-ACC wing Rick Fox shot 5 for 22 and 0-7 from the 3-point line in the loss to Roy Williams’ Kansas Jayhawks. That was the year WE were favored to play UNLV for the national championship but had to stay in Indianapolis and watch Duke beat both Vegas and Kansas for its first NCAA title.
Contrast that with 1993, when Donald Williams sent his jersey into the rafters by earning Final Four MVP after making 10 of 14 long balls in victories over Kansas and Michigan, when the Heels made 71 and 46 percent from the arc in New Orleans, where Dean Smith won both of his NCAA titles.
It went back the other way in 1995, when the team’s best outside shooter that season, Dante Calabria, went 0-7 on triples while the rest of the team hit 10 for 21 in the semifinal loss to Arkansas at the Seattle Kingdome. In 1997 back in Indianapolis, Vince Carter and Shammond Williams went 2 for 15 from the 3-point line in the semifinal loss to eventual national champion Arizona.
Probably the most infamous occurred the following season, Bill Guthridge’s first as head coach and the first of his two Final Fours. Guthridge had a rotating starting lineup of Antawn Jamison, Carter, Williams, Ed Cota, Ademola Okulaja and Makhtar Ndiaye, whose turn it was to start against Utah and Shammond’s turn to come off the bench. Going into the game, Williams had easily fired a team high of 191 attempts from the arc and made better than 40 percent of them. But against the Utes, he went 1 for 9 and 2 for 12 overall for the favorite to win the NCAA championship at the cavernous Alamodome in San Antonio.
A more pleasant note to end on was Roy Williams’ last of three NCAA crowns in 2017 when ACC Player of the Year Justin Jackson, the last from UNC before R.J., went 0-for-9 from outside but made 6 of his 10 other shots in the 71-65 win over Gonzaga in, yep, Phoenix.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/02/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Shooters’ (Bad) Luck appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina and Duke now have something else in common.
They are two great schools eight miles apart with successful athletic departments and great basketball programs. Even their opposites enhance their rivalry. Large versus small. Public versus private. The Dean Smith-Roy Williams-Hubert Davis tree to one mega Mike Krzyzewski and his protégé Jon Scheyer.
They both had the chance stop N.C. State from getting to the Final Four for the first time in 41 years. You know how many Final Fours the two blue bloods have reached since 1983? Twenty-five, 12 for UNC, 13 for Duke.
Both were trying to get back there this season, and they had their chances.
They each could have knocked the Wolfpack out of the NCAA Tournament; the Tar Heels by winning the ACC championship game and denying State the automatic NCAA bid, but lost decisively. The fourth-seeded Blue Devils were even worse in the South Region Elite 8 game against the 11th seeded Pack, the 15th time Duke has lost in the tournament to a team seeded at least four spots lower. That’s the most in NCAA history.
Kevin Keatts was on his way out the door, but by winning the ACC tournament got a $200,000 raise and two more years on his expiring contract. He should make small donations to Carolina and Duke, which blew a first-half lead and fell to resurgent State for a second time in three weeks.
The Wolfpack has an entire lineup of graduate students and/or transfers, and most of them will be gone after next weekend’s action in Glendale, Arizona. Carolina and Duke can both say, “They’re losing everybody so let them have their one Final Four. And it won’t happen again.”
Not so fast, in this NIL-transport portal world of college athletics, where State had players who have been to one or two other schools before arriving in Raleigh. So what is keeping Keatts, with at least two new trophies for his glass cases, to reload?
You can say they will never have another big man like D.J. Burns, who plays like the Big Friendly Giant with Cinderella toes. There may never be a player quite like Burns, but there are dozens of big men in the portal. And they will all see State in the Final Four and answer Keatts’ calls.
N.C. State has taken its lumps on the hardcourt from both Triangle rivals in the last 30 years. Roy Williams was 34-5 against the Pack. Coach K wasn’t quite that good. State and Burns will be the big story in the desert and won’t have to share the limelight with either neighbor.
The Tar Heels are busy trying to figure out who will be on their 2024-25 roster, and the Blue Devils have to determine who is staying or going to make room for another 5-star freshman class.
Congratulations, N.C. State!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/04%20-%20April/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20040124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Tony Gutierrez
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Helpful Neighbors appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It couldn’t possibly have ended this way.
Not only did we not get the Arizona-Carolina match-up in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, the two protagonists of the tale had the worst shooting games of the season and maybe their college careers.
Caleb Love and R.J. Davis, the former three-year backcourt, combined to shoot 9 for 38 and an astounding 0 for 18 from the 3-point line, as their teams lost in upsets to end their seasons and perhaps both of their college careers.
Clemson led for all but a few minutes in proving it is perhaps the best team in the ACC, and if the Tigers win Saturday night will be a deserving participant in Phoenix after their first visit to the regional final in 44 years.
Carolina’s 89-87 loss was almost inexplicable after two halves that could not have been more disparate, leading Alabama by eight points after Davis missed the front end of a one-and-one that he makes almost 90 percent of the time. It could have been an omen, as the Heels looked unprepared for the defensive and offensive changes the Tide rolled out in the second half.
Bama’s long and athletic lineup ramped up its top 100 defense and turned a 53 percent shooting team into one that made a season-low 10 of 40 in the second half. And the early 62 percent 3-point shooters (10 of 16, four by Cormac Ryan) went 2 for 16 with R.J. missing the last six of his 9 whiffs on the night.
The Heels may have become overconfident by their gallant play in the see-saw first half, when they led by 10 points and then fell behind by 5 only to finish the period with an 11-2 run. Their advantage was whittled down and eventually lost as the teams exchanged the lead six times toward the end.
There were key gaffes that can make a difference in such a close game. Besides Davis’ uncharacteristic misfires, Armando Bacot clunked a dunk and Jae’Lyn Withers back-rimmed a long 3-pointer with one minute left when UNC was holding a perilous one-point lead and needed a higher-percentage shot.
The Tide’s Grant Nelson, a lanky transfer from North Dakota State, scored 13 points in the last seven minutes as Bacot and Withers could not stop him around the basket. Bama wound up shooting 48 percent and made 11 of 26 3-pointers compared to UNC’s reversal to hitting 39 percent for the game.
Davis attacked the basket and scored six points in an 8-0 run that gave Carolina its last lead. But the Heels could not stop Bama’s 7-2 run that stole the victory over the final 36 seconds. A sad ending to a great season.
R.J. and AB are already among UNC’s best players ever, with records galore, and they will be remembered for that more than this last loss.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/29/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_032924.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sad Ending appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Oh, the Hollywood Stories the Sweet Sixteen can tell.
The third round of the NCAA Tournament, known to college basketball fans everywhere as the Sweet Sixteen, leads off the East-West bracket tonight whose winners will face each other on NCAA Final Four Saturday in Phoenix.
Clemson-Arizona tips off the West Region semifinals at just after 7 p.m. at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, formerly the Staples Center. This opener is an intriguing match-up because it would yield one of the teams in two possible games that Carolina fans are already talking about.
If Arizona wins, we’re halfway to the Elite Eight featuring former Tar Heel Caleb Love, who left UNC after an uneven 2023 season, resurfaced in Tucson and emerged as the last basketball Player of the Year in the Pac 12 Conference as we know it. Love led the Wildcats in scoring with an 18.1 average.
Arizona is one of eight schools leaving the Pac 12, joining Arizona State in the Big 12 after UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington (to the Big Ten) began the collapse followed by Cal and Stanford (ACC). The marquee match-up, of course, would be if Arizona played for a spot in the Final Four against UNC and ACC Player of the year R.J. Davis, the former backcourt mate of Love.
But, say, Clemson upsets the ‘Cats. That would present a less sexy Elite Eight but guarantee the ACC a spot in the Final Four if Carolina won the second game. The ACC has four teams in the Sweet Sixteen (Duke and N.C. State), more than any other conference after getting only five bids on Selection Sunday.
The worst match-up for everyone except in two states (especially CBS) would be Clemson winning and Alabama upsetting the Tar Heels in the second game. That would certainly attract the football fans from both schools.
If the oddsmakers are right, it will be Arizona and Carolina on Saturday for a trip to the Final Four between schools that have a combined 25 (21 for UNC) and seven NCAA championships (six for the Heels).
Both semifinals in the West should be close. Clemson is vastly underrated by most pundits but has a tough, versatile team led by All-ACC forward P.J. Hall and outstanding coach Brad Brownell. The Tigers knocked Baylor out in the second round, just as Carolina did to the Bears in 2022.
Alabama has one of the best offenses in college basketball and one of the worst defenses, No. 4 and No. 101 by KenPom. Carolina is the 16th best offense and the No. 6 defense. The Crimson Tide will try to contain Davis and Armando Bacot, while the Tar Heels must do the same with 6-1 senior guard Mark Sears, who averages 21.5 points per game and shoots 44 percent from 3-point range.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20-%20032824%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ashley Landis
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Best of the West appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Drake Maye is suddenly all over the NFL map.
Maye may still be drafted early in the first round this April, but a few pro football pundits are debating how good he will be as a rookie and how long it will take him to become the so-called franchise quarterback.
The Carolina star has been projected as among the top three picks in the draft, and perhaps the second QB selected behind Southern Cal’s Caleb Williams. Now USA Today is speculating that Maye might fall out of the top ten and below J.J. McCarthy, the leader of Michigan’s national champions, in the quarterback-rich draft.
Anything can happen all the way up to the picks being announced by Commissioner Roger Goodell, and Maye is still the draftee of choice by New England with the third overall pick. Maye did not fully participate in the NFL combines, which is always a controversial position to take.
Every metric imaginable is used to rate the prospects, and the talk about Maye’s faulty footwork has been on the table for months now. Few teams question his arm strength and his 6-4 size, but some doubt his accuracy after his completion percentage dropped from his red-shirt freshman to his sophomore years.
Of course, those true analysts recognize that Maye lost top receivers Josh Downs and Antoine Green between his first and second seasons. The fact is that Maye’s supporting cast in 2023 was rated among the worst for the top six college quarterbacks in the country, and he still threw for 3,608 yards and 24 touchdowns.
The mixed reviews on the Tar Heel hero have led some teams to consider trading up or down in order to get the quarterback they need. For example, the Minnesota Vikings are now in the news about the moves they could make to draft Drake.
Media in Minnesota are calling Maye an “athletic playmaker with A-plus arm talent and mobility who is a perfect fit for the Vikings,” who must think they have to trade up one of their two first-round picks for a chance to land him.
The fact that UNC alums Mitch Trubisky and Sam Howell have not established themselves as QBs to keep around the league may also be raising doubts about Maye, who is seen as having more natural talent and/or size.
Trubisky was the No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft by the Bears but has been relegated to journeyman status with his three other teams since then. And Howell, once a first-round projection, became too much of a runner his junior year and thus fell to the first pick in the fifth round by Washington.
There are few sure-shot QBs coming out of college, even the biggest programs. The Panthers took Bryce Young of Alabama over C.J. Stroud of Ohio State by the Texans. Stroud led his team to the playoffs while the Panthers fired yet another coach.
Wherever Maye does get drafted, he will have to prove himself. But his combination of athletic ability, height and his bullet arm make him not one to bet against.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/27/Art%27s%20Notebook%20032724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/John Bzemore
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye A Mystery? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina has entered the NIL world through the front door.
Since Name-Image-Likeness hit college athletics like a surprise tsunami, UNC has not been at the forefront of ways for athletes to earn income beyond what is allowed through athletic scholarships. Until now.
Mack Brown was first to openly complain about what was supposed to be illegal in NIL, the paying of players to come as freshman or through the transfer portal. Carolina’s policy is not to pay athletes up front, which puts it at a disadvantage because so many schools are doing just that to sign kids.
But the Tar Heel brand is big enough to make TV stars out of those athletes who have secured agents to help them line up sponsorships with businesses, resulting in the kind of publicity few schools have through NIL.
Armando Bacot is the poster child for that method. A graduate senior who took his fifth season and attends UNC’s Kenan Flagler business school, Bacot has a burgeoning NIL portfolio. The latest is a TV commercial promoting Intuit Turbo Tax that is all over the NCAA Tournament coverage.
He walks into a fast-food restaurant, almost elegantly, but the commercial is not for fast food. It is for Intuit, and Bacot makes an articulate pitch for their services at the height of tax season. While what he earns is private, it is not chicken feed for the player who, according to his family, has made more than a million dollars over the last two years through various NIL deals.
Elliot Cadeau looks super cool leading the UNC marching band in a Marriott Bonvoy commercial, another high-class representation for a UNC hoops star. Cadeau has been playing the NIL game since he was in high school, the first prep star to ink an international sponsorship with a Swedish company.
And most recently, Tar Heel reserve Paxson Wojcik is featured on a promotion for Skims, the product line owned by the Kardashians. He appears on social media and in print ads with five other college basketball players, among them Arizona (and née) Carolina star Caleb Love. Turns out Pax received some tips from teammate Seth Trimble who once modeled children’s clothing.
Paxson Wojcik for SKIMS. pic.twitter.com/aRJpZJABua
— SKIMS (@skims) March 19, 2024
This has helped raise UNC’s NIL profile, if not paying six- and seven-figure “signing bonuses” that aren’t tied to NIL like at other schools. So, through the Carolina brand that is stronger than ever, Tar Heel athletes are benefiting both financially and professionally by doing NIL the way it was intended.
As Hubert Davis’ team is back in the limelight, these NIL opportunities have happened almost organically for a school always in the national conversation for more than sports. It looks and smells a lot better than pay for play.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/26/Art%27s%20Notebook%20032624%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pay The Right Way appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Hah, hah! The ACC has four in the four Sweet Sixteens.
The ACC was relegated to “medium” space during the regular season and received only five NCAA bids, when two or three more of its teams that didn’t make it probably should have. At least N.C. State doubled down on its ACC Tournament championship that came with a guaranteed spot in the Big Dance.
Looking back, Virginia justified all the criticism after its inclusion in the original 68 teams, but more than completely embarrassed itself with the dreadful performance in the First Four blowout by Colorado State. Rumor has it that coach Tony Bennett is thinking of changing his morose offense into one more crowd-pleasing.
Now onto the ACC’s Sweet Sixteen Foursome
Call Carolina’s and Hubert Davis REDEMPTION.
Call Clemson’s and Brad Brownell DESERVING.
Call Duke’s and Jon Scheyer CONFIRMING.
Call N.C. State’s and Kevin Keatts SURVIVING.
The Tar Heels and Davis needed something to erase the memory of last season which soured the run to the 2022 Final Four. After that led to an overrated No. 1 ranking, the Heels set a record as the first such team not to make the following field. For a coach who engendered so much doubt to renovate his roster while he may have realized that over-praising his players who weren’t playing or producing lost credibility.
So it is safe to say that this season has been a quantum leap for Hubert and the team. Both on the court and off, he has built a fortress around the trust among each other. It is a joy for Carolina fans to fall for a team that, unlike some legendary predecessors, has moving roster parts. That Davis found the right pieces missing from seven transfers is a testament to his recruiting ability and character judgment.
Brownell is one of the most popular people in the profession and considered an outstanding coach. You can tell by just watching his teams play. That this is Clemson’s second Sweet Sixteen in more than 40 years says way more about a lack of support for the program than it does about Brownell lasting 14 years there.
Scheyer was replacing the most promoted coach in college basketball and inherited a program that had not quite lived up to its reputation the last few years of the Coach K reign. Winning the ACC Tournament in Year 1 was a springboard to a second group of highly rated players who have all improved throughout the season.
Keatts is the most amazing story of all. Unquestionably losing his job before the ACC Tournament, his Wolfpack pulled off a stunning 7-game run that has resulted in a contract extension and raise for the head coach. Though it took longer than it should have this season, the Wolfpack is a unique and formidable force.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/25/Art%27s%20Notebook%20032524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/George Walker IV
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 4 Out of 5 Ain’t Bad appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Tar Heels need to play harder, smarter and more together.
If Carolina doesn’t do those three things, its NCAA Tournament will be over at the hands of Michigan State, one of the toughest, most intelligent, and best-coached teams in the game. It’s what the Spartans’ surprising beat down of Mississippi State and UNC’s underwhelming win over 16 seed Wagner showed.
Elliot Cadeau needs to play better than in the 18 minutes Hubert Davis gave him. Rugged Jae’Lyn Withers needs a chance to duplicate his double-double in the 22 minutes Davis used him in his hometown. The team cannot depend on another double-double by Armando Bacot against an opponent with a frontcourt the size of Carolina’s. And R.J. Davis may be a consensus All-American, but he knows his is not a one-man team.
While the Tar Heels and Spartans have met only 16 times in their history, among them are some memorable games that alumni, fans and former players remember fondly or regrettably. The first is perhaps the most famous in the 1957 national semifinals where MSU led unbeaten Carolina by two points with seconds to play and a Spartan at the free throw line to ice the game in the pre-shot clock era. He missed, UNC’s Pete Brennan grabbed the rebound and dribbled 70 feet to hit a jumper at the horn to tie the score. The Heels won in three overtimes.
The Spartans came to Carmichael in 1978 with Ervin “Magic” Johnson, who invited star recruit James Worthy into their locker room after Carolina won, 70-69. Big Game James said, “thanks but no thanks” and signed with UNC.
The Heels won their Sweet Sixteen game in Greensboro in 1998 and moved on to Bill Guthridge’s first of two Final Fours.
When Roy Williams returned to Chapel Hill, his teams beat Tom Izzo’s Spartans seven straight times, including in the 2005 Final Four semis and for the 2009 national championship in Detroit, then in the famous game on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in 2011. Izzo finally snapped that losing streak in the 2017 PK80 tournament in Portland. The programs have not met since.
Izzo has won more than 60 percent of his NCAA games when his teams were the lower seed. That’s how they will take the court in Charlotte, the No. 9 Spartans versus the top-seeded Carolina in the West region.
Michigan State has no marquee players to match the pub of Bacot, R.J., heralded transfers Harrison Ingram and Cormac Ryan and flashy freshman Cadeau. All they bring to the game are gritty veterans with a lunch pail personality. The Tar Heels must be ready to get their hands dirty.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/22/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_032224.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Gritty Renewal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Beware, Wagner is a lot better than the team that beat Duke.
The Tar Heels’ first opponent in the NCAA tournament edged a Howard team in the First Four coached by former Blue Devil Kenny Blakeney, who must have heard jokes about that loss to Wagner when he played for Duke’s Final Four teams of 1992 and ’94.
Those Seahawks came to Durham on January 5, 1983, with a 2-7 record and had been blown out at UNLV by 50 points in their last game. The Blue Devils were 5-4 in Mike Krzyzewski’s third season and a group of “Concerned Iron Dukes” were already lobbying for his removal.
Only 5,500 fans showed up for the game, and the yet-to-be-dubbed Cameron Crazies weren’t exactly camping out in tents to get the best seats. They moaned through a very close game that the Wagner players felt like they could win. “We knew right away,” said guard Bob Mahala, who scored 25 points. “I thought ‘we can get these guys.’”
“These guys” included freshmen Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins and Jay Bilas for a program that had gone 10-17 the year before and would be crushed by Virginia and senior Ralph Sampson in the last game of the “Wagner season.” Of course, three years later, they won the ACC championship and lost to Louisville in the NCAA title game.
“We were all freshmen, we had just won three straight, and were flat in the second half,” Bilas said. “I don’t know if we didn’t take them seriously, but we were all still learning Coach K’s system and each other. Clearly, we weren’t fully prepared for that game. We didn’t take any opponent lightly after that. Tough learning experience.”
“He wasn’t Coach K yet,” said Jay Price, who covered the game for the Staten Island Advance. After Wagner won 84-77, Price said the Durham media really grilled Krzyzewski. “They thought this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be,” he said.
The team top-seeded Carolina faces this afternoon is a lot better, even though its record is 17-15 after the win over Blakeney’s Bison. The 16-seed Seahawks only have seven guys on scholarship, just one over 6-feet-7. Melvin Council, Jr. is their best player and had 21 points against Howard.
“To have the first NCAA tournament victory in school history, it’s huge,” said second-year coach Donald Copeland. “Huge for the school, the program and these guys, they have gone through so much to continue to build and continue to write their own season the way they wanted to.”
It was Wagner’s second appearance in the NCAA tournament, the first in 2003 just before Copeland played for Seton Hall in the Big Dance. “We’ll go down to Charlotte and do the best we can,” he said.
Of course, he could not compare beating Howard to the upset of Duke 41 years ago, since he wasn’t born yet. But if any of those ’83 Seahawks were watching on national TV, they must think it was at least as good as what they did.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/21/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_032124.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Dean
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘The Wagner Season’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Atlantic Coast Conference has reached septuagenarian status.
Let’s look at its five-year birthdays since it was founded for the 1953-54 college season.
Before the ACC’s fifth season, 1958-59, Frank McGuire hired little-known assistant Dean Smith, who would succeed him three years later. In 1964, Smith had his last non-winning record (12-12) of his famed 36-year tenure.
In 1969, 15 years in, Smith’s program won its third straight ACC Championship behind UNC’s first Black scholarship athlete Charlie Scott. In 1974, State won its first NCAA title with Black superstar David Thompson and white giant Tom Burleson.
In 1978-79, Carolina and Duke met four times with each winning twice. They could have played a fifth time in the NCAA East Regional before both lost second-round games at State’s Reynolds Coliseum, Penn upsetting UNC and St. John’s ousting Duke in what was dubbed Black Sunday.
In 1984, two years after Smith won his first NCAA crown, the Tar Heels again had the best team in the country with Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and freshman Kenny Smith, but lost in the Sweet Sixteen to unranked Indiana.
In 1989, Duke and UNC met in the long-considered most intense game in ACC history, the tourney championship in Atlanta where Smith and Duke’s upstart coach Mike Krzyzewski screamed at each other on the sideline.
In 1994, Carolina was favored to win its second straight NCAA title just as Duke had gone back-to-back in 1991 and ’92, but the Heels were upset by Boston College in the second round. The Devils advanced to the national championship game in Charlotte, losing to Arkansas.
The 1999 NCAA tournament ended badly for both schools, Carolina losing to Weber State in the first round and Duke to UConn in the last minutes of the national championship.
By 2004, Roy Williams had succeeded the Smith era by returning to Chapel Hill, where he had been an assistant for 10 years and then emerged as a star coach at Kansas.
In 2009, Williams won the second of three NCAA championships with a dominating team behind National and ACC Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough.
UNC’s 2014 season ended with a controversial 2nd-round loss to Iowa State on a timing issue that led to a new device where an official’s whistle would stop the clock.
And 2019 was Williams’ last great team, sharing the ACC regular season title with Virginia before losing to Duke in the tourney final and to Auburn in the Sweet 16.
And here we are, another five years later, and another NCAA tournament with the Tar Heels who are back in a familiar position as No.1 seed in Charlotte, which they earned by winning the ACC regular season for the 33rd time. They are 12-1 in NCAA games played in the Queen City from where they have advanced to the Final Four three times in the 70-year history of the conference.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20032024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Alex Brandon
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 70 Years in 5s appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Clearly, winning the ACC championship means more to N.C. State.
When the Wolfpack completed its historic “Five to Stay Alive” sweep in Washington, D.C., it gave State a long-needed basketball bullet that goes far beyond winning its first ACC championship in 37 years.
Carolina fans talk about beating Duke in Coach K’s Cameron swan song and again to end his career in the Final Four as “two games neither fan base will ever forget.” That is so true about that magic/tragic month of 2022.
The Wolfpack beating the heavily favored Tar Heels will remain part of the story forever after having been dominated on the hardwood by its arch rival for so long. A championship with a red cherry on top.
Tar Heels everywhere feel the sting of losing another ACC tournament but will have a far easier time getting over it with a good NCAA run, a prospect not lessened when the bracket was released the following day. Their team still got a No. 1 seed.
State’s epic accomplishment will finally put the ballyhooed Jim Valvano era where it belongs, in the past. Jimmy V beat Dean Smith in two wins that are part of the glorious State hoops legacy of the 1970s and ’80s, upsetting the Tar Heels in the 1983 and ’87 ACC tournaments.
In 1974, the Wolfpack of David Thompson and Tommy Burleson (two high school stars heavily recruited by Smith) won the ACC championship over Maryland in the riveting overtime thriller. State shocked nine-time national champion UCLA and then beat Marquette to win the school’s first NCAA basketball title.
Nine years later, after Valvano’s arrival, the Wolfpack made the NCAA tournament for which it had not qualified by upsetting UNC with Michael Jordan in the semifinals and then the next day stunned Virginia and Ralph Sampson to win the ACC championship in Atlanta. The Cardiac Pack beat Virginia again in the Southeast Regional final to reach the Final Four, where it blew out Georgia and survived Houston to win State’s second Natty.
Unless the 2024 State team can work the same magic, the legacy of this season will be winning five games in five days in Washington, capped by soundly defeating the regular-season winning Tar Heels in the championship game.
Carolina’s first two national championships were earned in dramatic fashion. The undefeated 1957 team upset Kansas and Wilt Chamberlain in Kansas City in three overtimes to bring home the NCAA trophy. The 1982 Tar Heels of Jordan and James Worthy vanquished Virginia and Sampson in the ACC final, got the East Region in Charlotte and Raleigh and were on their way to Smith’s first national championship in New Orleans.
Something for Tar Heel fans to ponder: Smith won a second title and Roy Williams won three – all as No. 1 seeds after falling short in the ACC tournament.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: State of the Rivalry appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Let’s engage in a little realism with the Tar Heel fan base.
Carolina returning to the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed is as astounding as missing the Big Dance altogether last season was maddening. The Heels won an apparent debate within the NCAA selection committee and sneaked into the West Region, where they are the fourth No. 1 seed.
That seems good since the East Region in Boston was once UNC’s landing space as No. 2 behind defending and favored-to-repeat as NCAA champ UConn. We can all thank N.C. State for playing its game of this century in the ACC final, I guess.
If Hubert Davis hasn’t told the team yet, he surely will that this is a business trip, not two easy wins in Charlotte before a few days at the Sweet 16 in La La Land.
And it isn’t an old-time’s sake reunion possibly with Michigan State and legendary coach Tom Izzo (and, by the way, its new president Kevin Guskiewicz). Paxson Wojcik’s father Doug is an assistant on Izzo’s staff and whom we know from serving with Matt Doherty for three years until that verdict was in.
Nor will it be the media’s adaptation of the LOVE STORY between last year’s UNC starting backcourt, whose divorce led to respective Player of the Year honors in the ACC and Pac 12. If they meet, Caleb Love’s Arizona will play R.J. Davis’ Carolina at the home of the Clippers and Lakers for a spot in the Final Four.
It must be a business trip because Hubert’s return to the Dance was seemingly as challenging as last season, after which Coach Davis let Love and six others transfer and reshaped through the portal and that good old COVID season.
If the Tar Heels do not make at least a decent run and get knocked out early, it will be due to one or two or three parts of their game that they never really solved in compiling a 27-7 record and winning the ACC regular-season title.
Fixing these three ways to win are:
· Be as tough or tougher than your opponent. Personally, monstrous Mississippi State looks way bigger and stronger than Izzo’s Spartans who would help the Heels by beating the Bulldogs from Starkville.
· Play defense like you mean it. Carolina is one of the top teams in defensive efficiency (according to the analytics geeks) but let N.C. State shoot 55 percent on supposedly five-day-tired legs.
· Shoot the dadgum ball in from outside. When R.J., Cormac Ryan and “Harry” Ingram are hitting somewhere in the 30s, the Heels usually win that game. But the offense stagnating into hard looks against the shot clock can be fatal.
It’s one-and-done time. Eyes forward. Be the best you can be.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/18/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image by Todd Melet/WCHL & Chapelboro.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Be The Best appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina is back in the national conversation with a new tag.
Jay Bilas summed up the Tar Heels’ 25-point blowout of Florida State on yet another ESPN broadcast. “They are an elite program with a blue-collar mentality,” said Bilas, the face and voice of college basketball.
With R.J. Davis’ 42 points against Miami, the ACC-clinching win at Duke and Thursday’s dismantling of the long and athletic Seminoles – all on the ESPN networks – UNC hoops is back in the eras of Dean and Ol’ Roy.
They have that “we’re Carolina confidence” and are playing at a physical level that matches the toughest teams of those two Hall of Famers.
Despite FSU’s impressive win over Virginia Tech on Wednesday, the Noles were denied all aspects of their game late in the first half by a 12-0 UNC run for a 16-point deficit at the break.
Bilas said the Heels “came out looking to take a swing at somebody, and FSU is on the canvas. They are not playing good defense, but great defense.”
All of Hubert Davis’ players were engaged as nine contributed, especially on the glass where the Heels just missed a school record with a rebounding advantage of 48-22. The Noles had 8 at the half and didn’t get to double figures until three minutes into the second half of a game that featured more than 70 missed shots.
Elliot Cadeau had 8 spectacular points with 4 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals and a block. He also had the unofficial stat for floor burns from going after loose balls that tore his white tights and drew blood.
“I’ve never played on a team like this,” said the uber-active Cadeau. “Everyone knows his role, and we really want to win this tournament.”
All the Tar Heels played so hard, so smart, so fast and so together – from Bacot rolling to the rim, to Cadeau on the floor and in the lane, to Ingram doing it all, to Ryan staying hot, to R.J. un-guardable, to Trimble playing both ends, to Washington’s important time on the court, to Withers’ stats per minute, to Wojcik always hustling.
Bilas concluded the broadcast by calling the Seminoles “shell-shocked.”
And one advantage of being the first seed is the Tar Heels had about 29 hours to rest and get ready for the first semi-final Friday night against punk-like Pitt that played its own brand of defense in surviving Wake Forest.
The Panthers will test Carolina’s manhood far more than the subdued Seminoles. The Tar Heels played at Pitt in January and won; if they advance to the championship game Saturday night, they could face Virginia, which they also beat in Charlottesville in their only meeting so far this season.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/15/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Manhood appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The 2016 season was the last double-dip for the Tar Heels.
It is ironic that this year’s ACC Tournament is in Washington, D.C., the site where Carolina last cut down the ACC nets after winning the regular season championship.
And, of course, it was also the year of Marcus Paige’s famous double-clutch 3-pointer to tie the national championship game, followed by a Villanova buzzer beater in Houston. The very next year, 2017, the Heels won their latest NCAA title in Phoenix, where the 2024 Final Four will be played.
Is the universe trying to tell us something?
The last tourney in Washington was one to remember for third-ranked UNC. It followed Carolina finishing first in the ACC with a 14-4 record, one game ahead of No. 4 Virginia and No. 10 Miami and two games ahead of 19th-ranked Duke.
The Most Outstanding Player in that tournament was sophomore guard Joel Berry, who the following year was the MVP of the Final Four wins over Oregon and Gonzaga. Berry is now part of the ACC Network broadcast team on the Nothing But Net pre-game, halftime and post-game reports.
The 2016 ACC tournament title was Roy Williams’ third at UNC, but his first since going back-to-back in 2007 and ’08. Here we are eight years later, and Hubert Davis is trying to complete his first such two-fer. It sure seems like a big game of what comes around.
In 2016, Carolina beat Virginia for the third straight time in the ACC tourney while posting a 14-7 regular season against the Wahoos up to that point of the Williams era. Those Cavaliers had ACC Player of the Year Malcolm Brogden and were less of a ball-control offensive and tenacious defensive team that eventually made their coach Tony Bennett famous.
The Tar Heels had lost to the Wahoos in Charlottesville during the regular season, 79-74, in a faster-paced game than Bennett preferred, and Williams was determined to play even faster in the tournament final. That didn’t happen. But the Heels stayed close enough to pull ahead late and win 61-57. Berry shot 3 for 3 from outside, UNC’s only three-pointers of the game while shooting 51 percent overall.
Berry, Paige and Brice Johnson combined for 44 points while Virginia got 28 from Brogden and Anthony Gill. Those five players made the all-tournament first team.
With Berry now watching from the broadcast table, the Tar Heels are trying to win both ACC titles once again.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/14/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Sports Illustrated
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: History Repeating? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The good news and, for us, the bad news about Elliot Cadeau.
The Tar Heels’ freshman point guard, as we all know, has steadily improved as the season went on to where he made the All-ACC Rookie Team. He was the preseason Freshman of the Year but had to gradually learn how to adapt his penetrating game against much bigger, stronger college players.
Cadeau has suddenly begun to appear on NBA mock draft boards in the early to mid-second round, where he was absent most of the season. As a five-star recruit out of New Jersey, Cadeau was considered good enough to perhaps go one-and-done, which he still may elect to do.
That’s potentially bad news for the 2024-25 Tar Heels, who could really use a true quarterback next season. A lot depends on how No. 2 performs on the biggest stage, the NCAA Tournament, where his stock could continue to rise.
The additional good news for Cadeau and UNC is NIL, which Cadeau has used successfully since his high school years, where his prep reputation was going through the roof before he reclassified and came to Carolina early but already as a 19-year-old. The 6-1 beep-beeper will turn 20 on September 4.
Cadeau was an all-sport athlete growing up until he decided to focus on basketball at Bergen Catholic High School, where he starred as a freshman but missed his entire sophomore season with a high ankle sprain. He transferred to Link Academy in Missouri as a junior, and also played in Nike’s Elite Youth League, rated the No. 1 point guard in the class of 2024.
Suffering from a congenital hearing loss in one ear, Cadeau can still hear the reaction when he splits the defense or, like he did at Duke, double-pumped and hit a clutch 3-pointer late in the game.
He currently is 8th in the ACC in assists and assist-turnover ratio.
His father is Haitian and an avid tennis player; his older brother plays college tennis at Howard University. His mother is Swedish, qualifying Elliot to play internationally for Sweden, and he became the first American high school athlete to sign an international NIL deal with Roc Nation and the Swedish drink Vitamin Well.
He also has deals with Leaf Trading Cards, Wilson Sporting Goods and another Swedish company, Flowlife. He has a No. 2 Nike jersey with his name on the back and a Carolina blue t-shirt with his adorable caricature, both selling around town and the state.
So, unless he is a slam-dunk first-round pick, Cadeau has reasons to return and play at least another season for the Tar Heels.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/13/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031324%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Little Big Man appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The journeys of the two Davises are amazing with a capital A.
After sweeping Duke for the outright ACC regular-season basketball title, UNC’s first in seven years, the Tar Heels received the two highest individual honors that voting members of the media bestow annually.
R.J. Davis was the overwhelming pick as ACC Player of the Year, garnering 68 of the 75 ballots counted. Duke’s Kyle Filipowski received 3 votes, Clemson’s P.J. Hall collected 2 votes and Davis’ teammate Armando Bacot and BC’s Quinten Post got 1 each. In basketball parlance, that’s a blowout.
Davis established himself early in the season as the best player in the conference, and his ascension continued from there. He made it onto projected National Player of the Year and first-team All-American lists.
He had not been named to the two preseason All-ACC teams, and if there was a third team he probably would not have made that, either. Understandable because R.J. was merely a good player coming into his senior year and benefited from taking over the shooting guard role that he shared with Caleb Love since they entered school together in the summer of 2020.
He led the ACC in scoring with a 21-plus point average, set a Smith Center record of 42 points and only twice in 31 games did not score in double figures. He was second in the league in field goals made and averaged 3.5 assists per game. That he will likely be first-team All-American is further testimony to his skills and teamwork.
And considering the narrative surrounding Hubert Davis when he began his third season as head man of the Tar Heels, his runaway selection as ACC Coach of the Year is astounding. Hubert was coming off a 2023 campaign where his team failed to gain an NCAA tournament bid after a preseason ranking of No. 1 in the country. He was popular but his future was under debate.
Coach Davis clearly had a learning curve when he took over for Hall of Famer Roy Williams, and how he flattened that curve over the third year speaks volumes for his dedication to and passion for his job, his ability to overhaul a disjointed roster, and his noticeable adjustment from overselling earlier teams to being honest while staying positive was a leap of maturity.
He earned the trust of his new recruits and blended them with the returnees, and his ramped-up emotion in practices and during games seemed to make the bond stronger. According to his players, Davis could be both fiery and fatherly.
Whatever happens in the postseason, and we all hope it is a long run, the two Davises are sitting atop the 15-school ACC, exactly where they belong.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/12/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Davis ‘Brothers’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Now, the biggest individual awards start coming.
With the regular season champions decided in men’s (and women’s) basketball among the Power 6 conferences, the highest player honors will be next. And while the ACC’s Player of the Year is a foregone conclusion for Carolina’s deserving R.J. Davis, there is a subplot brewing.
Out west, Caleb Love is capping off a great season with Arizona, and seems to be the favorite for Pac-12 Player of the Year. Wouldn’t it be something if No. 2 joined No. 4 with his selection? And both are in the running for All-American teams that will be announced this week.
The former Carolina backcourt emerged nationally by splitting up.
Davis upped his game to lead the ACC in scoring with a 21.06 average. He finished out of double figures (9 points) for only the second time this season but nevertheless helped the Tar Heels win the ACC race with a sweep of Duke.
Love is fourth in the Pac 12 with an 18.7 average, which dipped after Arizona had already clinched the regular season title but lost at Southern Cal as Caleb scored 2 points, shot 1 for 10 and 0 for 6 from three vs. the Trojans.
That Carolina had a surprising season with a Love-less roster was some factor in Davis being so award-worthy, but his individual play would have put him in the race wherever the Tar Heels finished. He set a Smith Center scoring mark of 42 points against Miami along with multiple other records.
In the latest NET rankings, which helps the NCAA Selection Committee determine seeds for the upcoming tournament, Arizona is No. 4 and remains on the top line for a projected No. 1 seed in one of the four regions. With the win at Duke, Carolina climbed to No. 7 and is solidly on the second line.
Depending on what happens at the conference tournaments this weekend in Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, that could change. For the Wildcats and Tar Heels to meet before the Final Four, they would have to be in the same region.
As ACC Player of the Year, Davis is a lock for first-team all-conference and at mid-season was projected on most of the first-team All-American lists. Love is also assured first-team All-Pac 12 but only showed sporadically on A-A predictions.
Another big question is whether Armando Bacot makes first-team All-ACC for the third straight year. UNC’s all-time leading rebounder is averaging double figures in scoring and on the glass. It will be hard to leave him off the first team even though he has become less dominant.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/11/Art%27s%20Notebook%20031124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Love-less Rosters appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
My best Carolina-Duke story of all time.
Since we have passed the official 50-year birthday of Walter Davis’ miracle shot, here is a tale you have never heard but is the absolute truth.
When Sweet D’s banker went in to tie game, the students sitting in the bleachers behind the visitors bench stormed the court and trampled the three rows of Dukies sitting in those seats. One of those unlucky Blue Devils was the wife of Duke Sports Information Director Richard Giannini, who remains a good friend.
When the chaos subsided and the Tar Heels won in overtime, after Duke had blown the famous 8-points-in-17-seconds lead, Richard went in for the funereal post-game press conference. He came back out looking for his wife, Gayle, and was told she was taken to the UNC emergency room with an injured shoulder.
Richard yelled an obscenity and, in anger, kicked the first row of those bleachers where Gayle and her fellow fans had been overrun. He was helped to the locker room, and the Duke trainer said he probably had a broken foot.
When we found out, my bride and I drove over to Richard and Gayle’s home in Durham that evening. We found them both sitting by the fire, Gayle with her shoulder in a sling and Richard with his elevated foot in a cast. We all had a good laugh, but ours was a lot less painful than theirs.
Richard went on to work for the NCAA and eventually was the athletic director at Southern Miss, where Larry Fedora coached football at the time. After the Butch Davis debacle, Richard called and suggested UNC hire Fedora.
“Wait a minute, YOU are saying WE should hire YOUR coach,” I said.
Richard explained, “Larry is having his best season ever (11-1) and we are going to lose him to a bigger school, and I’d love to see him at Carolina.” Turns out, UNC’s new AD Bubba Cunningham was already on it, having arrived from Tulsa, which was in the same conference as Southern Miss at the time.
Richard and I talk every so often, and those two stories usually come up. He may call tonight and ask about the big game tomorrow at Cameron.
I will give him my opinion that, to win, the Tar Heels must be dominant on the backboards and shoot well from outside, sort of the same formula they used in the famous 2022 upset in Coach K’s last home game.
And I will add the old “pressure” theory. Keep it close enough that if the visiting team makes a run in the last five minutes, “game pressure” will revert to the home team, which is favored and supposed to win. Exactly what happened two years ago, when nobody stormed the court and only feelings got hurt.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/08/Art%27s%20Notebook%20030824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Never Forgotten appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Roy-Coach K special was good, but could have been much better.
I wrote two books on the Duke-Carolina basketball rivalry. “Blue Blood,” published in 2005, got kind of down and dirty because that was the rivalry from the Larry Brown-Art Heyman fight in 1961 through the heated Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski years. “Blue Blood II” came out in 2018, and some people didn’t like it because it was a much tamer story.
That was due largely because Smith had long retired, and Coach K was the new King. And Roy Williams returned to Chapel Hill from Kansas in 2003 with a different view of the Duke Hall of Famer. They had spent more time in meetings trying to make the game better than squabbling.
The recent ACC Network interview with the two legends reflected that, and Wes Durham was hardly asking tough questions. I am sure that was because either the coaches or the editors, maybe both, wanted it that way.
They talked about what makes good players great and how the two coaches handled certain situations. As a viewer, I was hoping for a lot more because there was a lot more, even though they had become good friends.
For example, there was nothing about some of the still-magic moments between 2004 and 2021, the year Roy retired. Remember when Gerald Henderson came down with an elbow to Tyler Hansbrough’s nose. Psycho T got up ready to fight, but the refs moved in to break it up. And there were the coaches standing next to each other on the sideline, seemingly chatting.
A promotional image for the “Rivals Reunited” special taped with Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski for the ACC Network. The program can be found on-demand in the ESPN app. (Photo via the ACC Network.)
What did they really talk about, and how was the incident handled within each program? The great Carolina comeback in 2005, giving Roy his first win over K and going on to win his first NCAA championship. And likewise with the Duke rally before the 2015 game when all coaches and players gathered at mid court before tipoff for a moment of silence for Dean Smith, who had died. What was it like for both programs when they reached the final game of the regular season with that ACC title at stake? By the way, there were nine of those games during that span, and Carolina won them all.
And there were the politically correct moments, when UNC decided to honor Coach K after he had reached 1,000 career victories. Carolina gave him a plaque that Duke didn’t want, worried about the reaction at the Smith Center. And how they hurried through the short ceremony to keep both sides happy.
They seem close these days, which happens when coaches retire and do more reflecting than genuflecting. “Which Carolina player did Coach K wish he had?” Wes asked. “It was more which player I wished they didn’t have,” said Coach K.
I’ll answer that one. They wanted Tyler, who never lost at Cameron. We wanted Zion, who might have never blown apart his Nike if he were a Tar Heel.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/07/Art%27s%20Notebook%20030724%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Interview appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Chapel Hill was Funville Tuesday on Senior Night.
What a way to end the home part of the regular season and clinch at least a tie for first place in the ACC (last time was in 2019) with an 84-51 blowout of overwhelmed Notre Dame, which had been one of the hottest teams in the conference over the last month with five wins in its last six games.
And aren’t even-numbered years great, when Senior Night is not the white knuckler against Duke, where the Tar Heels go Saturday and try to win the league outright? When the opponent is a big underdog, and you have a joyous night watching your team play as well as it has all season, it is serious fun.
Armando Bacot, who’s definitely ending his college career, was one of five players in double figures and made two 3-pointers for the first time in his 162-game career, the most of any player in ACC history. Bacot’s first long bomb was in the middle of a 16-point run to start the second half. The Dome got goofy as AB swished it from the arc. His second ended the Tar Heels’ next run of 19-0 that gave them a 35-point lead, as the place burst into Smith-ereens. It was AB’s last basket on Roy Williams Court, the coach Bacot thanked on his video remarks for “taking a chance on me.” He was replaced by third-string center James Okonkwo, who had two blocks in his, and the game’s final, three minutes in the impromptu curtain call orchestrated by assistant coach Brad Frederick.
Frederick had gone to the officials to say they were making five substitutions at the next whistle. Then came Creighton Lebo, the coach’s son and one of three walk-on senior starters, a UNC tradition since the Dean Smith days, who replaced R.J. Davis, the ACC Player of the Year to be named next week.
Davis had 22 points, including four 3-pointers, and was serenaded with “one more year” by the fans who want him to come back for his COVID season.
After that, sixth-year senior scrapper Cormac Ryan was subbed out by freshman Zayden High after he had 14 points with two 3-pointers and 5 rebounds against his old Irish program. Ryan said in his video clip at a timeout that he feels “blessed” to be spending his last season of eligibility at UNC.
And, finally, Paxson Wojcik went out for Rob Landry. Both had fathers (and mothers) there with Carolina connections, Doug Wojcik was a three-year assistant under Matt Doherty and Pearce Landry looked like he could still play big minutes like he had for Smith in the 1990s.
All the players participated in the “I’m A Tar Heel” promotion with Davis last wearing a sweatshirt that said NERD. We all freaked out. What if it meant Not Ever Returning to Dome? Then R.J. thanked the fans for “treating me with love.”
And it didn’t end there. With 2:05 left, as ND emptied its bench, Matt Zona stepped to the foul line and bricked two free throws, driving the crowd crazy one last time as Crumbl Cookies will be giving away product all day.
One comely coed held up a sign that read, “It’s My Senior Night.” Not exactly. It was hers, ours and most especially the Tar Heels.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/06/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_030624.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Chapel Thrill appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Senior Night just ain’t what it used to be.
It’s not anyone’s fault, more a by-product of making college sports better for the athletes, who for years had very little freedom of movement from one school to another. That’s why the transfer portal is good, giving young men and women a form of free agency if they are not happy with their situation.
Now, NIL, that has not happened as it was intended when deemed by the NCAA as NOT pay for play. That athletes are getting paid to transfer – and we’ll worry about your NIL responsibilities later – has made rosters in basketball and football more like scrambled eggs than the right to choose.
Truly, one of the reasons turning pro was so hard for James Worthy and Michael Jordan was because they wanted to play their senior years at Carolina and walk onto the court teary-eyed before the start of their last home games. Phil Ford, who could have turned pro whenever he wanted, cried like a baby while standing at center court with Tom Zaliagiris and Geoff Crompton at Carmichael before their Senior Game against Duke on February 25, 1978.
Tar Heel seniors since, such as Marcus Paige, made their coaches like Roy Williams cry with their words to the crowd after their last game. For four-year players, it still has a special meaning, saying goodbye to their fans to whom they had become members of families, most of whom they have never met.
But players turning pro, the portal and recently the COVID fifth season have made things uncertain. Armando Bacot is having his second Senior Night after deciding to take that fifth year, and R.J. Davis says he hasn’t even thought about coming back for his fifth season like Bacot.
The current Tar Heels have three transfers who are playing their super senior night games.
The most bittersweet case is Cormac Ryan, who went through his true Senior Night at Notre Dame last year and now will do it again before the Heels take on the Fighting Irish tonight at the Smith Center. Ryan loved his time in South Bend but surely wishes he had another season in Chapel Hill.
Jae’Lyn Withers and Paxson Wojick are graduate students, but Withers I guess can return for a fifth year since he only played three seasons at Louisville. So, clearly, there is something lost with the abstract nature of college sports.
From the 25-year-old Ryan to 21-year-old Harrison Ingram to 19-year-old Elliot Cadeau, these newcomers have helped give us a great season so far and still have some important games to play.
To all of them, thank you, and keep Going, Heels!
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/05/Art%27s%20Notebook%20030524%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Still Senior Night appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What was the difference between the two victorious rivalry games over the weekend?
The UNC men hosted N.C. State and the women closed their regular season with a rematch of the classic overtime thriller played at Duke earlier.
Both were billed as sellouts at the 22,000-seat Smith Center Saturday and Sunday at Carmichael Arena, which has one-third the capacity of the Dean Dome. But that is not what it appeared to be.
The men’s games are not always packed to capacity, which is a product of an arena built too big back in the 1980s and the supply and demand being turned upside down since then due to raising tickets prices, late starting times and every game being televised. The advent of big-screen, high-definition TV is a reasonable alternative to watching the game at home if you don’t want to pay or can’t afford the hefty ticket prices.
It looked like every seat in the Smith Center was filled for a game against a non-rival, N.C. State, which has been dominated in basketball by the Tar Heels over the last 50 years. You can tell it is a sellout when every seat in every row at the back of the upper deck has a fanny in it on a weekend afternoon. And it looked that way for UNC’s season sweep of the Wolfpack.
The women’s game was designated as a hard sell-out, which means that every ticket was sold and sent electronically to the purchasers. If you watched Carolina defeat Duke on the tube, you could see hundreds of empty blue seats in the upgraded version of the old Blue Heaven for women.
With zero tickets available for sale after they were all sold out two weeks ago, what was up with the crowd on a beautiful March Sunday? I don’t know for certain, but here is what it sounds like to me.
Tar Heel fans who want to support women’s basketball do so by buying season tickets and don’t necessarily attend every game, which can hurt fans who want to buy big-game tickets.
It is not good enough to just support the Tar Heel women with your money. You have to go to the games or transfer your tickets to people who would love to be there, especially an exciting rivalry game against Duke that’s the gender equivalent of the men.
It looks bad for a game bandied as a sellout and mentioned over and over by the TV crew when you can see with your own eyes that there were plenty of open seats. There has to be a better way than just selling tickets.
UNC’s marketing staff has to come up with that better way to get fannies in seats for games that are in heavy demand. The tickets are cheap enough to buy, but unfortunately also a reason to stay home if you don’t feel like going.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/04/Art%27s%20Notebook%20030424%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via UNC Women’s Basketball on Twitter
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Ticket Business appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The schedule is helping shield Carolina’s thinning bench.
As the season has progressed, the Tar Heels are still winning but gradually playing their subs less. And for the third straight year, it looks like they will finish in the 300s in terms of using their reserves.
The schedule is masking a lot of this, as Hubert Davis’ team is staying in front in the ACC standings by getting long breaks at the right time.
Carolina broke an eight-game losing streak at Virginia after a week off to prepare for the Cavaliers. The Heels won the brutally bad, 54-44 game in Charlottesville that looked like it set the sport back deep into the last century.
Thanks to R.J. Davis, they survived a Miami team that was playing without two starters in the 48-hour turnaround. Davis was spectacular with a career-high and Smith Center scoring record, but his coach was right when he said, “We needed every inch of R.J.’s 42 points.”
In those last two games, Carolina struggled to score late and won by making just enough free throws to hold on. At UVa, UNC had a total of six field goals in the second half. Against the Hurricanes, it was a dismal 12 of 21 from the foul line including missing five straight in the heat of crunch time. Now the Heels coming off a five-day break before Saturday’s home game vs. N.C. State.
Hubert still uses most of his reserves, but except for Seth Trimble they are not playing well and getting pulled in what has become a six-man rotation. Against Virginia, James Okonkwo and Paxson Wojcik were in the game for two minutes in the first half when a 13-point lead was cut down to 7.
Neither played in the second half and Jalen Washington, who had 6 rebounds and 4 blocks in the first half while Armando Bacot sat with two fouls, got back in for less than a minute as Mondo came to life. Against Miami, J-Wash got 7 minutes and had all zeroes in the box score except for 1 foul.
Jae’Lyn Withers played 9-plus minutes in the first half with 2 points, 3 rebounds and 3 fouls, but sparingly in the second half, coming back in with five seconds left after Bacot fouled out to make the decisive free throws.
The Wolfpack (17-11, 9-8) has just about played its way out of a second straight NCAA tournament bid by losing 7 of the last 11 but boasts four players averaging double figures led by the two dangerous D.J.s – Horne (averaging 17.5) who is shooting 43 percent from 3-point land, and the massive Burns who shoots 50 percent by banging his big body around the basket.
Clearly, this is another possible trap for the Tar Heels, who are trying to maintain at least a one-game ACC lead going to Duke in the regular-season finale next Saturday and need to get more from their bench down the stretch of games and the schedule.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/03%20-%20March/01/Art%27s%20Notebook%20030124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Where’s the Bench? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina can take the lead in court-storming.
Apparently, the ACC is the only Power 6 conference that has not set a policy for court-storming to celebrate big wins at home. So, it must be in the hands of each member institution to do so.
UNC has a great opportunity to make a plan that will not only solve the potential problem after big home wins over Duke or any other opponent that excites the crowd in that manner, perhaps after every home game.
The strategy at Carolina could be anything the athletic department agrees on and is willing to promote so nothing has to be enforced. And if the university and athletic department have marketing savvy, it could be something that not only deters the dangerous rushing of the playing floor but also sets a standard that other schools might follow.
For example, an alum and long-time Tar Heel fan suggests that as the game ends, a 30-second clock goes up on the big scoreboards to give both teams enough time to leave the floor safely and get to their locker rooms.
If such a plan, or another one, is agreed upon, UNC would release a statement and have Hubert Davis record a message shared through the school’s social media and run PSAs before the game on the video boards and over the Tar Heel Sports Network. At halftime, there would be a reminder to wait 30 seconds.
The “Carolina crowd clock” could catch on for other programs to follow or come up with their own plan. If every school in the ACC bought in, how cool it would look for the conference to be supportive in a safe and creative way.
The key is having the students and fans at the game comply and be proud that UNC will allow them to celebrate after a game without risking injury to the players on either team. And Carolina could go a step further.
After beating Duke or State or after any home victory, Smith Center students and fans are INVITED to celebrate the victory on the court when the 30-second clock expires, and it even could become an ad hoc dance party with popular songs blaring over the PA system after the pep band plays Hark The Sound.
Like Duke became known for the Cameron Crazies, the Tar Heels would have something of their own to set an example for schools in the ACC and around the country, more positive than other student bodies trying to copy the Crazies who got famous during the Blue Devils’ raucous 1980 heydays.
UNC has a chance to turn a problem into a well-marketed solution that is safe and fun for everyone who wants to participate. Properly promoted, it would make Carolina famous for good sportsmanship as well as good basketball.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/29/Art%27s%20Notebook%20022924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via ESPN
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Crowd Clock appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
R. J. Davis is barely 6 feet tall, but he is in some rarified air.
When Davis followed up his 12 points at Virginia with exactly 30 more against Miami, he entered the pantheon of great UNC stars who came before him and crossed the 40 rubicon, including George Glamack, Lennie Rosenbluth (five times of 40-plus), Billy Cunningham (48), Bobby Lewis (49), Charlie Scott (43 and 40), Kenny Smith, Shammond Williams, Harrison Barnes and Tyler Hansbrough as scoring at least 40 points in a game.
Davis’ 42 topped Hansbrough’s 40 against Georgia Tech as a freshman in 2006 for the most points ever scored in the 562 games played to date in the Smith Center. Shammond Williams also had 42 in a double overtime win at Georgia Tech in 1998. The all-time and home-court record is still held by Lewis’ 49 in 1965, the season that Carmichael Auditorium opened.
Lewis’ name and number were being bandied about when Davis reached 40 late in the game but seemed capable of getting 50 after canning four straight 3-pointers. Then the game against the hot-shooting Hurricanes got closer, and the fans and Tar Heels grew more interested in just winning and remaining alone atop the ACC standings.
We all watched Hansbrough get his “freshman 40” and Barnes his 40 in the ACC Tournament as a freshman in 2011. I hadn’t arrived at UNC when Lewis set the record that may never be broken but saw Scott score 43 against Wake Forest in 1970.
The year before, Scott had the most spectacular game in ACC tourney history when he followed up his 12 first-half points with 28 in the second half to lead a depleted team to the dramatic comeback win over Duke in the 1969 championship game, winning UNC’s and Dean Smith’s third straight title.
The Tar Heels had lost starting point guard Dick Grubar to a knee injury early in the game, and All-ACC forward Bill Bunting fouled out midway through the second half. That’s when Scott started calling for the ball and waiving his teammates out of the way so he could make his sensational run.
I remember the Duke cheerleaders, sitting in front of me on the baseline, making plans for who was driving to College Park the next weekend for the NCAA Sweet 16.
Not so fast, as Scott went wild and led his team to the 85-74 victory. The next week, as the Dukies sat home, Scott scored 32 including the buzzer-beater to beat Davidson and send Carolina to its third straight Final Four.
Scoring that many points is special when something really big is at stake, and R.J. Davis certainly has time to make that happen. For now, 42 is awesome and in the books.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/28/Art%27s%20Notebook%20022824%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: In the Books appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
How are we all going to talk about that Miami game last night?
We have to start and finish with R.J. Davis, who set the Smith Center record with 42 points, scoring 21 in each half and propelling the Tar Heels to leads in both periods over the Hurricanes who were without two injured starters.
Davis was dead-eye from outside during pregame warmups and quickly swished his first long ball, perhaps to get rid of the cobwebs from Virginia where he went 1-for-14. And R.J. scored 15 consecutive points in the second half (four straight 3-pointers followed by three free throws) to put his team ahead by 14 points with just under seven minutes left.
But, while no one else could score for Carolina, Miami was in the middle of a 21-9 run while the red-hot Canes were on their way to making a 14-of-30 3-pointers that created near panic in the Dean Dome.
We also have to talk about Miami forcing five turnovers and six bad shots at the end of a Tar Heel offense trying to milk the clock. Then came five straight missed free throws: one by Davis, two by Armando Bacot, and two by Seth Trimble with three seconds left and the Heels ahead by two points. (Carolina finished a season-low 12 of 21 from the stripe.)
Fortunately, Hubert Davis had reinserted Jae’Lyn Withers, who with Harrison Ingram controlled the offensive rebound off Trimble’s second miss. Withers was fouled and, FINALLY, he hit two free throws to secure the 75-71 heart-throbber, which was UNC’s seventh home ACC win and preserved first place in the standings.
In turn, we should discuss if the Tar Heels were ill-prepared for Miami’s press drawn up by 70-year-old coach Jim Larrañaga or if they knew what they were supposed to do and just did not do it. Or a combination of both.
And we should talk about R.J. outscoring the team 42-33 with no one else reaching double figures. Ingram and Cormac Ryan each shot 3-for-13.
Something similar happened in the tense win over Virginia when Ryan outscored his teammates in the first half that ended 26-16. Carolina almost gave that one away by having a late scoring drought.
Just like in the next game, Davis gave them the cushion they needed to hang on and win. But is that the way Carolina wants to play? Or do the Heels need to get back to more balanced scoring? And do you think they sometimes play “not to lose”?
The good news: If any voters were on the fence after Saturday’s bad-shooting by Davis, you could say he wrapped up ACC Player of the Year honors with his 42-point gem. But R.J. is likely to say he wants the team to win championships more than any individual honors, which is more important to many of us, as well.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/27/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_022724.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Answers, Please? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina will see the other side of the spectrum versus Miami.
The Tar Heels are in the driver’s seat to win the ACC regular season and maybe get No. 1 seeds in the ACC and NCAA tournaments. With three home games left against Miami, N.C. State and Notre Dame on Senior Night, they will be favored to at least take that one-game lead to Durham on March 9.
If that happened, and the Heels lose to the Blue Devils, it would be a tie for first place with UNC earning the tiebreaker for wins over Virginia and Wake Forest while Duke has already lost to Wake and still has to play UVa in Cameron.
The key is sustaining momentum the Heels built in their last two wins over Old Dominion State rivals Virginia Tech and Virginia. Miami is a dangerous, yet familiar, team. Carolina seems to have everyone healthy and playing at a high level. The Heels will have to be as determined to play as fast as possible against the athletic Hurricanes as they were to dig in on both ends of the court in Charlottesville.
Why can’t the opponent speed Virginia up by pressing to create turnovers and fastbreaks? Well, as Dean Smith liked to say, “The other team has coaches, too.” So when players with good coaches meet, the winners usually show the best effort, energy and execution to get their way.
When two teams play at the same pace, like Miami and Carolina do, that outcome will be determined by shooting the ball well, owning the glass and not giving up easy baskets. The Tar Heels dominated the Hurricanes for most of their first meeting in Coral Gables but barely won the game in the last minutes.
Miami is a free-shooting, running team that can be very hard to beat if it makes shots early and then builds momentum and confidence from the fast start. We’ve seen that from past Miami teams in the Smith Center.
The Heels know exactly what the Canes do and vice versa. So for the “The U,” it is a no-pressure spoiler game because winning the ACC Tournament is the only path to an NCAA bid. Otherwise, it’s the NIT for Miami.
That could be dangerous for Carolina if not ready and motivated to jump on them early and show why they are so far apart in the ACC standings. And, despite early leads, Miami is a team that we know keeps shooting. You don’t want to be in a battle like that, when the underdog compounds no pressure, an early lead on the favorite and confidence down the stretch of a close game.
Look at how many upsets of ranked teams have occurred this season. In other words, they need to keep their eyes on the ball every minute they are out there.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/26/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_022624.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Rebecca Blackwell
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Eye on the Ball appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Both UNC and Virginia are in precarious positions on Saturday.
Carolina is 3-3 in the last six games and has dropped from No. 3 in the country to No. 10. Virginia has lost two of its last three, including a historic blowout at Virginia Tech and on a free fall from the national polls to the NCAA NET rankings.
So how big is their next game at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville at 4 p.m. on ESPN?
The Tar Heels should win because, man for man, they have a better team and a defense that is capable of shutting down the UVa offense like Pitt and Wake Forest at JPJ and the Hokies did in Blacksburg, the Wahoos second straight game of scoring under 50 points.
The Cavaliers should win because they are playing at home, having beaten UNC there eight straight times over the last 10 years. And they will surely be ready to rebound from their worst loss in the 14-plus-year Tony Bennett era by 34 points at VaTech.
Aside from points scored and points allowed, understandable considering their different speeds of play, their team statistics are pretty close and often off-setting.
Virginia averages scoring 69 points and allowing 61. Carolina scores 83 points a game and gives up 72. They both shoot about the same from the floor and on 3-pointers. The Cavs are 10 points worse from the free throw line but have a decided advantage in the important assist-to-turnover ratio.
The Heels are a plus-9 on the backboards, which is deceiving because their tempo yields more possessions per game than Virginia, thus more shots taken and more rebounds to get.
The Wahoos have better 3-point shooting by their leaders, four guys who play at least 20 minutes and hit 46 percent or higher from the arc. Carolina’s best long-ballers are R.J. Davis and Harrison Ingram (both around 41 percent). But the Tar Heels attempt almost twice the number of free throws and make a higher percentage (75 to 64).
The Heels have projected ACC Player of the year Davis, who leads the league in scoring (21.3) and the ACC’s best rebounder in Armando Bacot (10.3). The Cavaliers do it more by committee with Reece Beekman (13.9) who is dangerous when he gets into the lane and Isaac McNeeley who leads them in 3-pointers launched and still hits 46 percent. Ryan Dunn is also a threat from outside and is the only player on both teams in the first round of the NBA’s mock draft.
The Tar Heels want to play faster and the ‘Hoos more deliberate. But the outcome will depend on defense, and if UNC plays like it did against Duke as opposed to the loss to Clemson three days later (both at home), it will be an accomplishment worthy of first place in the ACC.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/23/SPORTS%20NOTEBOOK_022324.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Heels or ‘Hoos? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Dean Smith is now coaching in Charlotte.
The Major League Soccer team in the Queen City has a new manager with a familiar name. None of the accounts I have read since Smith was hired by beleaguered owner David Tepper, who has managed to ruin the Panthers of the NFL in six years at the helm, mentioned that his latest hire has a famous namesake. Tepper sure needs a Dean Smith to lead the Charlotte FC.
The soccer Smith is 52 and was born in 1971, the year the basketball Smith officially became the Dean of the ACC. UNC’s Smith had already won three ACC championships and reached three Final Fours, but he had not fully escaped the shadow of much more famous predecessor Frank McGuire.
After All-Americans Bobby Lewis, Larry Miller and Charlie Scott had all graduated, Smith and his Tar Heels were picked sixth in the ACC and finished first in the regular season. It was also the year that Smith’s team met McGuire’s South Carolina Gamecocks in the ACC tournament final in Greensboro and lost on a last-second basket.
In those days, only the conference champion received an NCAA bid. Smith took his team to the NIT and beat Massachusetts with Julius Erving, Providence with Ernie DeGregorio and Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and Duke for the third time that season in the semifinals before blowing out Georgia Tech and All-American Rich Yunkus in the title game at Madison Square Garden.
Dean Smith of fut-bol fame turned pro in 1989, the year Dean’s Tar Heels won their first ACC championship in seven years over Duke in Atlanta. The soccer Smith was traded in 1994, when UNC basketball was the defending NCAA champion and won the ACC tournament behind All-American senior Eric Montross and freshman Jerry Stackhouse, the tourney MVP.
Soccer Smith was traded to Sheffield Wednesday in 2003, the summer Roy Williams returned to Chapel Hill to restore order to Smith’s program six years after his retirement. The Charlotte Dean retired in 2005 after Williams won his first of three national championships as the Carolina coach. That Dean entered the managerial ranks in 2009, right after Tyler Hansbrough led the Tar Heels to the NCAA championship in a dominating six-game run.
Let’s all keep careful track of how the soccer manager represents his hoops namesake.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/22/Art%27s%20Notebook%20022224%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via The Charlotte Post/Taylor Banner
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Namesake appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The battle for fourth place in the ACC means a lot this season.
Finishing fourth in one of the Power 6 basketball conferences is usually good enough to ensure an NCAA Tournament bid.
But not so fast, ACC!
It looks right now like first place will be decided in Durham when Duke and Carolina have their rematch. It is highly likely that the winner on March 9 will claim the prestigious ACC regular season championship. Both are safely in the Big Dance and will probably be among the top four seeds in one of the regions.
Virginia (11-5) is third and in some danger of falling to fifth and losing a double bye into Thursday’s ACC tournament quarterfinals, but seems in more jeopardy of falling onto the NCAA bubble by dropping two of its last three games going into the Carolina home date Saturday at 4 p.m. and with a trip to Duke also left.
Thus, fourth place is shaping up as a battle between bubble teams, a result of the ACC still being rated the No. 4 conference after climbing from sixth earlier this season, still low for the traditionally rich league.
After Wake Forest’s easy win over Pitt Tuesday night, the Deacons moved into fourth place with a 9-6 record, but both still have losable games left on their schedules and are hanging onto the NCAA bubble for dear life.
N.C. State is probably headed to the NIT after losing its sixth home game of the season to Syracuse, and at 8-7 has visits to Carolina, FSU and Pitt, plus a home game with Duke, remaining. The Wolfpack began the night with a 75 NET ranking but will surely fall into the 80s.
Clemson (27), Wake (40), Pitt (47) and Virginia (50) are all on the crowded NCAA bubble and need good showings down the stretch and in the ACC Tournament in Washington, DC, to determine the fourth ACC team to make the Dance as an at-large entry.
The close games and plethora of upsets make the ACC look like a competitive league, and it is – just not competing for an NCAA berth by most of its 15 members.
That is also due as much to the destabilizing transfer portal and NIL that has made the biggest names and leagues in college hoops not quite so big. That is why competing for fourth place in the ACC is far more important than it has been in past years when the conference was considered among the best.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/21/Art%27s%20Notebook%20022124%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bubble Madness appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Caleb Love’s new team and his old one are both fighting for No. 1 seeds.
When Love left UNC and eventually settled at Arizona, we all wished him well for sinking some of the biggest shots in Carolina history, including the 3-pointer that sent Coach K into retirement from Duke at the 2022 Final Four.
But Caleb would stay top of mind with Tar Heel fans, especially after Arizona upset the Blue Devils at Cameron in November, as he hit another big shot in front of where Mike Krzyzewski was sitting on the first row of baseline seats.
Joining the Wildcats after his transfer fell through at Michigan was the first good move for Love, as the Wolverines are in 14th place and dead last in the Big Ten. Arizona is first in the Pac 12 and No. 4 in the latest NCAA rankings where the Tar Heels are No. 5.
Those positions are also the projected seedings in the NCAA tournament, so Love’s new team is now the fourth top seed and his former team is the first No. 2 seed.
That may change with Arizona still to face 21st-ranked Washington State and play at UCLA and Southern Cal. Carolina, of course, visits Virginia Saturday and concludes the regular season in Durham, so the seedings are still very much up in the air.
What is it they say about divorce sometimes being good for both parties?
Love leads Arizona in minutes played per game (32), scoring (18.8) and is averaging 5 rebounds with a 2-1 assist-turnover ratio. He is shooting 43 percent overall and 35 percent from outside, both higher numbers than in his last season in Chapel Hill. His assimilation to a new program includes former UNC assistant coach Steve Robinson on the staff of head coach Tommy Lloyd, who is one of the best and just received an extension through 2029.
It is unlikely Love’s two teams will meet in the Big Dance before the Final Four as they are probably going to wind up in different regions.
Carolina, of course, is better this season with a revamped roster joining holdover stars R.J. Davis and Armando Bacot. Love remains close to his former teammates and school; he took the court for his last time at Cameron, where he also helped shock Coach K in his last home game, wearing shoes beneath his new uniform that said “Tar Heel 4 Life.” He left waving goodbye to the Crazies.
So as Carolina of the ACC and Arizona (which is departing for the Big 12 after this season) are heading for the NCAA tournament that the Tar Heels missed last season, both programs are in a far better position than they were a year ago.
For the Heels, it’s addition by subtraction, for the ‘Cats a new Love.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/20/Art%27s%20Notebook%20022024%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Associated Press/Rick Scuteri
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A New Love appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
There are ample reasons why UNC needs a new basketball arena.
Upgrades to the Smith Center make it one of the best college basketball venues in the country. The four giant horizontal video boards, the new sound system and the continued involvement of the UNC pep band, the Carolina Dance Team and cheerleaders, plus occasional halftime entertainment, are all first class.
The years-old speculation has resurfaced about what to do with the Dean Dome, which opened in 1986 and since then has been plagued by criticism that has nothing to do with the great atmosphere once in your light blue seats.
Only some of the crowd egress problems could be improved with a projected multi-million-dollar renovation. Ideally, an arena that seats 20,000 and has two levels needs lower and upper concourses so attendees can move around easily without getting squished. Having one concourse for that capacity is a major mistake.
Pushing out the walls to widen the concourse could be done for multi-millions and would help crowds getting to their seats, concession stands and rest rooms. But a much larger piece of land would be needed to create better access in and out of the building and solve the unsolvable traffic and parking jams.
Due to its relatively small plot of land, the Smith Center is very cumbersome to enter and, especially, leave when capacity crowds stay until the final buzzer. The few roadways to and from parking lots make getting in and out a permanent problem that even the best traffic planning can’t fix.
At the Duke game, the sheer masses prevented golf carts from shuttling older and handicapped people to/from their cars in distant parking decks. The Chapel Hill Transit buses help, but there are still exits onto narrow walkways and dangerous concrete staircases down to the one main sidewalk on Skipper Bowles Drive.
Construction crews could not dynamite enough rock to have more than a half-round basement. Vehicles cannot go underneath and expansion of locker rooms, media workspaces and storage areas has been a 38-year challenge.
UNC no longer gets help from the state government to operate the Smith Center, and it has been decades since losing major concerts to the PNC Arena in Raleigh and the Greensboro Coliseum, which both sell beer. Carolina now can but does not for basketball even though beer is sold at Kenan Stadium.
And the funding structure has crimped the Rams Club raising money for the best tickets that were sold in perpetuity to inaugural donors with lifetime contracts to buy their seats for their families and offspring. Those agreements could be wiped out or restructured with a new, say, Smith-Williams Center in one of the various locations being discussed.
So talks are again under way. What the plan is remains a mystery.
https://chapelboroaudio.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/2024/02%20-%20February/19/Art%27s%20Notebook%20021924%20-%20FINAL.mp3Featured image via Todd Melet
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Time for a Change? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Two former Carolina quarterbacks stood out on opening weekend. UNC has 20 alumni currently playing in the National Football League. To show you the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Former Heels Shine appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. What’s wrong with Drake Maye? It’s the defense. A famous basketball coach once said about opponents preparing to play his team, “We don’t want […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: All About Winning appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The toughest first four will only get tougher. Mack Brown raised some eyebrows over the summer when he criticized the schedule the ACC gave […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Time to Relax appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tez Walker may be the most famous UNC football player who never plays for the Tar Heels.
The university came out with a three-gun blast at the NCAA for denying Walker’s appeal to play this season, to the point where Walker has no choice but to get a lawyer and go to court to try to get his eligibility back.
Head coach Mack Brown was the first to react, releasing a 442-word statement ripping the NCAA for its decision that ended with “Shame on you, NCAA. SHAME ON YOU!”
A statement from UNC HC Mack Brown on Tez Walker pic.twitter.com/ngm5jKlL20
— Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) September 7, 2023
Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham followed eight minutes later saying the NCAA had “eight different occasions” to do the right thing by Walker, whose appeal was denied even though he could not be a two-time transfer if he only played for one school prior to coming to Chapel Hill. Bubba used only 283 words but six bullet points outlining Walker’s plight.
A statement regarding today's decision about Tez Walker pic.twitter.com/nmshkHtLco
— Bubba Cunningham (@BubbaUNC) September 7, 2023
Then Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz chimed in an hour later, using only 75 words to make the official objection, offering “there is a time when organizations need to be flexible enough to do the right thing in unique circumstances to best serve the welfare of the people they serve.”
Please see my statement regarding today's decision about Tez Walker. https://t.co/CPRIQsSAFr pic.twitter.com/TaHxTO2j3B
— Kevin Guskiewicz (@KevinGuskiewicz) September 7, 2023
The decision by the so-called NCAA independent “appeals committee” will only get worse when the wild-west elements of the media get a hold of it. Imagine Charles Barkley, the self-proclaimed critic of all things sports on all levels, sounding off on this whenever someone sticks a microphone in his mug.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of fans will be wearing Tez’s No. 9 jersey at the Appalachian State game Saturday, when the Mounties have ZERO chance against a fired up and superior opponent in its home opener.
Walker is already a second rounder on an NFL mock draft board, so whether he ever dons a Carolina uni is likely to get drafted next February, and it won’t be a sentimental pick either because pro scouts can still see him practice. And Carolina’s loss will be some NFL team’s gain.
The transfer toothpaste may be out of the oversized tube these days, but Walker will become the poster child for how screwed up is the NCAA, which lost its last chance to make a first impression with this decision.
How about this for an example? JT Daniels, who is in his sixth college season, is now the Rice quarterback after transferring from Southern Cal, Georgia and West Virginia.
Sure, the “new” NCAA wants to get it right, but started by getting it wrong. Way wrong.
Featured image via The News & Observer
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sue, Tez, Sue! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Can Carolina beat a back-up quarterback for the first time in two years? The most disappointing subplot to the Tar Heels’ late-season collapse in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Second Stringers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. After one week, UNC could be in the driver’s seat to play for the ACC championship. The Tar Heels unveiled perhaps the best Carolina […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Enticing Path appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tez Walker’s appeal will be heard this week, but NOT by the NCAA.
In his weekly press conference, Mack Brown clarified what happened last week with his ineligible wide receiver and that a decision should be coming this Thursday after Walker’s case is heard by an independent committee.
UNC’s appeal went to the NCAA based on letters written by N.C. Central and its conference, the MEAC, stating that Walker should be able to play right away because, in 2020, they did not play football due to COVID and weren’t sure the season would resume in 2021, when Tez transferred from Central to Kent State.
“The NCAA office said that they would not overturn his appeal because of those two letters,” Brown said. “So now there is a committee that’s outside of the NCAA that’s going to hear it Thursday morning, and they will see if they will overturn the appeal or not. And that’s where we are.”
Walker’s appeal is based on the policy that when a player transfers from a school that cancels its season, he should have a “free transfer” and play at his next school right away. The outside committee said it will announce a decision after the meeting
.
“We’re not sure who they are,’’ Brown said. “It’s nameless, faceless people from different universities across the country. Some are compliance directors, and they bring them in to look at cases like this outside of the NCAA that work with the NCAA on decision making. And that’s what I’m told.”
So we should know by the end of the week whether Walker can play against App State Saturday evening, as the Tar Heels try to snap a two-game home losing streak dating back to Georgia Tech and N.C. State last year.
Walker’s case has attracted national news, and he is by far not the only player sitting out for varied reasons.
The Heels took the field against South Carolina without two others listed as starters on the depth chart: fellow transfer wide receiver Nate McCollum and DB DeAndre Boykins, who is out for the season.
But the team has rallied around Walker’s plight because it seems unfair. Drake Maye wore Walker’s jersey inside out to a press conference over the weekend, and country singer Eric Church (an App State graduate who will toss the coin before the 5:15 kickoff) asked Brown if he could wear his high school jersey with Walker’s No. 34 on the sideline during the game. And he will.
“So this seems like a common sense issue,” Brown said, “and people want to step up.”
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Stepping Up appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tez Walker is still practicing like he is going to play Saturday night.
Here is what we know about the ineligibility of UNC transfer Tez Walker leading up to the season opener against South Carolina.
An all-conference wide receiver from Kent State, Walker was suddenly ruled ineligible for the season by the NCAA two days after he had enrolled at Carolina with assurances his waiver to play immediately would be approved.
Then the NCAA tightened up its waiver rules and Walker was deemed a “two-time” transfer who would not be eligible right away because he had enrolled at N.C. Central, which cancelled its 2020 season due to COVID.
Mack Brown has continued to work Walker with the first-team offense and told Tez to practice accordingly. “We’ve said to him, ‘Plan on playing.’”
UNC has not heard back on its appeal to the NCAA, despite Governor Roy Cooper contacting Charlie Baker, the new president of the NCAA who so far has defended the new waiver restrictions.
Brown was asked if there was any other recourse. He deferred to Pat Suddes, general manager of the football program who allowed Tez could take action on his own.
So, it is possible that Walker has retained a lawyer and asked for a meeting with a state or federal judge Friday, seeking injunctive relief thru a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that would allow Walker to play against South Carolina pending a hearing next week to challenge the NCAA ruling.
The TRO might only be granted if Walker presented underlying evidence that he would prevail in the lawsuit itself. In claiming the NCAA decision was wrongfully made, he would have to give compelling reasons why he could suffer irreparable damage beyond the NCAA paying him for what he may have lost by not playing. Such as serious mental health issues regarding his family.
A judge can also refuse to grant the TRO. A full lawsuit would involve lawyers from the NCAA and could take weeks or months. In such a court case, Walker would have to show more than damage to a potential pro career, since scouts could still watch him practice and determine his draft worthiness.
Maybe losing money on NIL deals, because they are based on his using his public Name-Image-Likeness to be paid. Or his family in Charlotte missing a chance to see him play, one of the main reasons he chose Carolina.
Of course, the NCAA could still grant UNC’s appeal by the 7:30 kickoff.
Featured image via Kent State Athletics
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Deadline Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Will it be another high or another low against South Carolina? The Tar Heels and Gamecocks own every reason to be bitter rivals. They […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: High or Low? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Tyler Hansbrough and Coach K inducted together is poetic justice. The College Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony tonight features two inductees that had a […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Poetic Justice appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina suffered a shocking reminder on Monday. The sudden and tragic invasion at UNC Monday, which resulted in the shooting death of a faculty […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Life Interrupted appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The two Carolinas have underlying roles in the game Saturday. South Carolina was one of the eight founding members of the Atlantic Coast Conference […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Different Futures? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Fiona Crawley may go from wild card to qualifying at the U.S. Open. Carolina’s senior tennis star, reigning ACC and ITA Player of the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fighting Spirit appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Predictions are suffocating the college football preseason. It is the scourge of summer as every team sheds blood, sweat and tears getting ready to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maye and Gray appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Anson Dorrance proves again that being honest makes you smart. The legendary UNC women’s soccer coach has become iconic for not only winning 21 […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Let ‘Em Die on the Vine appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Clean-shaven Sam Howell solidified his starting role in the NFL. The Washington Commanders’ second-year quarterback had already been named the starter for the coming […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Clean Start appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Mike O’Koren received the honor that is still closest to his heart. If you are 50 or older and a rabid Tar Heel fan, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘OK Kid’ Feted appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. For national radio day, here is my best of many WCHL moments. Despite doing work here for a part of five decades, I have […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: One to Remember appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina has good and bad to tell quarterback recruits. Let’s start with the bad sacks allowed against “NFL” quarterbacks. In four previous seasons, the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Protect ‘The Man’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. One player who may not play is still the big story with Carolina football. With less than three weeks before the Tar Heels kick […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tez Update appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Maybe Maui will be recovering for UNC’s visit in 2024. Of all the places around the world that basketball took him, Roy Williams liked […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Paradise Lost appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The new Finley Golf Course should be worth the wait. It cost $13-plus million dollars, all paid by Rams Club donors from four gifts […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unquirky Finley appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Are the basketball Tar Heels over-scheduled this season? The 2023-24 non-conference slate was released this week, and in years past it would have been […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tough Encore appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. When it comes to Donald Trump – on anything – is he a leader or follower? Trump’s latest outburst came after the U.S. Women […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rapinoe Rant appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The NCAA has a chance to do what it was meant to do. The latest drama in college football, locally at least, centers around […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tale of Tez appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Another reason why social media can be so debatable. Since the collapse of daily newspapers and the advent of social media, there are bloggers […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What, No Rosie? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Florida State needs to put up or apologize and shut up. No one seems to care about what happens to college athletics at large, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maybe New ACC? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina was calling Eric Church home for a good reason. The celebrated country singer was able to sneak a private show in before his […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hearts on Fire appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The athletes and coaches who supported Trump abandoned him long ago. Although the 45th president retains a strong majority of support in his own […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Big Loser appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Can it be 20 years since Roy Williams came back to save Carolina basketball? On August 1, 2003, Carolina’s new head coach was celebrating […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Thanks, Coach appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. It must be a slow news day when Carolina basketball numbers are the lead story. The bigger story, of course, is that the NCAA […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: By The Numbers appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. In 1976, UNC had our Olympic Dream Team. Forty-seven years ago last week, Dean Smith coached the USA basketball team in Montreal, and it […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘We Had to Win!’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. You want the good news first, then the bad news? There is a hush around Chapel Hill and the state about Carolina football 2023, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Good to Great’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. But what about those TV timeouts? The ACC is embarking on the noble gesture of trying to shorten its football games from 3 and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: It’s TV Timeouts, Stupid! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The ACC looks to be sitting solidly third among the Power 5 conferences. It hasn’t been a great week for ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hanging In There appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Is Leaky Black good enough to become the next Dudley Bradley? Bradley, the legendary Secretary of Defense at Carolina, was the No. 13 pick […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Defenders appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina could, and probably should, go 10 or 11 deep. For the past two years, Hubert Davis said players have had to earn starting […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Blue Team? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. It was a spectacle, for sure, if not much of a match. Despite the one-sided 5-0 victory for Chelsea over Wrexham, the first pro […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Elegant Evening appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina continues to sell the 40-year commitment more than NIL. The football Tar Heels have 24 commitments in the high school class of 2024 […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Old Way Working appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Turns out a Carolina girl is behind this European soccer exhibition. Molly Pendleton, a 2010 UNC graduate who works with Unified Events out of […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Friendly appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Ryan Reynolds didn’t tell Blake Lively about buying a Welsh soccer team. The Wrexham team that will play in Kenan Stadium Wednesday night against […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Getting Lively appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Bally Sports is out, and Bubba Cunningham is in. Hot news! Two interesting developments were announced this week that may mean a lot more […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: TV And Hoops appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Since the NCAA backed away with some guidelines but little guidance for NIL, nobody has told any school that what it’s doing is wrong.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: NIL Still A Mess appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Tommy Tuberville may have been a winner in football, but he’s a loser in life. I have always detested coaches who act in any […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Football and Politics appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Fifteen years ago, Raleigh native Josh Hamilton lived the dream by hitting 28 bombs in the first round of the Home Run Derby.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Comeback Kid appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Mack Brown’s “toughest schedule” rap should be motivation, not hype. You ever listen to Mack Brown riff on something and think, “Good point, coach, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Steele Dossier appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. There is another top player in Pittsboro, and UNC will not lose this one. Unlike Jarin Stevenson, who grew up rooting for the Tar […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dream Coming True appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Minorities who are in the minority are dominant in professional baseball. More than 70 percent of the Major League ballplayers are white, and some […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Major League Melting Pot appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Please don’t say women athletes are more susceptible to CTE. The late Heather Anderson, a former Australian soldier and professional football player who committed […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: First Female CTE Case appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. J.J. Redick is the name that stands out in the ESPN purge. About 20 veterans at ESPN were laid off last week in what […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Redick A Keeper appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The Supreme Court ruling made recruiting even more complicated. If colleges and universities can no longer admit students based solely on race, what happens […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Latest Hornet’s Nest appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Virginia is the only school making a run at Carolina’s NCAA dominance. The Tar Heels have finished eighth in the latest Learfield Directors Cup […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Still the ACC’s Best appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Drake Maye’s Heisman chances rest squarely on the Tar Heels. The way-too-early college football predictions are flooding the Internet and social media. And Carolina’s […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘It’s the Team’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Even old-timers are calling it the greatest College World Series ever. We’ve all seen those baseball movies where the old-fashioned general managers, managers and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Future is Now appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Here’s how Carolina is doing NIL in the right way. When the nightmare of Name-Image-Likeness came on the scene, Mack Brown said, “We know […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: How to Do It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The ACC did not fare well in the NBA Draft. Both of the ACC players selected in the first round are one-and-dones from Duke, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not a Good Look appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Jarin Stevenson made the worst of his final three choices. You have to wonder how the 4½ – star forward picked Alabama over his […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Wrong Choice appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Mack Brown denies it, but he sounds like this could be his last season. First of all, he may be losing his short-term memory […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Spin-Meister appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Not even Michael Jordan could save the Charlotte Hornets franchise. With the announcement that Jordan will sell his majority stake in the NBA team […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: MJ Had His Chance appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. What is the USGA going to do about such an easy course? For decades, the U.S. Open has been billed as the hardest golf […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Lowballing the Open appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. If alcohol and sports betting are legal, why not THC? It was coming and we all knew it. Governor Cooper signed House Bill 347 […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Booze and Betting appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Carolina football looks to do it with different numbers. As Mack Brown caps his 2023 recruiting class, 29 newcomers will be on the roster […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Numbers Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The White House celebration was a reminder of what could happen. The Tar Heels’ field hockey and women’s tennis teams were two of the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Cloudy Future? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Denver Nuggets have never won an NBA title, until tonight. As the basketball world knows, the Nuggets will try to win their first world championship tonight at home against the Miami Heat, leading the NBA Finals 3 games to 1. Before becoming the Nuggets, the old Denver Rockets nearly won two titles in the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Must-See TV appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. A two-year commitment went away in two weeks. The offshoot of what is happening in college athletics hits harder at Carolina than perhaps any […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dimming of the Blue appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. The LIV-PGA merger is far from a done deal. It took the NFL seven years to merge with the burgeoning AFL. The ABA was […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pro Tour Tremors appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Losing Simeon Wilcher is, literally, a big deal for the Tar Heels. In these crazy days of free agency in college athletics, Carolina lost […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Back to the Portal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
For a weird pro playoff season, the Stanley Cup is tops.
Two eighth seeds are still alive in the respective world series of professional basketball and hockey.
The Miami Heat, the No. 8 seed who barely got into the NBA postseason, are three wins away from winning their first world championship since the days of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh and Ray Allen over the San Antonio Spurs and four Hall of Famers of their own.
The Heat dispatched overall No. 1 seed Milwaukee in five games, the New York Knicks in six games and the Boston Celtics in seven games. Heavy underdogs against the Western Conference top-seeded Nuggets, Miami has already stolen one game in Denver and now goes home for Games 3 and 4.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are even more bizarre, with the eighth-seeded Florida Panthers sneaking in and coming back to win the last three games against No. 1 seed Boston, beating Toronto in five and sweeping the second-seeded Hurricanes in four one-goal goals, two in overtime and one of them in 4 extra periods, both in Raleigh.
So you would think the Panthers had a great shot at upsetting Vegas in the Stanley Cup Finals, and who knows? Maybe they still can despite getting outscored 12-4 in the first two games in Sin City. The series moves to South Florida for the next two. The Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk, who came into the finals as a beast with several miracle goals of his first nine, managed only one in the first two games, a meaningless goal in the third period of a blowout.
The coaching juxtapositions are perhaps the most interesting aspect of the hockey playoffs. Florida’s Paul Maurice coached the 2002 Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing to Detroit in five games.
Bruce Cassidy is in his first season coaching the Vegas Golden Knights, hired eight days after getting fired by the Bruins despite making the playoffs for all of his six seasons at the helm in Boston and compiling a 399-245-108 record.
Cassidy’s teams accumulated at least a hundred points in four of his five full seasons. But he was let go because the Bruins allegedly weren’t tough enough. His successor in Beantown, veteran Jim Montgomery, led the Bruins to the best regular season record in NHL history before they were completely outmuscled by the Panthers in the first round. Cassidy’s new team seems plenty tough enough so far and should be kissing the Cup pretty soon.
Go figure.
Featured image via Associated Press/John Locher
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Peculiar Playoffs appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. For the second straight weekend, Carolina came up inches short from staying alive. At the NCAA men’s golf tournament, the Tar Heels starred on […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Another Close Call appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What Elliot Cadeau means for the Tar Heels’ lineup.
The good news begins with a 5-star reclassified point guard and sensational distributor, according to Hubert Davis, who calls Cadeau “an elite passer and playmaker. . . and excels at making his teammates around him better.”
The conundrum Davis must solve is that with senior R.J. Davis returning after playing almost 35 minutes per game the last two years, Carolina is likely to start one of the smallest backcourts in the country at 6-foot-2 and 6-feet.
Even if Cadeau and Davis are decent rebounding guards and defenders for their size, the college game is filled with bigger, physical players who can shoot at all positions. Will there be some zone practiced and ready as the season starts?
Sure, 6-5 super senior Cormac Ryan, who adds UNC to a college resume that includes Stanford and Notre Dame, will find important minutes, perhaps as part of a three-guard lineup that could also use 6-5 grad transfer Paxson Wojcik. While 6-3 soph Seth Trimble and 6-5 freshman Simeon Wilcher look to be their back-ups, if they show at practice Davis may have to play subs more than he has so far to address match-up problems against decidedly bigger back courts.
Davis calls Ryan “A great shooter, defender, leader and fierce competitor,” and that Paxson, a Tar Heel life born in Chapel Hill and a Brown graduate, “brings consistent perimeter shooting, rebounding and passing from the wing.”
The four and five positions (strong forward and center) have a similar logjam. Behind fifth-year senior star Armando Bacot and sophomore Jalen Washington, a reputed pro talent yet to emerge, there should be great competition for time provided by 6-7 junior Harrison Ingram from Stanford and 6-9 senior Jae’Lyn Withers from Louisville. Freshman Zayden High is 6-10 and the 11th scholarship player, giving Davis room to add one or two more big guys.
Cadeau is the linchpin for a team that had only 40 more total assists than turnovers last season. R.J. Davis played more point guard than the Arizona-bound Caleb Love but is still considered a scorer rather than a lead guard. He is also a ferocious defender who tries not to make his size a negative.
Hubert Davis graduated from UNC with a degree in criminal justice. While his team is a law-abiding bunch, the third-year coach will have to be more of a chemist than a cop. The concoctions start this summer with the results beginning to show in the very tough months of November and December with defending national champion UConn for sure, and the likes of Arkansas, Michigan, Memphis, UCLA, Kentucky as possible opponents.
A better start this year is a must.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Maggie Hobson
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Too Big to Fail? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina’s 2023-24 roster is signed, sealed and delivered.
To replace the nine departures via graduation or the transfer portal, Carolina confirmed the official signings of Harrison Ingram, Cormac Ryan, Jae’Lyn Withers and Paxson Wojcik, who combined for 1,424 points, 683 rebounds and 312 assists in more than 3,700 minutes of collegiate action last season.
Also coming are two high school seniors who signed last November, combo guard Simeon Wilcher and power forward Zayden High, plus of course the recent reclassifying point guard Elliot Cadeau, who we will talk about tomorrow.
Ingram, a 6-7 forward from Dallas, totaled 682 points, 405 rebounds and 218 assists in two seasons at Stanford. He was the 2022 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, when he won conference freshman-of-the-week six times.
He started 62 of 65 games, scoring in double figures 37 times, including his last 10 games, when he averaged almost 13 points. He scored a career-high 24 points against Ole Miss last season and 21 in a win over fifth-ranked USC as a freshman. He made three 3-pointers in both of his 20-point games.
“I love Harrison’s elite versatility on both ends of the floor,” Hubert Davis said. “He’s a great passer, playmaker and scorer with size. He is a great leader and teammate who has a burning desire to win. We initially recruited him in high school and are glad he’s a Tar Heel.”
Withers, a 6-9 forward, made 64 starts in 81 games the past three seasons at Louisville, where he averaged 8.0 points and 5.6 rebounds. Originally from Charlotte, Withers went to North Mecklenburg High School for three years before finishing at Cleveland Heights High School in Ohio.
After redshirting at Louisville in 2019-20, he earned All-ACC Freshman honors the following season, averaging 10.1 points and 7.7 rebounds and led the Cardinals in field goal shooting at 55.1%. He was third in the conference in offensive rebounding percentage and seventh in total rebounds per game.
Withers scored in double figures 30 times with a career-best 20 vs. Prairie View and Notre Dame, grabbed a career-high 13 rebounds twice with five double-doubles in points and rebounds. Last season, he averaged 8.9 points and 5.3 rebounds and made 41.7% from 3-point range (40 of 96), including a career-best four 3-pointers three times.
“Jae’Lyn can consistently make 3-pointers, run the floor, post up, attack the offense and create plays off the bounce,” Davis said. “He is also an excellent defender and rebounder, exactly what we were looking for at that position.”
Tomorrow, I will talk about transfer guards Ryan and Wojcik and, of course, the ballyhooed 19-year-old point guard Cadeau, a true 5-star recruit.
Featured image via Louisville Athletics/Adam Creech
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Here They Come! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler. Two putts from glory. But it was still a great day for Carolina. The UNC men’s golf team did not advance to the NCAA […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Desert Gleam appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For the University of National Champions, a men’s golf crown would be awesome.
The Tar Heels are having their best NCAA tournament performance in history by finishing first in four rounds of stroke play and enter match play today as the No. 1 seed against 8th-seed Stanford at the 2023 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship on the Grayhawk Golf Course in Scottsdale, Arizona.
They are favored to win their first national championship in a sport that has struggled since the days of Davis Love III and John Inman in the 1980s and Harvie Ward 30 years before that.
Carolina may have its most talented team ever, with five players ranked in the top 50 individually, and pulling off the title in match play would be a special championship for a school that has won dozens of Natties in other sports.
All-American senior Austin Greaser made a hole-in-one and fired a 4-under-par 66, one of three Tar Heels to shoot in the 60s in the final round to lead UNC to a first-place finish in the team standings after 72 holes of stroke play. Greaser aced the par-3 fifth hole. David Ford shot 68 and Ryan Burnett 69 as Carolina shot 7-under-par 273 Monday, which equaled the best round of the day by Florida State. It was the second straight day UNC had its lowest round ever in an NCAA Championship (including 275 Sunday in the third round).
The Tar Heels shot 12 under over the final 36 holes to earn the top seed in match play after entering the tournament as the No. 2 seed and are the highest-seeded team remaining for match play.
Sixth-year head Coach Andrew DiBitetto said, “We love our guys for a lot of reasons… one of them – no matter what they do, wherever they are on the leaderboard, they’re always hungry, they always want more, they want to keep working. They want to be the absolute best versions of themselves. We just had a successful four rounds and we finished atop the leaderboard. But our guys are still hungry. They went right to the range and they’re still there working, and we have a lot more work to do this week.”
Bring home another Natty, coach.
Photo via Andy Mead.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Golf Natty? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
All bets are off in the NCAA Baseball Tournament.
As it stands right now, the Diamond Heels aren’t projected to be one of 16 national seeds in the 64-team field. But being a highly-ranked team dreaming of Omaha isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. After all, the No. 1 overall seed in the field has lifted the trophy only one time since… ever.
In the last two seasons, the No. 1 overall seed hasn’t even made it to Omaha. In each case, SEC powerhouses fell on home soil to ACC underdogs in the Super Regionals: NC State toppled Arkansas in 2021 on its way to the College World Series, and Notre Dame took down Tennessee in 2022 to the delight of nearly every other fan base around the country.
Last season also saw Ole Miss, a No. 3 seed in its four-team region and the “last team in” win its first-ever national championship. You’d think the tournament’s double-elimination format would lead to more chalkiness, but it’s precisely the opposite. Between 2004 and 2016, 11 of the 13 national champions were not given a top-8 seed, and three of those teams were seeded No. 3 or worse in their own region. Fresno State made history in 2008 when it became the first and only No. 4 seed to win the championship. That’s like if a No. 13 seed or worse won March Madness.
Just another year in Omaha.
Carolina has its own experiences with summer upsets. The 2007 Tar Heels were a No. 1 seed and made it to the championship series, but got smoked in two games by unseeded Oregon State. The 2013 team was the best in school history, earning the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed. But a loss to unseeded NC State in the first game in Omaha and another to unseeded UCLA in the semifinals sent Carolina home empty-handed.
There are other teams that didn’t even make the trip out west: the 2022 and 2019 squads each hosted Super Regionals but lost. The 2017 team fared even worse. The Tar Heels were the No. 2 overall seed but lost to Davidson — Davidson! — twice in Chapel Hill for a stunning early exit.
Of course, the Diamond Heels have been on the good side of some upsets, too. The 2006 team visited No. 4 overall seed Alabama in the Super Regionals and left winners after a two-game sweep of the Tide, capped off by Chad Flack’s legendary walk-off homer in Game 2. The Tar Heels then defeated No. 1 overall seed Clemson in Omaha on their way to the championship series.
So, seeding really doesn’t matter in this tournament. If you’re hot, you’re hot. If you’re not, prepare for a long and winding road back home.
Featured image via The News & Observer/Robert Willett
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Heavy Is The Head appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
One of UNC’s best programs is in the hunt for its first-ever national championship.
The Carolina men’s golf program begins play in the NCAA Championship at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Arizona tomorrow. The team is ranked No. 2 in the country and has finished in the top 8 in each of the last two championships. But this group of Tar Heels is the best sixth-year head coach Andrew DiBitetto has had in Chapel Hill.
Carolina’s five-man lineup includes All-Americans and former national champions. Fifth-year senior Ryan Burnett is coming off an individual title in UNC’s regional in South Carolina last week and is as steady as they come. Sophomore David Ford has had a spectacular season, capped off by winning Carolina’s first-ever ACC Player of the Year award in men’s golf. Senior Austin Greaser has played at both The Masters and the U.S. Open, so the NCAA Championship stage isn’t likely to phase him. Dylan Menante is a transfer from Pepperdine, who ironically enough helped knock Carolina out of the championship last year in the match play quarterfinals. He also won a national championship with the Waves two years ago. And let’s not forget about Peter Fountain, the talented junior from Broughton High in Raleigh who won ACC Freshman of the Year two seasons ago.
That quintet has helped Carolina win five tournaments this season, by far the most in one campaign under DiBitetto, who oh by the way just won his second consecutive ACC Coach of the Year award. His Tar Heels will be among 30 of the country’s elite programs competing in the NCAA Championship. Three days of stroke play between tomorrow and Sunday will pare the field down to 15, after which one more round of stroke play determines the eight teams who advance to match play. Carolina has made its way to match play in each of the last two years, but lost in the opening round both times.
Grayhawk was the site of both of those championships, so the Tar Heels certainly have familiarity with the course. If they can go where no UNC team has gone before, it’d be the ultimate feather in the cap for DiBitetto, who took over a program which recent alumnus Ben Griffin candidly said was not competitive as recently as a decade ago.
The nature of the golf championship means not a lot of spectators will be joining UNC in the desert, but they have plenty of support behind them.
Featured image via Stephens Cup
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Golfing For Glory appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Durham Bulls Athletic Park is a perfect spot for the ACC Baseball Tournament.
Just as Greensboro established itself as Tournament Town for basketball season, I’m hopeful the Bull City can do the same for baseball. The ACC tournament is returning to the DBAP this week for the first time since 2019, and while the tournament tends to move around, the park had hosted seven of the last 11 events before the pandemic.
When it comes to the quality of the facility, it’s no contest: Durham is lightyears ahead of other parks in the state like Charlotte and Greensboro. It’s frequently cited as one of the best minor league ballparks in the country, and it’s so nice that Duke often hosts important games at the DBAP instead of its on-campus stadium, which is much smaller.
The Blue Devils are poised for another strong run at the title after taking the crown two years ago. Carolina enters as defending champions and always draws well, as does NC State. And then you have Wake Forest, the top team in the country with its eyes on Omaha. All that means I’m anticipating record crowds throughout the week, even more than in 2013 when UNC and NC State played one of the greatest games in tournament history: an 18-inning marathon in front of more than 11,000 spectators which ended in a 2-1 win for the No. 1 Diamond Heels. Both Carolina and the Wolfpack would make it to Omaha that season.
Other ACC foes may complain about the DBAP’s proximity to Duke, Carolina, State and Wake Forest, but those teams have earned that luxury with a combined 17 championships, including each of the last three.
And at least Durham is somewhat neutral. A quick look back through the ACC annals reveals the tournament rotated around campus sites in the early days of the event. Any neutral location will be closer to one school than another, so you might as well try to mitigate that as best you can by putting it close to several of them.
Is that logic convoluted? Yes. But maybe I’m nervous that the tournament will sell its soul and head north as basketball seems ready to do. ACC teams hitting Mickey Mouse home runs over the short porch at Yankee Stadium? Oh, the humanity!
With that in mind, hopefully no coach pulls a Boeheim and loudly complains about lack of reasons to visit Durham. You mess with the Bull… well, you know the rest.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Bull City Bonanza appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The big boys and local guys are going, going gone.
Lebron and the Lakers are out in four straight. The two Jays and Celtics are on the same precipice of the NBA playoffs.
And the Carolina Hurricanes are all but dead, as well.
The pro basketball and Stanley Cup post-season is showing us that playing at home is not what it used to be.
James played all 48 minutes and tallied 40 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists in what would be his last game of the season and, perhaps he hinted afterward, his Hall of Fame career.
His Lakers barely made the playoffs before ousting the Grizzlies and defending NBA champion Warriors in the Western Conference. Then came the most unheralded team in basketball, the Denver Nuggets and the next great player of his generation.
The nation got to see 6-10 Serbian sensation Nikola Jokic, the two-time NBA MVP who helped his team make all the big plays down the stretch of two games in Denver and two in LA to reach its first-ever NBA Finals.
Jokic’s talent as a scorer, passer and facilitator make him a truly unique player the nation is just discovering after starting his career in the outpost of Denver.
The Boston Celtics, whose tradition is up there with the Lakers, are behind the Miami Heat three games to none and are all but out of it after tonight’s fourth game of the Eastern Conference, and their two stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have both been horrible disappointments.
Meanwhile, the Heat’s team play and clutch leader Jimmy Butler have had the Celtics’ number at every turn, winning the first two games in Boston and the third in a blowout on South Beach in a rematch of last year’s Eastern finals.
With the most undrafted players of any playoff team, the Heat are brilliantly coached and play together superbly on both ends of the floor.
Different sport and different team, but the hockey Canes have all but squandered their hope to hoist the Lord Stanley Cup for the second time by losing the first three games, twice at home, to the upstart Florida Panthers, perhaps the best underdog story in all of sport.
After upsetting the Bruins and Maple Leafs, they beat the Canes the first two games at PNC in overtime and went home to Florida and somehow eked out a 1-0 win despite taking 15 fewer shots on goal and winning 9 fewer face-offs than Carolina.
It is really a simple explanation. The pros feature so many astounding athletes and clutch competitors that wherever they are playing doesn’t matter as much as how well they are playing.
Featured image via Associated Press/Lynne Sladky
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: True Cream is Rising appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Brian Kalbas has climbed the mountain and put his stake in the ground.
The 20-year Carolina women’s tennis coach has added the big one to his team’s four straight ITA indoor national championships in a huge how-sweet-it-is-to-be-a-Tar Heel moment. Here are the latest Kalbas facts.
The top-ranked UNC women finished their 2023 season with a 35-1 record by winning the program’s first NCAA championship and avenging its one loss of the season at N.C. State. The Wolfpack also advanced to the NCAA Final Four in Orlando and reached the championship match against its bitter rival.
This time, the Tar Heels won the doubles point and then, after State had taken the first singles, swept the next three matches to claim the NCAA hardware, 4-1. Tell me, what could be better than beating the Pack in the process?
State had seemingly grabbed the momentum by winning No. 1 singles, but Carolina came back with three straight hotly contested victories by Fiona Crawley in a tie breaker, Carson Tanguilig and Elizabeth Scotty in the 2, 3 and 4 singles to end it. Kalbas becomes the 14th UNC coach to win an NCAA title.
The championship following the ITA four-peat makes Kalbas’ program arguably the best in the country. It was Carolina’s first trip back to the Final Four since 2014 and since then has been dominant on the ITA circuit.
Kalbas has always regarded Carolina as his dream job after coaching at his alma mater Notre Dame and William & Mary, where he was national coach of the year in 1998 and won 79 percent of his matches in Williamsburg. In Chapel Hill, he has done even better by going 532-102 for .818 winning percentage. Over the last 14 years, it has been an incredible .889.
His list of accomplishments is way too long for this post, but go to his bio page to see how many great teams with multiples of great players he has coached. And it doesn’t look like he is slowing down with the $17 million Chewning Tennis Center opening at UNC, a college facility that compares to any in the country. Kalbas is the common denominator in all that.
He already talks openly about being able to recruit high school stars who are good enough to have shots at becoming successful pros. Still, every one of his athletes who stayed four years has left with a degree.
In the intrusive days of NIL and the transfer portal, that is also the job of a college coach.
Featured image via ITA on Twitter
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Women’s Tennis Tops Nation! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Magnificent 7 does not have any truly magnificent choices.
The media has been calling them “Group of 7” – Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia and Virginia Tech. These are the ACC schools apparently talking amongst themselves to consider their future options.
Clemson, FSU, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia & Virginia Tech are “The Magnificent 7” ACC schools, sources told @ActionNetworkHQ. These schools, @RossDellenger reported, have met in past several months, w/lawyers examining grant-of-rights to determine just how unbreakable it is.…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 15, 2023
Cynics are sarcastically calling them the “Magnificent 7” because they are selling possible realignment that doesn’t come close to the value established by the SEC and Big Ten through their football powers. Here are the problems all 14 full members of the ACC are facing:
After Maryland bolted for the Big Ten, like the Colts left Baltimore for Indy in the middle of the night in 1984, former ACC commissioner John Swofford wanted to make sure no other schools could defect without a severe penalty. He had all remaining members agree to sign a grant of rights through the year 2036.
It meant any member thinking about leaving would have to cede its media rights distribution back to the ACC, tantamount to that harsh financial penalty. And that contract with 13 more years to run has become an embarrassing decision.
The SEC and Big Ten never signed long-term TV deals because the landscape of rights fees was changing so quickly that neither conference wanted to get locked in and lose future flexibility. The SEC and Big Ten have since expanded to 14 schools, with two more in each conference coming (big brands of Texas and Oklahoma and the TV markets of Southern Cal and UCLA.)
Those two leagues have effectively secured so many dollars from the major TV networks like FOX and CBS and NBC that, even if the ACC wrangled its way out of the grant of rights commitment, their own football brands and/or TV markets would not attract enough additional TV money to increase the $100 million distribution per school per year projected by the SEC and Big Ten by 2029.
And if the Magnificent 7 renegotiated its partnership with ESPN for games and the ACC Network, an increased rights fee would continue to yield half of what SEC and Big Ten schools get. The result is a decided advantage in recruiting budgets, coaching salaries and lavish facilities.
The overriding question is if all these schools and conferences keep chasing the money to stay competitive in football, what happens to college basketball and all Olympic programs including Title IX-protected women’s sports? College athletics as we know it would be replaced by an NFL-type college football system.
ACC realignment of any kind won’t happen for several years or until everything settles and schools know for sure whatever moves being discussed today are worth it tomorrow.
Featured image via USA Today Sports/Joshua S. Kelly
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Just Talk For Now appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Did you know that Ted Lasso was originally belligerent?
The runaway sensation of a series featuring the American football coach who knew nothing about soccer before he took over a European team was supposed to star a tough, mean man. Then it all changed.
The star of the series, Jason Sudeikis, did not want to play that character as the nation and the world were changing for the worse when Donald Trump ran for president and won in 2016. Instead, he became a lovable, folksy coach.
Sudeikis said the culture that he found himself living in was not what he wanted to support with the new Apple TV series; the growing political tension inspired him to take Ted Lasso in a new direction.
He said what Trump unlocked in people upset him so much that he went to the producers at Warner Brothers Television and told them he preferred to reverse his role because the country was becoming so binary with people no longer listening to each other.
He was also a new parent, and against promoting that kind of behavior to his own family. He said to himself, “I don’t want to add to this, I just didn’t want to portray it.” Lasso became warm and affable, a positive quote machine that viewers came to love at the height of the pandemic. What was needed, he believed.
“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Sudeikis said. “How about, ‘Write the change you want to see in the world.’ Part of this job is wish-fulfillment. Not just playing a character, but what do you want to put out there in the world.” Ted Lasso has won eight television Emmy’s with more to come.
The series, now in its third season, has become a nationwide hit. Sudeikis and some of the cast recently visited the White House that he had lampooned often on Saturday Night Live and retold the story to members of the Biden administration while igniting a discussion regarding mental health in America.
The hugely popular series is hilarious but also a case study on being nice and decent. It began as a sports comedy about an out-of-work coach who got the job through a head-hunter and took over the fictional English Premier League football team, AFC Richmond.
But Lasso has grown into a more ambitious outspoken personality who, he hopes, will resonate with an ever-swelling audience and help change the cynical world we live in. To that end, he taped up a blue and yellow sign in the Richmond locker room that says “BELIEVE!”
Featured image via Apple
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Coaching Adjustment appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Thank goodness for the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
How amazing is it that the Basketball Hall of Fame for college players and coaches was not established until 2006? Did it take that long to determine that dozens of great collegians with so-so pro careers deserved such an honor?
Tyler Hansbrough should become the poster child for those oversights. The ACC and UNC all-time leading scorer could have turned pro as a first-round NBA draft pick after his freshman, sophomore and junior seasons but chose to stay at Carolina all four years because he loved his time in Chapel Hill. He was the first four-time All-ACC and NCAA first team All-America.
There may be another reason he didn’t go early, and it speaks to Hansbrough’s awareness and intelligence as an athlete. At 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, Hansbrough used his size, skill and, mostly, dogged determination to become one of the best players in college basketball history.
Yet, he may have also suspected that as a post player he was a “tweener” – not big enough to battle evenly with the 7-foot monsters of the NBA and not quite quick enough to be a small forward who needed to shoot consistently well from outside.
So he remained in school to get the best coaching from Roy Williams and set as many Carolina and ACC records as possible. For a complete list of his on-court accomplishments, see Steve Kirschner’s thorough press release on all his records, including the one most dear to Tar Heel fans – winning four straight years at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
There must be a ridiculous waiting period for the College Hall of Fame or else Hansbrough would have been inducted at least after his seven-year career in the NBA ended. He is not the first UNC player who deserved to go in based solely on his college career. Larry Miller, UNC’s only two-time ACC Player of the Year in 1967 and ’68, was selected last year, an affront to one of the ACC’s greatest!
Like Miller, who also was undersized for his position, Hansbrough put his heart and soul into every minute on the practice floor and on the game court. He set records every season, from his 40 points as a freshman against Georgia Tech to his UNC and ACC scoring and free throw records as a senior.
Williams was reluctant to compare players, but the retired coach could not hide his admiration for Hansbrough’s work ethic and relentless effort in games. “No one worked harder than this young man,” Ol’ Roy said with glee.
You can tell Tyler’s heroics are still alive because, going into 15 years since his graduation, he still garners the loudest cheers when introduced at the Smith Center in person or on the video boards.
The 14th Tar Heel to go into the college hall is an all-time great forever.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: At Last For Tyler appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Leave it to a Dukie to save my bad school year.
If you are a Carolina football and basketball fan, graduation Sunday marked the end of a pretty bad school year. And if you are a Boston Sports fan, it was really bad until Jayson Tatum saved the Celtics.
Tar Heel football in 2022 started great, winning 9 of 10 games with the only loss to Notre Dame. After what looked like the possible answer to Mack Brown 2.0 did not fulfill his dreams of having a true national contender in his fourth season back at UNC, it all went aouth.
I won’t review losses to Georgia Tech and N.C. State at home, to Clemson in the ACC championship game and to Oregon in the Holiday Bowl, all winnable games that turned the other way in the second half.
Then came basketball, which began with exceedingly high expectations after last year’s run to the national championship game. Yes, the hoop Heels were overrated as the preseason No. 1, but falling out of the polls in December and then not making the NCAA tournament were bummers beyond compare.
Having grown up a Boston sports fan, the way the Patriots and Red Sox performed were totally forgettable. The Red Sox finished dead last in the American League East, which they have done with intermittent championship seasons. Then the Patriots lost a playoff berth when a wide receiver threw a backward lateral pass that was intercepted for a touchdown. Seriously.
When the Boston Bruins were rolling to the best record in the history of NHL regular seasons, they looked like shoo-in to at least get to the Eastern Conference finals against the Hurricanes. They went up 3-1 in their first series against the eighth seed, then lost three straight games in astonishing fashion.
The Celtics had another great team and won 57 out of 82 regular season games but have almost lost their first two playoff rounds. It took them six games to dispatch the seventh-seeded Atlanta Hawks, and then fell behind 3-2 against the 76ers with Game 6 in Philly, where they looked dead in the water.
Then that former Dukie, who had shot 1-for-14 to that point, got hot halfway through the fourth quarter with four 3-pointers, forcing a Game 7 back in Boston. Anything can happen in a seventh game, but Jayson Tatum treated his mom sitting in the first row to a record-breaking 51-point performance in a blowout on Mother’s Day.
The Celtics now move on to the Eastern finals against Miami, but this school year officially ended with graduation at Kenan Stadium, so whatever happens happens. But thanks, my favorite Dukie!
Featured image via Associated Press/Steven Senne
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tatum Saved My Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Diamond Heels swept State and its fans right out of Chapel Hill.
Carolina had already done the damage by winning the first two games of the final regular season homestead, one with a walk-off squeeze bunt and the other by a blowout, both equally embarrassing.
But Scott Forbes’ improving team put the red cherry atop his new five-year contract by sweeping NC State and all but knocking the Wolfpack out of the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year while Carolina could be contending for one of the home sites in the regional round.
A sold-out Boshamer Stadium had a lot of red shirts in the stands, and it turned into a flush-faced parade up and down the aisles to the beer stands because very little was happening on the field for their team.
By the fourth inning, the Tar Heels had scored in every frame and led 7-0. State had been held to one hit by UNC starter Jake Knapp, who was sticky stuff-frisked by the umps at the request of Pack coach Elliott Avent, whose career record versus the hated Heels was about to drop to 38-46.
Knapp turned over his hat and glove and laughed off the inspection before blanking the Pack for a fourth straight inning.
It riled up a crowd that relished Carolina’s first home sweep of State since 2006. In their seventh win in the last eight games against State, the Heels kept pouring it on with three more in the fourth to lead by a touchdown and field goal with 14 hits.
Do they have the 10-run rule in college baseball? After another run in the 5th, Carolina’s inning-by-inning tally on the new scoreboard in left-centerfield looked like a combination lock code 31331.
After State hit a solo homer in the 6th and another long ball caught by Vance Honeycutt at the centerfield wall, the State crowd went bananas for being behind 1-11.
The Tar Heels, finally, didn’t score in two innings and went on to win, 12-2, as Forbes got to empty his bench and bull pen on Senior Day.
It was their fifth straight win and eighth in the last ten games, scoring 27 runs in the process, to bump their ACC record 14-11 (with three games left this weekend at Clemson) and 33-17 overall. State dropped to 10-16 in the ACC, an NCAA death knell.
Carolina had five players drive in multiple runs, with 18 total hits and every starter getting at least one, went 10 for 20 with runners in scoring position and had seven two-out RBIs.
All in all, another great day at The Bosh — unless you were wearing red.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Red Remorse appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Seth Trimble and D’Marco Dunn have made their positions clear.
On the day before the transfer portal closed, Trimble said he was returning to Carolina next season, and if someone beats him out for playing time that only means the Tar Heels will be better. If he loses minutes, so be it.
Dunn, to the contrary, went into the portal on the last day, which is another sign that Elliot Cadeau is reclassifying and will be on campus this summer as the assumed new point guard for Hubert Davis in 2023-24.
Dunn’s game improved as a sophomore and he was expected to contend for a starting position as either a shooting guard or small forward. But if Cadeau does come, he and R.J. Davis will be the starting guards, with Trimble and incoming freshman Simeon Wilcher as their back-ups.
Carolina has added at least two new players in the suddenly crowded backcourt. Davis looks to have his eight-, nine- or ten-man rotation all set.
Could Dunn have beaten out sixth-year, 6-5 grad student Cormac Ryan, who is billed as the tough, smart player that Carolina lacked last season? Is Dunn better than grad student Paxson Wojcik, who’ll get minutes as a 2-3?
The front court is set with super senior Armando Bacot and sophomore Jalen Washington joined by transfers Harrison Ingram from Stanford and Jae’Lyn Withers from Louisville, both with two years remaining of college eligibility. Incoming 6-9 freshman big Zayden High has to show himself in practice to earn some minutes or perhaps face a red-shirt season.
Neither the Trimble nor Dunn decisions are a surprise.
Trimble does not project as a starter here or for most other Power 5 programs until he becomes a more reliable 3-point shooter and improves his assist to turnover ratio (21-20).
Dunn would have competed to start as a 2-3 man, but competition at both positions is already fierce. And if Cadeau surprises all and stays in high school, Dunn is still eligible to return to Chapel Hill.
The latest moves leave only four returning scholarship players and, if Cadeau comes early, 11 overall, which gives Davis some roster flexibility with two scholarships still open.
But, as it stands, we are looking at the revamped roster, and with its experience there is no reason why the Tar Heels should not play their bench for more of the 200 minutes per game than they have the last two seasons and truly become one of the deepest teams in the ACC.
Should be exciting to watch them coalesce.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Coming Together appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The controversial career of the Dark Knight has, sadly, come to an end.
Did you notice that former UNC fireballer Matt Harvey has retired from baseball? He had a short, headline-filled career interrupted by injuries from which he never recovered his all-star form.
Harvey fondly remembered the April 19, 2013, game between his New York Mets and the Washington Nationals expected to be a pitchers’ duel with fellow 24-year-old phenom Stephen Strasburg. Harvey pitched seven innings, gave up only one run and struck out seven in the Mets’ 7-1 win. He loved being recognized by Mets fans who chanted, “Harvey’s better!”
After three years with the Tar Heels, Harvey was the No. 7 pick in the 2010 MLB Draft and was called up to the major leagues halfway through the 2012 season and made his debut with Mets on July 26th.
In that game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Harvey set a club rookie record with 11 strikeouts while notching his first career victory.
In his short, magical 2013 season, he earned the nickname “The Dark Knight” as the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star game. In August, he suffered a partial UCL tear that needed Tommy John surgery and never was the pitcher everyone expected due to the injury.
He returned in 2015 and was part of the Mets staff for the World Series, losing to the Kansas City Royals. He remained with the Mets until becoming a free agent in 2018, playing for several teams over the next few years, finishing with a 50-66 career record, an ERA of 4.42 with 867 strikeouts.
During his short rise to fame, Harvey made the cover of Sports Illustrated and remained in the gossip columns for dating gorgeous models with whom he was seen at New York Rangers games, cheering on his favorite NHL team.
Harvey was an ace for the Tar Heels 2008-2010, in the middle of four straight College World Series appearances. During the 2010 season, he led the team in innings pitched (96), wins (8), ERA (3.09), and strikeouts (102) while also being named to the All-ACC first team.
In 2010 at Clemson, Harvey pitched nine innings, striking out an impressive 15 batters in a 5-3 Carolina victory. He finished his UNC career with a 22-7 overall record and a 3.73 ERA.
One wonders if Harvey could have been the best pitcher to ever come out of the UNC program if not for the UCL injury followed by a bout with thoracic outlet syndrome, a compression of nerves, arteries and veins between the lower neck and armpit. It led to a dark ending for The Dark Knight.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fleeting Fame appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The transfer window is closing, but there are options.
The biggest lingering news around UNC basketball is whether high school junior Elliot Cadeau will reclassify and sign with Carolina to play during the 2023-24 season and how that will affect several returning Tar Heels.
There is apparently no deadline for Cadeau, a 5-star point guard, to reclassify as long as he does it before the fall semester at UNC begins. For example, the 19-year-old Cadeau could reclassify to enroll in summer school for the first session by May 17, the second session by June 26 or the fall term by August 20. Generally, most players attend the second summer session.
It appears unlikely that Cadeau will complete the reclassification process by May 11, which is the last day athletes can enter their names into the controversial NCAA transfer portal. So what are Hubert Davis and particularly returning guards D’Marco Dunn and Seth Trimble planning?
Should the verbally committed Cadeau sign a national letter of intent (NLI) to join the program a year earlier than expected, he will be projected to start or at least play a lot of minutes as a freshman, or why reclassify? And with rising senior returning starter R.J. Davis playing at least 34 minutes per game the last two seasons, how much time would be left for Dunn and Trimble?
And there is also 6-4, 4-star combo guard Simeon Wilcher coming in as a true freshman who will make the backcourt more crowded for someone playing both guard positions. Wilcher might also have options if Cadeau reclassified. He could ask UNC for a release to the scholarship he signed, much like Mackenzie Mgbako did at Duke once Kyle Filipowski decided to return.
Davis is a fair and honest coach in the mold of Dean Smith and Roy Williams. So, he is likely talking to rising sophomore Trimble and rising junior Dunn about options, so they won’t be compromised if Cadeau were to reclassify. Hubert may be telling those two to do what is in their best interests.
One option would be for Dunn and Trimble to enter the portal today or tomorrow to protect their playing time should Cadeau join the team. Since there is no deadline for portaled players to pick a new school before the fall semester, either or both could always return to UNC.
Or they would be free to visit other schools and create choices. Of course, if they both chose to transfer and Cadeau doesn’t reclass, Carolina would lose some potentially valuable backcourt depth. The portal clock is ticking, and right now we don’t know what any of the three are going to do.
Stay tuned.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Clock Ticking appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Here is a post on Armando Bacot that I love.
Every so often, posts come across my phone that say it better than I ever could. This is from Patrick McCann, a top contributor for the Carolina Basketball Facebook page.
It talks about Bacot so eloquently and truthfully that I want to use this space to share with you his wonderful words on AB.
“If I am a young man or woman looking to succeed in college basketball and life, I would follow the Bacot Bible!
“Deliver on the basketball court, deliver in the classroom, deliver for your business partners.
“Embed yourself in the school and the community. Graduate with a degree and possibly an MBA from one of the finest universities in the country. Lastly, do it all with uncommon grace and not a whiff of drama.
“The blueprint is there for any athlete that wants to follow, and our man Armando Bacot wrote the first NIL success manual. Thank you for all that you have done for yourself, your family and Carolina basketball fans.
“I’ve watched Armando since he was a freshman. I watch him intently and listen to all of his interviews, and read the NYT article.
“Here’s my take: he’s a smart man getting good advice from his parents. He will walk out of UNC with a business degree from Kenan-Flagler and maybe an MBA. He will have made deep business ties in the community and has a bright business future.
“As a Virginia kid, the tuition for 5 years is about $250k, training, facilities, food, the whole nine might be another $250k. Armando benefitted and UNC benefitted.
“On the basketball side, he’s a hard worker and super solid in his role as a player and a team leader. I’m happy for him and his family, I hope he realizes that a UNC business degree and MBA for him and a family that comes after him will change the trajectory of that young man’s life!”
A well-said, true tribute to a player who will forever be a legendary Tar Heel.
Thanks, again, Patrick, top contributor from the Facebook group Carolina Basketball.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The ‘Bacot Bible’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The UNC women capped a perfect opening to their new home.
The nation’s top-ranked women’s tennis team (31-1) bounced back from its only loss of the season (to N.C. State in the ACC finals) and swept through the NCAA regional rounds by blanking Charleston Southern Friday and Old Dominion Saturday at their new hidden home, the spectacular and unparalleled Chewning Tennis Center.
You will get another chance to see it this weekend, as the Tar Heels host the Super Regional against Florida at the state-of-the-art, $17-million facility that beat the odds and opened the last month of the regular season.
Located well behind the Friday Center and named for the family of former Carolina tennis player Tom Chewning, it has six pristine hard courts, plus six more for practice, and refurbished indoor courts and locker rooms for the women’s and men’s teams. Elevated spectator sections of light blue chair backs are along both baselines, and each court has an electric scoreboard tracking the matches.
In both the first and second rounds, the Tar Heels jumped in front by methodically winning the doubles point, and from there it was a race in the six singles to get the clinching three points to win 4-0, which left three matches unfinished with the Tar Heels in great shape to win them all.
The diversity of Brian Kalbas’ latest dynasty entry, which will now play for UNC’s 13th consecutive trip to the 8-team NCAA championships, is stunning. In the doubles matches both days, the Elizabeth Scotty/Carson Tanguilig and Reese Brantmeier/Reilly Tran duos won easily.
The onslaught continued into singles, where No. 2 Fiona Crawley and No. 6 Tran won in straight sets before fourth singles Abbey Forbes clinched the first round with another two-set win over Charleston Southern. Twenty-four hours later, Crawley and Anika Yarlagadda again won in straight sets before Tran in fifth singles set off the celebration sending an appreciative partisan crowd home happy.
Not only are the Tar Heels of all ethnicities and hometowns, their body sizes – from lithe, 5-foot-6 Crawley of San Antonio to Raleigh’s full-framed 5-9 Forbes – all pack amazing arrays of power and finesse.
In the men’s regional also at Chewning, Sam Paul’s 14th-ranked Heels rallied after losing the doubles point to beat Drake, 4-1, Saturday. The Heels then swept a tough Utah team Sunday to advance to their ninth consecutive round of 16 against top-seeded Texas in Austin this Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern time.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Anthony Sorbellini
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: All Love Weekend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Courtney Banghart is the all-around winner Carolina needs.
Full disclosure, I have never met the UNC women’s basketball coach, only talked to her a few times during Zoom press conferences. I have, however, watched her coach and her teams play at Carmichael Arena and on TV.
From my “10,000 feet” vantage point, there could not be a better match for the Tar Heels program. And she has a style all to her own.
It is somewhere between Duke’s Kara Lawson, who does not say much at all while the game is going on, and LSU’s wild woman Kim Mulkey, who is a sideshow from her outfits to her sideline outrage.
Banghart stands most of the game, arms crossed, and communicates calmly with her players on the court. She appears to be in total control of her timeout huddles, and I have heard she can be far more vociferous in the locker room, especially at halftime of games her team is not playing particularly well.
Aside from coaching and teaching techniques, Banghart seems like she has been here more than four years. A graduate of Dartmouth, where she was an all-Ivy League 3-point shooter, and uber-successful coach at Princeton, she had either researched UNC athletics extensively or her personal and professional way of life just fit the university and town like a glove.
Kudos to Bubba Cunningham for either schooling her or recognizing that the 44-year-old Banghart was as close to perfect as possible. And not all Carolina coaches have been success stories. I won’t deep dive for anyone in particular (but Butch Davis and Sylvia Hatchell do come to mind).
UNC coaches are notorious for publicly supporting each other, so it’s not new that so many attend women’s games. A lot of them show up often, far more than perfunctorily. They are rooting for both her team and her. Home attendance has increased 44 percent, which helps any fiscally challenged Olympic program.
Banghart’s new five-year extension will keep her in Chapel Hill at least through the 2027-28 season, but it might take some kind of tsunami for her not to become a Carolina lifer. She and her spouse are raising two young kids in a local community where neighbors are as authentic about her as she is toward them.
Her last three teams made the NCAA tournament and have been in and out of the national polls. She is not afraid to say her goal is winning UNC another NCAA championship, which is unlikely in the Ivy League, despite Banghart taking eight Tiger teams to the Big Dance.
“We’ve made significant progress in bringing Carolina back into the national spotlight,” she says. “Carmichael is rocking and we’re recruiting the best of the best. And this community has totally wrapped its arms around us.”
Indeed.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Coaching Keeper appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Please, Caleb Love is not changing his mind and coming back.
People who follow UNC basketball with fervor deal in rumors and speculation, but some of them simply cannot put the pieces together. The hottest and latest gossip to hit one Tar Heel social media blog is that Love is now coming back for his senior year.
That makes absolutely no sense for any number of reasons, such as:
Caleb is a great kid and finished his sophomore season as the hero with his big shots in March. But he left as the “goat” in many eyes because he took some bad shots as he was racing the shot clock. That was not always Love’s fault, rather the product of a stale offense, yet he got most of the blame. A reboot for both parties seemed like the logical move.
A 180 now is not only illogical, but impossible, due to how Hubert Davis has revamped the roster. There are already new faces who will split the minutes in search of better shots, and Love no longer fits.
He needs to play in a different offense, which Michigan has now that 7-foot Hunter Dickinson has transferred and Jett Howard, the head coach’s son, has entered the NBA draft. The Wolverines will no longer have the inside game Dickinson gave them, and they need to replace lost outside shooting.
And right now, Love is only a borderline pro prospect because of his 30 percent 3-point shooting last season. The NBA is a league where the players getting most of the minutes are guys who can fill it up from the deeper pro arc. In other words, Caleb has to prove he is more than a shot TAKER, but rather a shot MAKER.
Within a new environment, Love can spend all summer regaining his shooting touch and rewrite his chances for the NBA with a great senior season in Ann Arbor, where most fans will welcome him and his game more positively than some Tar Heels would after his uneven three seasons in Chapel Hill.
Yes, he has been back in town, most publicly at a Ronald McDonald House event with buddy Armando Bacot. That was probably planned well in advance, and just because he is transferring doesn’t mean he has to forget his friends and good times he had here.
Let him go without silly speculation that might have been valid before Davis and his staff began going in another direction. Right now, Caleb’s best destination is the one he has chosen.
Let him go with the Love and gratitude we owe him and he deserves for hitting some of the biggest shots in Carolina Basketball history.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Jeez, Let Him Go! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Carolina Hurricanes need to defend their home ice.
That may seem like an obvious statement, but when the Canes begin second-round play for the Stanley Cup tonight, the road teams have won 32 of 52 playoff games so far, which is 62 percent.
The NBA home-court advantage is holding up, but only at 43 percent, despite some notable upsets by road teams like the eighth-seeded Heat knocking out the NBA favorite Bucks in Milwaukee and the 76ers shocking the Celtics in Boston without NBA MVP Joel Embiid.
Despite sold-court crowds at virtually every playoff game, the road warriors of the National Hockey League must not hear the home fans through their helmets and the glass barriers that surround the ice.
There was nothing in hockey history to match the first-round between the eighth-seeded Florida Panthers and the top-seeded Boston Bruins, who won more games (65) in the regular season than any team ever in the NHL.
But despite the Bruins jumping out to a 3-1 lead in the series, the Panthers got stronger, winning for the second and third times in Boston. The seventh game was one for the books, no matter who you rooted for.
The Bruins were reeling from a Game 5 overtime loss at home that sent the series back to South Florida. The Panthers survived a wild third period to win 7-5 and force a seventh game back in Boston, where they took a 2-0 in the second period. With Bruins fans in full panic mode, they finally scored and then hit the back of the net twice in the third period to take a 3-2 lead four minutes in.
Now only 59 seconds away from advancing to the second round, the Bruins allowed a late goal that tied the score and forced overtime. At that point, Florida had all the momentum from its dramatic finish to regulation. And the Panthers completed the stunner by scoring 12 minutes into sudden death OT to oust the best team in hockey for the last six months.
The Hurricanes, the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference, are favored over the third-seeded New Jersey Devils and had a 24-11-6 record on the road during the regular season. And their sixth-game victory, 2-1 in overtime at the Islanders, should give them confidence against the Devils. New Jersey has one-time Carolina favorite Dougie Hamilton, who will go into PNC Arena with excitement for his new team. And, after all, they are on the road in the NHL.
The Canes fans are terrific, especially in playoff time, and will need to be at their wildest to support their home ice in these wacky playoffs.
Featured image via Associated Press/Frank Franklin II
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Road Winners appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Hopefully, Hubert Davis is not trading one problem for another.
Rarely has UNC’s off-season been more exciting and hopeful than the campaign that just ended. But the disappointment was palpable from the once top-ranked team in the country becoming the first No. 1 in 40 years to not even make the NCAA tournament.
Carolina fans are nothing if not optimistic. Six players entered the portal on top of two running out of eligibility. So far, Davis has corralled four transfers and two new freshmen to almost complete the revamped roster, but the most buzz is coming from Link Academy prep school in Missouri.
All unsubstantiated reports over social media are declaring that 6-foot-1 Elliot Cadeau, a top-rated point guard, will skip his senior year and reclassify so he can join the Tar Heels early after committing to them last fall. If so, UNC has one scholarship open, and additional prep stars and transfers are in the mix.
And along with the speculation about Cadeau comes the rumors that Seth Trimble and/or D’Marco Dunn might leave because Cadeau would take up too much of their playing time. And this is exactly where Davis may be stuck.
What is the two-year head coach saying to these guys who are either coming, staying for now or still possibly transferring out before the portal closes on May 12? And to the new freshmen who have already signed and even Cadeau?
Although the veterans who are coming to Carolina from Brown, Louisville, Notre Dame and Stanford with a combined dozen years of college ball, Davis is likely promising nothing but an opportunity to play. They have the experience but do they have the athleticism and outside shooting the Tar Heels need?
Of course, a little-used bench began the outward flow after freshmen Tyler Nickel and Will Shaver, sophomore Dontrez Styles, junior Puff Johnson and super senior Justin McKoy played fewer minutes than those who backed up the Iron Five in 2022? And lightning rod Caleb Love left after perhaps playing too many minutes.
Wouldn’t you guess that transfers are picking schools where they expect to play? And while the roster may be deeper, how will minutes be divvied up? Right now, Armando Bacot and R.J. Davis are veteran returnees, and if the slick 5-star Cadeau comes that leaves only two starting spots for 10 hopefuls.
Maybe they will all be even from the first day of practice, except in Carolina tradition Dunn, Trimble and Jalen Washington as returning lettermen would get the first shots. And how long will that last?
Davis may insist everyone can earn minutes, but settling on the eight- or nine-man rotation that is ideal requires the top reserves having enough time on the floor to get comfortable. Assuming some departees left mad for not getting a chance to play more, what will make older newbies happy?
Clearly, Carolina and its head coach cannot afford another uncertain season like the last one.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Making Newbies Happy appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
LeBron James and Steph Curry are just messing with us, don’t you think?
The NBA playoffs are maddening, with upsets that are nullifying the seeding. But the Lakers and Warriors are waging their own West Coast version of “Gotcha” by merely trying to make the playoffs while getting their injured players all healed up.
Curry played 56 of the 82 regular season games, LeBron played just 55. Both entered the playoffs with plenty of gas left in the tank, and it is obvious that just getting into the postseason is what matters.
First of all, let’s talk about their ages. James, 38, says he is in his “20th season and counting” and has slowed down just enough to prove he is human. He has already changed the game, the first super star who is a better athlete than basketball player. And we know how good of a hooper he is at 6-9, 250 pounds.
Curry, the 35-year-old wunderkind from Davidson who was not offered a scholarship by a single ACC school, is also a great athlete but a far better basketball player and clearly the best shooter in the history of the game.
So the seventh-seeded Lakers beat third-seeded Memphis with right-hand-hampered Ja Morant in six games, wrapping up their first-round series with a 20-point blowout of the No. 3 Grizzlies. LeBron paces himself now, but he still played 31 of 48 minutes of the deciding game with 22 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists. Now that MJ’s long retired, some big kids want to Be Like LeBron.
More basketball players from middle school to the NBA want to Shoot Like Steph, who had a seventh-game playoff record 50 points and took 38 of his team’s 100 shots in Game 7 in the sixth-seeded Warriors blowout of the No. 3 Kings on the road. Whereas coaches have complained that young players care more about shooting 3s than anything else, Curry is helping them justify that.
We may never see another shooter like Curry, who has changed the game into where NBA teams make taking 40 3-pointers a part of their plan. That’s because the players obviously practice perfecting the long ball more than ever. Regardless of the comparative stats, the pros and to an extent the colleges have gone from a two-point inside-outside game to lineups where four, if not five, of the guys on the floor can knock down 3’s. That’s Curry’s influence. And when Stephen drains them up from all places and with all body gyrations, it is worth the hefty price of admission.
NBA teams both draft to get marksmen but also help average shooters improve so they can play more minutes. James and Curry won’t go on forever (I don’t think), but both will leave legacies that are even more style than substance.
They face each other in the second round, which will be great viewing but too bad one of them will be ousted.
Featured image via Associated Press/José Luis Villegas
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Athlete and Shooter appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Dick Groat was a giant who loved basketball more than baseball.
I met Groat back in 1984, when the former all-star shortstop with the Pirates wanted to rag me about Indiana and his buddy Bobby Knight beating Dean Smith, Michael Jordan and the Tar Heels in the NCAA tournament.
Groat’s first daughter had married Duke assistant coach Lou Goetz during the Blue Devils’ long forgotten days of Bill Foster (prior to Coach K). Groat was a hero since becoming Duke’s all-time leading scorer in basketball during the early 1950s. His No. 10 was the first jersey retired at Cameron Indoor.
“Bobby Knight is the best college basketball coach ever,” he said of the fiery Hoosiers’ mentor. “Your guy is good but he’s no Knight.”
I swallowed hard, since I was still reeling from the Tar Heels’ upset in Atlanta in the NCAA Sweet 16, when IU stunned Smith’s top-ranked Tar Heels 72-68 due to Jordan’s foul trouble and Kenny Smith’s injured left wrist.
Before the shot clock, Knight’s team moved the ball until it could find an open look, most by freshman star Steve Alford, who had 27 points that night.
Recently retired from baseball, Groat revealed he would have preferred playing in the NBA if it paid anywhere close to Major League Baseball back in those days. He loved the hardcourt even more than the diamond.
Groat first made his bones in basketball after being recruited by Duke in both sports. He recounted how the Blue Blood rivalry existed long before the ACC was born, and that he sneaked into what was then called Duke Indoor Stadium to shoot the night before his senior game against Carolina because he could not sleep.
The practice paid off. He was carried from the court in tears after scoring a school record 48 points in the 94-64 blowout win over the hated Heels.
Since he remained in Pittsburgh, where as a Pirate he had opened Champion Lakes golf course in Ligonier with teammate Jerry Lynch, Groat was the radio color commentator for Pitt basketball next to Hall of Fame broadcaster Bill Hillgrove. And he knew the game.
He loved coming back to the Triangle whenever the Panthers played at Duke, UNC or NC State long before they eventually joined the ACC.
Groat passed away this week at 92 after a long fight with declining health. He was a tough nut and might have died years ago, but still loved greeting golfers as they registered and after their rounds at the 19th hole. He was one of those living legends who never left Pittsburgh but because of his basketball brilliance always called Durham his second home.
RIP.
Featured image via Associated Press/Keith Srakocic
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hoops in His Heart appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
This is Ken Huff’s last chance to make the College Football Hall of Fame.
One of the most decorated offensive linemen at a school that came to be known as Tailback U, Huff’s list of accomplishments almost fills an entire sheet single-spaced. All-ACC and consensus All-American, Jacobs Blocking Trophy as top O-lineman and Jim Tatum Award as best senior student-athlete in the ACC, all in 1974, followed by the No. 3 pick in the NFL draft, plus making the NC Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and honored jersey in Kenan Stadium.
Etc., etc., and so forth.
“As an All-American and all-pro in an era when how good you were mattered far more than social media attention, Ken Huff was one of the best offensive linemen to play at Carolina and the ACC,” says Mack Brown, UNC’s Hall of Fame head coach. “He is a Hall Famer in every definition of the honor.”
The National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame has an archaic rule that players are no longer eligible 50 years past their last season, so the oft-nominated Huff has only one more shot a half-century since serving as captain of the Tar Heels and College Football All-Star team against the Steelers.
He has been nominated more than a dozen times, starting with the Southeast Chapter of the Hall of Fame, named for Bill Dooley, Huff’s old coach as a Tar Heel who if he hadn’t died in 2016 would still be lobbying hard for the gentle giant who played 11 years in the NFL including for the Washington Redskins in the 1984 Super Bowl vs. the Oakland Raiders.
The hundred or so nominees each year are paired down to 70 from which 12 are selected to be inducted. Huff always let his blocking do his talking and thinks that may have kept him out all these decades.
“I was never a rah, rah guy,” he said. “It was block your man and go onto the next play. And there weren’t a lot of statistics for linemen back then; how many pancake blocks did I make?”
Huff has been an award-winning custom home builder in Chapel Hill going on 40 years, twice named Builder of the Year by the prestigious Governors Club community. He turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy to accept Dooley’s scholarship offer in 1971 and thinks induction to the College Hall of Fame would be a career-capper.
“It’s not going to validate my career, but it’s the recognition that comes with it,” he said. “I guess for your legacy, more for my family and kids. Kind of the epitome of my career, which just kind of tops it off.”
Vote Huff in 2023!
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Blocking Did His Talking appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I have tried to love Jayson Tatum. I really have.
The former Duke one-and-doner now plays for the Boston Celtics, the pro basketball team I have rooted for all my life. Tatum, the No. 3 pick in the 2017 NBA draft, has gradually become one of the best players in the game.
But there is still something I cannot stand about him, and only part of it is because he’s a Dukie. Tatum is averaging 30 points per game this season, 8.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists and shoots 46 percent from the floor. Great stats that have kept him in the MVP discussion all season.
But when he is expected to step up in certain games or at crunch time at the end, he disappears. In what was supposed to be the close out of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, Tatum pulled off his Houdini act once again. He missed 9 of 10 3-point shots, lost his cool and was assessed a costly technical foul for yelling at the refs near the end of the Atlanta Hawks’ sensational upset win in Beantown. Most of the Celtics, who went 57-25 in the regular season, complain after pretty much every foul called against them, and that can kill their concentration in the clutch.
This time, the heavy underdog Hawks, No. 7 seed in the NBA East, trailed almost the entire game, including by 13 points with 6 minutes left. But Tatum and his teammates like Marcus Smart, who in my opinion can be pretty stupid at times, allowed Atlanta to rally and win on three very long 3-pointers by scoring point guard Trae Young. It was as bad as the Canes also losing Game 5 at home.
I am sorry, in his sixth NBA campaign, Tatum can’t just have a great regular season. He has to step up in the playoffs and do what is expected of him by the unforgiving Boston fans. He failed Tuesday night on the big stage, and even if the Celts eventually beat the Hawks and move on, Tatum has lost his MVP chances.
Tatum should take a lesson from his co-All-Star Jaylen Brown, the former Cal-Berkeley star, who accepts every whistle and keeps his head in the game. Brown scored 35 points in the loss but did miss 4 of 5 crucial free throws.
Look, I am not being a sore loser, because the series now moves back to Atlanta for Game 6 with the Celtics up 3-2 in the best-of-seven. But Tatum lights my hair on fire with his disinterested play in most critical times.
And, believe me, I have moved on from him being a Dukie. Mostly!
Featured image via Associated Press/Charles Krupa
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hair on Fire appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tar Heel teams had a rare bad weekend, which actually is good.
I ran into Bubba Cunningham Sunday evening, taking his wife Tina to what turned out to be a consolation dinner at Hawthorne & Wood.
“How ya doing?” I asked.
“Tough weekend,” he said.
Later, I looked to see exactly what he meant, and it was more than tough. On the fields, courts and course, it was ugly.
The baseball team, which has yet to find the national footing that Mike Fox laid down, was swept at home by Boston College, losing leads in two of the three games. The 18th-ranked Diamond Heels are not supposed to lose three straight in Chapel Hill to a team from Boston, not named the Red Sox.
The top-ranked and undefeated women’s tennis team, coached brilliantly for years by Brian Kalbas, was the heavy favorite to win the ACC championship in Cary but lost 4-1 in the finals to, of all opponents, N.C. State, in prep for NCAA tournament play.
Also in nearby Cary, the fourth-seeded men’s tennis team lost the doubles point to Florida State and the quarterfinals match, 4-2, after a double-bye as Sam Paul’s team also awaits an NCAA tournament bid, which is not assured at 17-8 overall.
The No. 15 men’s lacrosse team was not supposed to upset top-ranked Notre Dame in South Bend and lost 16-9 after being outscored 8-1 in the decisive second-half stretch.
The men’s golf team, ranked No. 2 heading to the ACC Championship at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, managed only to shoot even par the last two days and finished sixth after failing to advance to match play.
On the thinner good side of things, women’s softball crept closer to a .500 record by winning both games of a doubleheader to sweep the series at N.C. State. It was the Tar Heels’ first three-game sweep against an ACC opponent since 2019.
As Bubba and Tina left for their table, I made some silly parting comment about being disappointed is expected when you have an athletic department as successful as Carolina’s has been for decades.
“That happens when you are supposed to win ‘em all,” I said.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: When Bad Means Good appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The long-overdue recognition finally arrived.
When I showed up at UNC in the late 1960s, the name Curry Kirkpatrick was already legendary to most journalism students. And he was only 25 at the time.
Kirkpatrick, one of six inductees into the North Carolina Media Hall of Fame Friday night, was at the right place at the right time of his burgeoning sports writing career. His flashy-but-honest prose in the Daily Tar Heel attracted then 10-year-old Sports Illustrated when Kirkpatrick was still a senior at Carolina.
They offered him a job as an entry-level reporter, and Curry turned it down because he loved Chapel Hill and wanted to finish his degree. After graduation in the summer of 1965, the magazine came calling again, and this time Kirkpatrick “couldn’t get up there soon enough.” He became the human baseline and living goal for J-school students at UNC – “SI right out of college.”
When we met several years later, Curry didn’t act like a living legend. He was funny, self-effacing and curious to know what all of us still on the Tar Heel beat thought about Dean Smith’s young and climbing basketball program.
He also wanted to party before and after games at home and on the road. And he fit in there perfectly because he still looked like he was 18. In the Time-Warner building in New York, Kirkpatrick worshipped at the altar, or at least the office doors, of Frank Deford and Dan Jenkins, two of the profession’s greats.
Deford, a Princeton grad who took a fancy to UNC, branched out as a sports author, NPR commentator and HBO reporter. Jenkins, a revered sportswriter in Dallas, went on to become a best-selling novelist.
They cleared the path for Kirkpatrick’s 27 years at SI, which grew into the wildly popular sports weekly that we waited for at newsstands or in the mail. During college basketball season, Curry’s stories were the first read.
Humorous and irreverent, he was still deeply knowledgeable about the sport and humanized the games and those who played and coached them. He was worldly in a way we all understood, working analogies and one-liners from contemporary movies, TV shows and best-selling novels into his entertaining pieces.
Eventually, he went “multi-media,” doing features for CBS, HBO and ESPN TV. His home on Hilton Head Island is a mesmerizing museum of clippings and photos from various assignments across the globe far beyond hoops, his favorite.
How it took UNC this long to honor the soon-to-be-80 legend who was birthed from its own womb is beyond me. But his fourth hall of fame, the one closest to his heart, finally happened and is way more than well-deserved.
Featured image via Sports Illustrated
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Still Legendary appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina looks to be prioritizing smart, tough players in its rebuild.
The Tar Heels are three scholarships away from refilling the roster that lost eight to graduation and the transfer portal. They got their third incoming transfer Thursday night when rugged, sought-after sixth-year guard Cormac Ryan told Hubert Davis he will be enrolling this summer.
The 6-5 Ryan, who was granted an extra season by the NCAA after sitting out a year at Notre Dame under the old transfer rules, joins 6-8 Jae’Lyn Withers from Louisville and 6-4 Paxson Wojcik from Brown. All three bring a dozen years of experience and have been described as “smart” players who also shoot the 3-ball very well.
Rocked by traditionally atypical claims that UNC was not very team-oriented in the last disastrous season, Davis appears to be on a mission to shed that embarrassing tag that has dogged his alma mater in his first two years in charge.
Yes, there was that magical March of 2022 when Carolina shot the lights out on the way to the national championship game, but that was more stellar individual play than how Dean Smith and Roy Williams got into the hall of fame.
And with the so-called elite players not readily available in the portal, the Heels need to assemble a team whose sum is better than their individual parts. And nothing like how they free-lanced their way to poor shot selection and percentages compounded by a 368-345 assist-to-turnover ratio that wasn’t exactly a hallmark of unselfishness marking a storied program.
None of the newcomers have withering statistics but must have shown Davis they are willing to work hard on both ends of the court. Any Tar Heel highlight tapes Ryan, Withers and Wojcik watched on their visits had to be carefully edited snippets of team play not seen enough by a frustrated fan base that nevertheless showed support despite its disappointment.
The talent of the returning players cannot be denied. Armando Bacot, who will use his fifth season in pursuit of the same ACC rebounding records he broke at UNC, needs to play in a more open offense, where his nose for the ball and relentless effort will result in more possessions and better offensive rebounding.
Senior R.J. Davis has to stay healthy to prove he is among the best perimeter shooters in the country. The three other starters will come from preseason practice, which looks to have a more-talented mix and experience that should result in a deep bench it sorely needs.
The potential stars-to-be are already on the roster, such as 6-10 sophomore Jalen Washington as a high-low combination with Bacot and athletic junior guard D’Marco Dunn.
There will be more transfers signing up, two new freshmen and perhaps a reclassification from the 2024 recruiting class. But on paper, it’s their veteran chops that make them older, tougher and, hopefully, far more together than what we saw last season.
Featured image via USA Today Sports/Matt Cashore
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Assemblage appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
(I wanted to get an Artificial Intelligence — AI — comparison of Draymond Green’s foot stomp in Monday night’s playoff game to Christian Laettner’s in 1992, so I asked ChatGPT. Here is the response.)
Draymond Green’s stomp on an opposing player during an NBA playoff game in 2023 and Christian Laettner’s stomp during the 1992 NCAA Tournament are both incidents where a player appeared to intentionally step on another player.
In Laettner’s case, he stepped on the chest of Kentucky player Aminu Timberlake after a scramble for a loose ball. The incident received significant media attention and Laettner was widely criticized for his actions of unsportsmanlike behavior for using his foot to harm an opponent.
While both acts involved intentional stomps on opposing players, there are several key differences between the two incidents. The first and most obvious is that Green’s stomp occurred in the NBA, while Laettner’s stomp happened during a college basketball game. Additionally, Green’s stomp happened during a playoff game, which is generally considered to be a higher-pressure and more intense situation than a regular-season game or a tournament game.
Another difference between the two incidents is the severity of the stomps themselves. While both Green and Laettner used their feet to harm their opponents, Green’s stomp was widely seen as more intentional and more vicious. In fact, Green was ejected from the game as a result of his actions, while Laettner was only assessed a technical foul and faced less severe criticism and was even praised by some for his competitiveness and toughness.
Finally, the reactions to the two incidents were different as well. While both Green and Laettner were criticized for their actions, Green’s stomp was widely condemned by fans, players, and analysts alike. Many people saw it as a particularly egregious example of unsportsmanlike behavior, and some even called for Green to face further punishment beyond his ejection. Laettner, on the other hand, faced less severe criticism and was even praised by some for his competitiveness and toughness.
(ChatGPT did okay but missed the significant pressure of Duke’s one-and-done NCAA tournament win)
Featured image via Associated Press/José Luis Villegas
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Bot Report appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Another inspiring basketball movie has just come out.
Michael Jordan’s name is mentioned in the first minute of Sweetwater in reference to whether any of the first Black players in the NBA compared to MJ. This flick is the story of Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, star of the original Harlem Globetrotters and among the first Black players in pro basketball.
It won’t get the buzz of “Air” with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon but is definitely worth seeing. Better hurry because it is in one of the small auditoriums at Silverspot, a sure sign of a short run. I attended a matinee and was one of three people in the theater.
Surprisingly good unless you don’t like what might be called “woke” for recounting minority struggles in America. It has a surprising cast that includes Jeremy Piven from the HBO series Entourage who plays legendary New York Knicks coach Joe Lapchik, and veteran Richard Dreyfuss as Maurice Podoloff, first commissioner of the NBA.
The true star is tall and athletically talented Everett Osborne, who portrays Sweetwater in the late 1940s and does well both on and off the court. He stands up to Abe Saperstein, founder of the Globetrotters who is very chintzy with doling out barnstorming money to the players.
Just as “Air” plays loose with the screen adaptation, Sweetwater declares it is inspired by true events, and it also ends with the truth and Clifton far from the billionaire that Jordan became. It’s had an average start in ratings and at the box office, but it can be a tear-jerker if you like that kind of stuff.
The huge hands on the son of cotton farmers play a big part in Sweetwater’s antics with the Globetrotters who eventually drew competition from the Harlem Magicians once the best Globies also moved on to pro ball. He holds a basketball like a small melon and easily fakes passes to the guys trying to guard him.
The screenplay was actually written in 2007 and had stops and starts due to the economic crash and later the pandemic, resulting in most of the original cast having to be replaced. But Piven, the neurotic agent in Entourage, and Dreyfuss, who has played in dozens of movies, do fine jobs along with Cary Elwes, owner of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden who supports breaking the NBA color barrier with Sweetwater.
No awards coming, but good for fans and hoops historians.
Featured image via Briarcliff Entertainment
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sweetwater A Winner appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown let it all hang out with the national media.
It is easier for big media like Sports Illustrated and Yahoo to get access at UNC to do a piece that will enhance the Tar Heels’ national profile. That happened last week when SI.com’s Ross Dellenger had a private meeting with Mack Brown in his office at the Kenan Football Center.
Now, UNC holds more football and basketball press conferences than any school in the ACC. Steve Kirschner and Jeremy Sharpe set their pressers before the season and release a schedule to the media. That’s when as many as 50 reporters gather at the same site and hear the questions and answers for Brown and Hubert Davis and their players.
So few “scoops” come from that kind of egalitarian system, which is why the local media and plethora of websites and blogs often have the same material after the pressers and videos are released to the public.
For Dellenger and SI.com, it was an exclusive until they publish and other outlets quote the material and credit it back to the original source. Brown cut loose about subjects that he covers in his sometimes twice-weekly press conferences. The SI.com long-form story quoted Brown as saying of college football, “We’re the NFL. . . we’re the mini-NFL. That’s where we are headed. We will never see amateurism again. It’s gone. I hate it. I thought that’s who we are, what college football is.”
He added, “We are the farm league for the NFL with many NFL programs . . .headed toward an NFL model.” The soon-to-be 72-year old coach told Dellenger he can be outspoken about NIL and the transfer portal because he is “at a different point in my life than most coaches.”
“Cheaters cheat,” he said in a phrase he has used often with the local media. “People who used to give inducements are still doing that. It’s just called NIL. This stupid thing about it’s not pay-for-play. I wish we would stop hiding behind NIL.”
Brown knows what should happen even if it sounds similar to what he is griping about now. “Different regulations would apply to each of these (3) new divisions: Power 5, Group of 5 (mid-majors) and the FCS (Football College Subdivision, or the old Division I-AA),” he said.
The Power 5 conferences would still pay athletes and coaches whatever they wanted and continue building facilities in the continuing arms race. Isn’t that where we are now, just for the NFL-like schools?
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pro or No Pro? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tar Heels are showing up in surprising ways in the NBA playoffs.
Carolina and Duke have battled in recent years over which blueblood program has the most alumni playing in the NBA. Over the course of a season, it is generally around two dozen each, but some of those players have two-way contracts where they split their games between their big team and its G-League affiliate.
Currently, five former Tar Heels are still alive in the NBA playoffs, with mixed results. The biggest surprise, perhaps, is Harrison Barnes, who left UNC after the 2012 Elite 8 season and was the No. 7 pick by Golden State, winning an NBA ring in 2015. He was a regular starter for the Warriors where he averaged around 10 points per season.
In 2016, Barnes was traded to Dallas through the strange 2019 season when he played for four different teams and wound up with Sacramento, where he sort of disappeared with the perpetually losing franchise. Most casual pro basketball fans could not keep track of him.
That ended this season, when Barnes started all 82 regular-season games and scored 13 points, including a crucial 3-pointer, as the No. 3 seeded and rebuilt Kings earned their first playoff win in 17 years, edging his former Warriors in Game 1 Saturday. Game 2 is tonight at 10 if you want to watch live. “There were lots of long days here,” said Barnes, who played in 64 playoff games, all with the Dubs. “To run out tonight and see all the fans and how loud they were made me very happy for them.”
Other Heels shining in this postseason so far include Cameron Johnson, Puff’s big brother, who had his best playoff game, but could not get his sixth-seeded Brooklyn Nets over the hump against No. 3 Philadelphia in the opener of their best-of-seven series. He had 18 points, including four 3-pointers, in the 121-101 loss for a team that once had Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Game 2 is also tonight in Philly at 7:30. Also, second-year man Day’Ron Sharpe, who saw only 22 seconds of playoff action during his rookie season, continued to blossom, contributing six points and six rebounds for the Nets.
UNC hero Danny Green began with Cleveland in 2010 before winning three NBA titles with different teams – San Antonio, Toronto and the Lakers. In his 170th career playoff game, Green sat out as the Cavaliers were upset at home by the Knicks. Maybe they will wise up and play the 14-year veteran with championship chops in Game 2 Tuesday.
Featured image via Associated Press/David Zabulowski
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Barnes Is Noble appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown is nothing if not long and optimistic.
The Carolina football coach owns the unofficial record for the number of off-preseason press conferences he holds and the duration of each presser. His confab before the spring game ran 43 minutes, typical. You almost can’t go if you have anything else to do. And there’s always YouTube.
Approaching his 72nd birthday, Brown never fails to be this chipper in prepping for a new season. The Tar Heels’ theme for spring practice is to “finish” and that is clearly something the head coach cannot do any better than his 2022 team that lost its last four.
The multi-fanged college sports media in this state joke about how much time Brown spends with them, and they appreciate that he stays around to answer every last question. No other coach does all that, and Brown seems to like it as a CEO coach who oversees his program more than getting in the trenches.
His Tuesday presser this week had very little about the Spring Game Saturday, which is free, in Kenan Stadium at 3 o’clock, because it is more one last look at individual players than any semblance of a game. Until a few weeks ago, Brown was ruminating about not having it all.
He takes questions about anything and everything else, and many of them asked are what Brown has already answered repeatedly.
No matter what his Tar Heels did the season before or are expected to do the coming fall, Brown always is positive about their chances. He can riff on stats about last season but prefers talking up the players who will start or see a lot of snaps.
Entering his fifth fall back in Chapel Hill, in his four seasons so far, Mack has had a future NFL quarterback to talk about, Sam Howell for three of them and Drake Maye entering his second but third year in school (which makes him eligible for the 2024 NFL draft).
It’s about getting better and consistent play to surround QB1 and less about a defense that takes a lot of heat each autumn. But in 2023, Maye has the least-experienced wide receiving corps in Brown’s return.
Brown begins each press conference with a “Welcome, Everybody!” And he ends it with an “Anything else?” and stays at the podium to make sure. “This time last year we were having this same discussion,” Mack said Tuesday. Not exactly but it took just as long.
Featured image via UNC Football/Matthew Fedder
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Spokesman appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Social media is awash with transfer speculation.
Here are a few nuggets from the world of one-and-dones, transfers and NIL money. They all serve to prove how the college sports world has been turned on its axis and ready to tip over completely.
The biggest surprise is that one of Duke’s three top freshmen from last season is returning, and he was the one that seemed most likely to go pro. Unlike Dariq Whitehead and Dereck Lively, who showed great promise but didn’t have great all-around numbers, Kyle Filipowski was the Blue Devils’ most valuable player, ACC Rookie of the Year and highest projected first-round NBA Draft pick all winter.
So, go figure. Whitehead and Lively have entered the NBA Draft pool, and Filipowski is returning for his sophomore season.
Just like Drake Maye at UNC, Duke very likely upped the NIL to keep “Flip” from going to the NBA. Without disclosing the amount, Heels4Life awarded the Maye family basically “loyalty money” to offset some of the big bucks apparently being offered by other schools.
Duke is set up perfectly for NIL with wealthy alumni all around the globe now being able to pour money into the NIL bucket as it has been doing for years to support facilities, salaries, programs and research. And it is likely playing the graduation card, telling parents that their sons who stay will now only be two years away from coveted Duke degrees.
The problem for Jon Scheyer is that he has four 5-star recruits still coming in next season, but all of them are power or small forwards who can’t help protect the rim like Lively. And how will Scheyer divide up minutes among 9 or 10 veterans and 5-stars?
The hottest rumor on social media has 6-8 Mackenzie Mgbako, the highest-ranked signee in Duke’s incoming haul who decommitted after Filipowski’s announcement, possibly joining his high school teammate Simeon Wilcher in Carolina’s lean class of 2023. That is mostly wishful thinking since Mgbako has not said any such thing to this point.
Sure, it could happen. But so far there is zero validation to something that would stoke the Duke-Carolina rivalry like 60 years ago when prep superstar Art Heyman showed up in Durham instead of UNC, where he had been committed for more than a year.
Hubert Davis and staff are still at it to fill all eight roster spots lost to graduation and the portal. Two have committed, but neither is a lock to start and look more like reserves who will have to provide quality depth, something sorely missing last season.
Personally, I like R.J, Dunn, Bacot and Washington to start with one spot left to fill. Transfer season is still far from over, so social media guesswork needs to give it a rest until the facts are in.
Featured image via 247 Sports/Tommy Yarrish
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Guesswork, Stop! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Air Jordan without Air Jordan is absolutely terrific.
One of the best decisions stars and co-directors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon made was to never show the face of the actor playing Michael Jordan in this new film about how the Carolina superstar changed the world of personal endorsement and multiplied the wealth of other professional athletes.
AIR, the story of Jordan’s surprise signing with Nike over Adidas and Converse, gives a somewhat dramatic look at the week the deal was made that saved the Nike basketball division in 1984, a month or so after Michael leaves UNC as a junior All-American ahead of the NBA Draft where he was the third pick by the Chicago Bulls.
Despite their own fame as long-time leading men, Affleck plays self-indulgent Nike founder Phil Knight brilliantly and Damon is a betting-looking Sonny Vaccaro, the famous pitch man who started the first high school all-star game and was a high-stakes gambler with everything he touches.
Vaccaro goes directly to the Jordan family in Wilmington, a taboo practice of going behind the back of foul-mouthed agent David Falk, played by Chris Messina. But Vaccaro’s quick bonding with Deloris Jordan results in the parents and their 21-year-old son traveling to Oregon to meet with Nike.
There, an emotional pitch by Vaccaro and introduction of the first athletic shoe named for a player – red-white-and-black with a Nike Swoosh – won over Jordan’s mother, who to this day is the pillar overlooking all of the family-supported charities. Her vision of Michael’s super-stardom led to asking for a percentage of every Air Jordans sold forever and made all shoe companies share profits with players who only received endorsement fees prior.
Fast-forward 40 years, and MJ is a billionaire after his Air Jordan and Jumpman lines also made Nike the giant it remains today.
Jason Bateman plays the company’s marketing genius, Rob Strasser, but the flick is stolen by Chris Tucker, the fast-talking Nike VP Howard White, who Tar Heel fans may remember as a great player at Maryland under Lefty Driesell.
Carolina and basketball fans can enjoy this movie immensely, but so will people who know next-to-nothing about sports because it is also the story of a mother, masterfully played by Oscar winner Viola Davis, and clearly the rock of the family.
Messina’s portrayal of agent Falk tickled me the most, because those of us who met Falk when he escorted Michael around Chapel Hill knew that he used less dirty language and had far less hair than the fiery guy Messina plays.
It will be a blockbuster film worldwide, but one that is particularly prideful around here for its references to UNC and Dean Smith and video highlights of the Jordan no actor could ever play.
Featured image via Amazon Studios
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rare Air appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Theo Pinson is like a cat with nine lives.
We know it was at the end of the regular season, when his team’s playoff spot was already gone. And Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban ordered coach Jason Kidd to tank the last two games so they could move up one spot in the NBA Draft.
And while the likelihood is high that Luka Doncic has played his last game for the Mavs and Kidd may be fired, Pinson’s two starts after not getting off the bench for seven of Dallas’ prior eight games may have secured his place on the roster for another season. He would certainly win a popularity contest.
It appeared the beloved former Tar Heel was at the end of his five-year NBA career, but what he did in the last game has made him a fan favorite going into the off-season. The one-time leader in gyrations from the bench became only the fourth player in NBA history to have a triple-double with no turnovers.
In his 40 minutes, Pinson scored 23 points, including five 3-pointers, grabbed 13 rebounds and dished off 12 assists, with zero turnovers, in the Mavs’ 138-117 home loss to the San Antonio Spurs in a game that looked like his team needed more of Pinson’s career specialty – defense.
While Theo was somewhat of a prankster during his Carolina career, the flamboyant athlete who once crashed a post-game NCAA press conference without an invitation has had a life of basketball getting raves for his play. His bio since becoming a high school All-American is so diverse he recorded some career numbers that got him in the same sentences with far more-famous stars.
Among 12 UNC players to appear in two national championship games, Pinson also is one of three Tar Heels with 500 rebounds and 400 assists (the others being Ed Cota and Walter Davis, Hubert’s heralded uncle). He had an improving assist-to-turnover ratio that was 5-1 as a senior and a career 3.4-1.
Not a reputed shooter, Pinson made some big baskets and had as few big scoring games against N.C. State and Miami. He also had the driving dunk off a Kenny Williams steal that sealed Carolina’s 82-78 home victory over Duke.
In the 2018 ACC tournament semifinal win over the Blue Devils in Brooklyn, Theo had 8 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals for a team loaded with scorers Luke Maye, Joel Berry and Cameron Johnson.
With perhaps no UNC player to match Pinson’s diverse skills on the court and his personality and candor off the floor, if he gets another NBA season with Dallas or any other team, he will affirm that an all-around game is more than valuable to keep playing.
Featured image via Associated Press/Tony Gutierrez
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Keeps On Ticking appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Caleb Love will get every chance to be a star at Michigan.
Long after he suits up in the Maize and Blue, Love will still be a hot-button basketball player from Ann Arbor to Chapel Hill, trading one big brand for another.
Just like Hubert Davis stuck with Love while much of the fan base wanted him to be benched and replaced by some other reputed 3-pointer shooters, the Wolverines will be in a similar position in giving Caleb the rock with the freedom to fire it up.
Michigan lost its three top scorers to the transfer portal or the NBA draft, and without 7-foot-1 center Hunter Dickinson the Wolverines will be more of a run-and-shoot team. Juwan Howard’s club made 45 percent from the field and 36 percent from the 3-point line in 2022-23.
Both of those statistics have to do with Dickinson, who commanded a lot of double-team attention that allowed outside shooters to get open. This coming season, the Wolverines won’t have a returning player who averaged better than 8.6 points per game since their top three scorers are gone.
Jett Howard, the coach’s son who will enter the NBA Draft, had the highest 3-point percentage among the starters while taking nearly 100 more long shots than anyone else. Kobe Bufkin, a 6-4 small forward who will also test the NBA Draft, was easily the best shooter not named Dickinson and shot 48 percent while draining 35.5 percent of his 3-pointers.
Those losses will leave Love as the primary threat from the arc, and it will be up to Howard to get him better shots than Caleb took at Carolina, many with the 30-second clock winding down when he got the ball and had to make a move of some kind. If that happens, look for Love to regain his shooting touch and pump up his confidence.
Howard, who was suspended in 2022 for slapping an opposing coach during a late-game confrontation, likes physical basketball and got a bird’s eye view of Love’s willingness to mix it up during a short scrum in Carolina’s win over Michigan in the Jumpman Invitational last December.
Chances are Howard sold Love on stepping in as a team leader with the option of entering the NBA Draft or using his COVID season as a fifth-year player. Even if Caleb flourishes in his new uniform, that doesn’t necessarily mean he could have done the same thing at UNC.
After his 2022 heroics, he figured to be the leading scorer and pick up some of the slack from Brady Manek’s departure. When that didn’t happen, the pressure grew to the point where both parties needed a change.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Brand New Love? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If early reviews are any indication, Carolina may have found a diamond in the FCS rough.
In the four years since Mack Brown has been back as the head coach, the Tar Heels have had All-ACC talents on the defensive line and in the linebacking corps, but have struggled to find consistency in the secondary. It’s been a far cry from Brown’s first go-round in Chapel Hill, when he recruited and signed cornerback Dre Bly, one of the best defenders in Carolina history.
But Brown and defensive coordinator Gene Chizik have been very high on one of UNC’s newest cornerbacks: East Tennessee State transfer Alijah Huzzie. Huzzie has only been a Tar Heel for a few months, but according to Brown is already playing the ball better than anybody on the team. Make of those comments what you will.
Said Chizik on Huzzie, “He does a great job of just feeling things in the secondary that we can’t teach. He’s got a sixth sense for the ball in the air. He’s been everything we’d hoped he’d be so far.”
Huzzie’s accomplishments at ETSU speak for themselves: 30 consecutive starts, first team All-Southern Conference and first team FCS All-America as a senior. Huzzie picked off six passes last season, the second-most of any player in the FCS. As a team, the Tar Heels had just nine in 14 games.
Huzzie has two years of collegiate eligibility remaining and hopefully can provide some stability for a Carolina secondary which has undergone a facelift since the end of last season. A winter exodus saw both starting cornerbacks and several reserves enter the transfer portal. The final shoe to drop was Bly, who came in with Brown to coach the secondary in 2019, leaving his post to pursue other opportunities. Again, make of that what you will.
A frequent refrain last season was that if Carolina had shown just some semblance of ability to stop an opposing offense, the Tar Heels could have won more than the nine games they ended up plateauing at. It’s probably a bit ambitious to imagine one of the poorest defenses in the FBS suddenly morphing into the ’85 Bears in the course of one offseason, but the addition of Huzzie and others has coaches excited. Chizik even stated that while the team has a long way to go, they’re further along than last year’s group was.
Pair one of the best quarterbacks in the country with a defense finally able to hold its own? Tar Heel fans everywhere would be all in.
Featured image via East Tennessee State Athletics
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: All In on Alijah appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Major League Baseball may have finally gotten something right.
Since taking the MLB commissioner job in 2015, it’s safe to say Rob Manfred hasn’t exactly endeared himself to baseball fans. From refusing to fight frustrating local blackouts to devaluing the World Series trophy, Manfred’s tenure has been rocky. But it appears Manfred at last has a win under his belt: the pitch clock.
Before making its way to the big leagues, the pitch clock had been used in minor league baseball as an experimental rule since 2015. And take it from someone who worked in minor league baseball for a season: it was not nearly as invasive as baseball purists would make it out to be.
The pitch clock is in its debut season in the bigs, and after an iffy first week or so of spring training as veteran major leaguers struggled to adjust, the rule has had the desired effect. In the first few games of the regular season, average game time has gone down by about 30 minutes, from three hours to two-and-a-half. Pitch clock violations against either pitcher or batter are not commonplace as some feared, but rather just another quirky thing you can see at a baseball game.
One such notable instance occurred on Tuesday, when Diamond Heels alum Zac Gallen earned the easiest strikeout of his career against Manny Machado, who took too long adjusting his batting gloves. Machado then got himself ejected arguing the call.
Zac Gallen gets Machado to go down not looking. pic.twitter.com/111uFWDOB3
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 4, 2023
Elsewhere, Miami Marlins ace and reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcántara earned what baseball old heads call “the Maddux” by pitching a complete game in just an hour and 57 minutes, something which would have been unthinkable last season. The new rule is clearly slanted toward quick workers like Alcántara and Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale, but baseball purists who opposed the clock underrated the ability of professional athletes to adjust to a new rule. Who among us hasn’t had to do that at our workplace? At least the ballplayers had a warning.
From a selfish perspective as a baseball fan, I hope the pitch clock starts to bring back followers of the game who may have turned their back on it due to slow pace and dead time. There’s no question MLB is terrible at promoting itself, what with the aforementioned blackouts and a puzzling refusal to market star players. But maybe this new rule, a rare good look for the league, can start to change that.
Featured image via Associated Press/Erin Hooley
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Pitch, Please appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
UConn, YOU are officially a men’s college basketball Blue Blood.
The Huskies capped off a dominant NCAA Tournament run by thoroughly beating upstart San Diego State in the national championship Monday night. UConn now has five titles since 1999, two more than any other Division 1 program. I and many others now believe the Huskies comfortably belong in the elite ranks of the blue bloods.
College basketball’s history is much easier to parse through than college football. Since the NCAA Tournament’s inception in 1939, there has been one undisputed champion every year (except 2020, of course). Over on the gridiron, multiple polls and confusing postseason systems have created multiple national champions several times over. Just ask those around Georgia Tech and Colorado who really won the title in 1990. The soap boxes will come out.
Anyway, all that is to say we have a clear view of who won what when on the hardwood. Therefore, it’s easy to count banners without potentially doubling up. And from a pure banner count perspective, UConn is as good as any program in the country. The Huskies’ five NCAA titles match those won by Duke and leapfrog Kansas’ four. Meanwhile, UNC only leads the Huskies by one and has lost six title games. UConn remains a perfect 5-0 on Monday night.
Where it gets tricky is the other criteria for being a blue blood. The generally agreed-upon “core four” of UNC, Duke, Kentucky and Kansas have all made their imprints on the history of college basketball. UCLA and Indiana, blue bloods who have since fallen on hard times, also qualify in this regard. UConn is a young whippersnapper compared to those programs. The Huskies can’t say they brought about the invention of the shot clock or, heck, the invention of the game itself.
But banners are banners, and in this new era of one-and-dones and player movement, UConn has proven it can game the system the best of any program out there. Carolina is facing its own struggles with roster management, while Kentucky hasn’t won a title in over a decade. Meanwhile, Duke is forging ahead with a new head coach and Kansas faces some uncertainty around the health of Bill Self.
It’s a new era in college basketball, one where there are fewer elder statesmen than ever and players have had more freedom than ever before. And the team that appears the best equipped to deal with all this? I’d say they’re the ones who just hoisted the trophy.
Featured image via Associated Press/Brynn Anderson
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Welcome to the Club appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The backlash against Angel Reese is disappointing, but not surprising.
Trash talk and taunting have been a part of sports ever since the games have been played. I may only be 27 years of age, but I’m still old enough to remember Caleb Love waving goodbye to everyone inside Cameron Indoor Stadium last March, a gesture that made it into Carolina’s pregame hype video this past season. To go back even further, Larry Bird’s on-court antics have become the stuff of legend among NBA old heads.
Or what about during Super Bowl LV, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Antoine Winfield Jr. got in the face of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Tyreek Hill? Winfield’s taunts were met with a 15-yard penalty, but fans around the league loved it. They may have even felt Hill — a known trash-talker himself — had it coming.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers strong safety Antoine Winfield Jr. taunts Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill after a play during the second half of Super Bowl LV on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
But in the waning seconds of the women’s basketball national championship Sunday afternoon, when LSU’s Reese taunted Iowa’s Caitlin Clark with Clark’s own celebration, the pearls were clutched. Words such as “classless” and other dog whistles began to circulate, the type of rhetoric never used when Bird cussed out opposing players or when Allen Iverson stepped over Ty Lue in the 2001 NBA Finals.
Clark, whose incredible scoring and passing abilities made her the National Player of the Year and the star of the NCAA Tournament, was celebrated for her on-court confidence and swagger. When Reese replicated it, something changed. I’ll let you do the math.
The standard will alwaysbe higher for women, particularly Black women, in this regard.
Look no further than earlier in the weekend, when South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley took the mic after her team’s loss to Clark and the Hawkeyes in the Final Four. Staley was asked about outside perceptions of her team — almost entirely Black women — as “bullies.”
“We’re not bar fighters. We’re not thugs. We’re not monkeys. We’re not street fighters,” Staley said. “Some of the people in the media… you’re saying things about our team, and you’re being heard. And it’s being brought back to me… it just confirms what we already know.
“If you really knew them, like you really want to know other players that represent this game, you would think differently. So don’t judge us by the color of our skin… you may not like how we play the game. That’s the way we play. I’m not changing.”
"We're not bar fighters. We're not thugs. We're not monkeys. We're not street fighters. … So watch what you say when you're in public and you're talking about my team in particular."
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley had a message for the media. pic.twitter.com/4Y6WL3T8MX
— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) April 1, 2023
Staley and Reese may be conference rivals on the court, but they are sisters-in-arms off it.
Featured image via Associated Press/Tony Gutierrez
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Double Standard appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Tonight’s game could very well be a passing of the torch moment.
The men’s national championship will pit UConn versus San Diego State, a veritable “old school vs. new school” matchup. The Huskies represent the old guard of college basketball (ironic, considering how they were viewed as outsiders during their own rise to glory). A UConn win would give them five national championships since 1999, two more than any other school in that time span. And this year’s run to the title game has been as dominant as we’ve seen in recent years: the Huskies’ comfortable 13-point win against Miami in the national semifinals was actually their smallest margin of victory in the tournament.
If UConn is able to finish off the Aztecs and hang a fifth banner in Storrs, you’d be hard-pressed to give an argument for excluding them from the exclusive “blue blood” ring of college basketball. Heck, their five NCAA titles would be more than Kansas — who has permanent blue blood status — and as many as Duke, the blue blood everyone loves to hate.
So that’s what at stake on one side. On the other, San Diego State is looking to leapfrog Gonzaga as the best non-power conference program in the country. The Aztecs have been contenders for a while, ever since Steve Fisher and Kawhi Leonard got them to a Sweet 16 in 2011. SDSU made another Sweet 16 a few years later and were robbed of a potential No. 1 seed in 2020, when the Aztecs finished 30-2 before the NCAA Tournament was cancelled. Head coach Brian Dutcher is a former Fisher assistant and has guaranteed himself a place on the coaching carousel for years to come. There’s no doubt programs with deeper pockets than San Diego State will come calling this offseason.
An Aztec victory would also be a major boon for the Mountain West Conference, which had been mocked by college basketball fans for being an analytics darling during the regular season but pumpkins in March. That very nearly bore true this year as well, as the Aztecs were the only Mountain West team out of four entrants to win an NCAA Tournament game. And now, SDSU can be the first team in the history of the conference to hoist the trophy (UNLV’s 1990 title came before the league was formed).
Blue bloods versus new bloods. A dynamic offense against a suffocating defense. East versus west. Whatever way you slice it, NRG Stadium in Houston will host a culture war tonight.
Featured image via Associated Press/Godofredo A. Vasquez
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Koh’s Notebook: Old vs. New appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Final Four teams should be reseeded to avoid what is happening on Saturday.
The NCAA Selection Committee not only assigns seeds 1 through 16 for each of the four regions. It also seeds the entire field, 1 through 68.
So that should allow them to reseed the Final Four for competitive semifinal matchups that would feed the best possible championship game.
San Diego State and Florida Atlantic are no-names and not Power 5 schools and their overall seeds reflect that. The Aztecs are the No. 17 seed overall. FAU is No. 33. Connecticut is the No. 13 and Miami is 20.
So if the seeds were adjusted for semifinals matching the lower versus the higher remaining seeds, odds are it would make for a better championship game and create more excitement than one with a heavy favorite.
If reseeded, the games would be UConn versus FAU and Miami playing San Diego State. Cinderellas are for semifinals, and The U versus UConn on Monday night would be far more anticipated by a wider audience.
Probably the most mismatched championship game was in 2004 with UConn playing Georgia Tech from the ACC. Now, the Jackets made a nice run after being seeded third in the Midwest region and did beat No. 4 seed Kansas in the regional final before edging Oklahoma State on Final Four Saturday.
The 31-6 Duke Blue Devils were ranked in the top three all season long and had J.J. Redick, Luol Deng, Shelden Williams and Chris Duhon in their lineup. Despite losing one of three games against Georgia Tech during the ACC season, Duke was a better team and would have had an enormous psychological advantage over the Jackets, who had not been to a Final Four since 1990.
Instead, the UConn-Duke semifinal continued an intense 15-year rivalry in which they had met several times in the NCAA
Tournament, including the 1999 national championship classic in St. Petersburg.
The Huskies had another doozie against Duke that Saturday in San Antonio. The Devils led most of the way but fell to a furious UConn comeback in the 79-78 thriller. Imagine that game on Monday night.
Rather, the nation got Connecticut beating Georgia Tech by nine points in a far less-interesting final game of the season.
Now, not all Final Four pairings have games that would have been better suited for the final. But if the committee changed that slight rule and allowed reseeding of the last four teams standing, they would up the chances of having a close, highly regarded championship match-up for a huge TV audience.
The U versus UConn would not make Monday night anti-climactic.
Featured image via Associated Press/David J. Phillip
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Best Game Should Be Last appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Paxson Wojcik, hopefully, is just the first piece of Hubert Davis’ plan.
Carolina fans who noticed that Caleb Love entered the transfer portal the same day Wojcik committed to play his fifth college season with the Tar Heels should not see it as an even trade.
That would not be fair to Wojcik, who has always considered Carolina his “dream school” since his dad, Doug, was a popular member of Matt Doherty’s coaching staff.
Wojcik was a 3-star prospect out of high school (Love was a ballyhooed 5-star) and had modest stats in his two seasons at Loyola Chicago and his last two at Brown. He should be regarded as only one piece of the roster puzzle Davis is putting together after losing eight players from the 2022-23 team.
A 6-5 guard whose stats have improved steadily through his college career, Wojcik may help fill a need for smart, tough players who can shoot. In his true senior year at Brown, he averaged 14.9 points and 7.2 rebounds (remember, it’s the Ivy League), plus 3.2 assists and shot 38 percent from the arc.
But Davis has other holes to fill while awaiting the end of the college season, which may produce more transfer portal players after the Final Four. UNC needs to replace the leadership of Leaky Black, Pete Nance and Love in the locker room, so newcomers may come from all levels of college ball.
No matter who else is added, the core of the 2023-24 team will be returnees Armando Bacot and R.J. Davis, who have announced their intentions, plus rising junior D’Marco Dunn and sophomores Jalen Washington and Seth Trimble, all 4-star recruits who have yet to make a consistent impact in college.
One element that is still missing is what Hubert refers to as “dudes,” physical players who go hard to the basket and boards and are slap-the-floor defenders. Incoming freshmen Zayden High and Simeon Wilcher could help.
There’s a kid from Villanova and one from Notre Dame who haven’t entered the portal but are rumored to be headed there. Plus, one from Northern Colorado and one from Towson who have shown interest.
Clearly, the Tar Heels’ next roster has to be filled with more new guys if they want to return to their postseason place in college basketball.
Washington and Dunn will be given the chance to earn starting spots and Trimble is already penciled in as the back-up point guard in a lineup that may use three perimeter players more often.
So let’s welcome Wojcik to his dream school, but also be realistic about his role as a smart, heady player who can make the 3 ball consistently, all needed.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Pieces appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown says NIL and the transfer portal are no longer “out of control.”
The Carolina football coach was asked Tuesday if promises of Name-Image-Likeness money are still being made to athletes as inducements to sign.
“I think it’s settling down,” Brown said. “It got out of control completely. And there were a lot of news reports, some probably accurate and some not. But last year there were a lot more parents and kids asking for money than there is this year.”
Brown related last year that some players he was recruiting asked blatantly, “How much NIL money will I get?” When he explained to those recruits how the NIL program worked at UNC, Brown said several players quoted dollar amounts they were promised by other schools recruiting them.
“We talked to one of the lead enforcement people for the NCAA the other day for about an hour and a half,” Brown said. “And he told us that you cannot be promised (NIL) money before you get to a school, and they’re going to start using that as an inducement to go to a school and start making kids ineligible if they accept that money. And so that’s a game changer.”
Brown says the faster the NCAA can do that the better. “The more that word gets out, the better it’s going to be,” he said. “There is no question that if a school offers a kid money, what’s the difference between offering him money five years ago and offering him money now? It’s still an inducement.”
Brown said “families are learning that a lot of the coaches who have offered them money, that’s illegal and their kids could lose their eligibility. They’re also learning that some of the collectives that have offered them the money, when they get to school that money is not there. And if it is there, it’s less than they were told. We have not had a person in recruiting so far this year talk to us about NIL, and that’s different than it was last year.”
That former Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has succeeded Mark Emmert as president of the NCAA, Brown hopes, has made a big difference.
“Everybody’s probably waiting to see,” he said. “You’ve got a governor taking over the NCAA and everybody’s starved for great leadership in that position.
“They’re excited about what may change. And obviously Congress has gotten involved with NCAA rules and a governor who’s grown up in politics may be the right guy to fix it. So we all hope so.”
It may be easier said than done with agents acting as go-betweens with schools and athletes, and many of the cases could end up in civil court. But it is at least a start at maybe putting some of the toothpaste back in the tube.
Featured image via Eli Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Back in the Tube? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Here’s hoping it is a big win-win for Caleb Love and UNC.
So, the biggest question about the future of Carolina basketball has been answered. Lightning rod scoring guard Caleb Love will play his fourth, and possibly fifth, college season somewhere else besides Chapel Hill.
The announcement came Monday, and reactions have been mixed as we might have expected. No. 2 was easily the most talked about player during the recent season, as he never found the streak shooting touch that led the Tar Heels in their 2022 March Magic run, including two wins over Duke that neither fan base will ever forget for diametrically different reasons.
In my opinion, Caleb Love’s career that included some of the biggest shots in Carolina history should be forever celebrated.
On March 4, 2022, at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Love was one of four Tar Heels with 20 points or more. His 22 included going 12 of 12 from the free throw line, plus 5 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 turnover and a steal. His assist to Armando Bacot for a dunk gave the Tar Heels a 10-point lead and moved Coach K’s retirement party from fear to funereal. And it gets better from there.
Against UCLA in the NCAA Sweet 16, Love continued heating up. While playing all 40 minutes, he scored 30 points that included six 3-pointers and one that broke a 64-64 tie with 1:03 left. Bacot saved a ball from going out of bounds and threw it right to Love, who drained his last 3 ball from the top of the key and then assured the 73-66 win with two free throws.
And in the national semifinals against Duke in New Orleans, Love hit the shot heard around the basketball world over the outstretched fingers of Duke 7-footer Mark Williams with 25 seconds remaining. He then sealed the 81-77 win for the ages with three free throws. Of course, that ended Mike Krzyzewski’s career on a second straight loss to his archrival.
That majestic jumper is captured in framed photos all over Tar Heel Nation and is the signature shot among many that should be Love’s everlasting legacy. With his shooting and playmaking down the stretch of the surprise season, Love deserves to be warmly welcomed back whenever he returns.
Love played under pressure from the day he stepped on campus for good in the summer of 2020. He arrived with the dreaded one-and-done albatross around his neck and was listed on NBA mock draft boards before he ever played a college game. By agreeing it didn’t work out for either side, both Carolina and Love are free to start anew with no regrets.
Wherever Caleb winds up, he deserves our thanks for all the memories.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Thanks for the Memories appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Is Miami the model all of the ACC should follow?
Years ago, this would have been laughable. Miami was a renegade school, with football players who got off the plane in Army fatigues and a basketball team playing at an indoor amphitheater. Then the U joined the ACC.
Fast forward 15-plus years and Jim Larrañaga, a veteran coach, has led the resurgence of the Hurricanes hoops program with a formula that sounds like the old “U” but is actually perfect for the future of college free agency.
Though Larrañaga may be 73, he relates to his players like he’s 43 or 33. So he wants to play the fast, open style that kids who dream of making the NBA prefer. And it didn’t take Miami long to get into NIL money and the transfer portal, a big piece of the 2023 Final Four-bound Canes.
Sure, ACC player of the Year Isaiah Wong is the 3-year junior leader of a fleet and talented team. But second-best player Jordan Miller is a transfer from George Mason, where Larrañaga used to coach. A third starter, Nijel Pak, took a reported six figures of NIL money to transfer from Kansas State.
In fact, the core of The U’s rotation is split between kids who started there and others who transferred in. And that is where college basketball and especially football are going with no new rules of amateurism to guide them.
The unknowns playing in the Final Four have the popularity weekend of their lives. More once-relegated schools will now cut into the brand awareness of the so-called Blue Bloods. Because everyone likes a winner, bought or not.
And what was not to LOVE about Miami rallying from 13 points down in the second half to outrun, out jump and finally outscore favored Texas, a No. 2 seed compared to Miami’s 5 seed for the ACC’s regular-season winner?
The Longhorns were shooting 50-plus percent from the floor and 3-point line for most of the game. And that basically woke up the black-clad ‘Canes who began stealing the ball, rebounding and scoring as Texas went ice cold.
It was a game between great college players but only one, Miami’s Miller, is listed on any NBA mock draft board. That’s okay. NIL money to stay or go elsewhere will keep more players from gambling on the NBA Draft and instead become rich and famous while staying in school.
This is happening all over the country. Every school raising NIL money believes it is doing it legally, because no one has said otherwise.
So the blueblood brands of the sport better keep pace with those that have less brand recognition but are getting their arms around more NIL money.
ACC schools: Miami’s way may be the best way in this NIL age.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Roberson
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bought or Not appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
They call it March Madness for a reason.
We are only halfway to Elite 8 weekend, but we’ve already seen four games that both thrilled and surprised us. And I’ve got an inkling about which team is getting to the Final Four and will win the whole dadgum thing.
First the thrilling part. Kansas State beat Michigan State and its Mr. March coach Tom Izzo in overtime in what has to be one of the greatest games in NCAA Tournament history, with the teams trading big baskets throughout regulation.
The Wildcats from the Big 12 have a 5-foot-8 point guard named Markquis Nowell, who transferred from a college in the Ohio Valley Conference called Little Rock to Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas, which they call The Little Apple. You can’t make this stuff up.
Nowell took the floor in the Big Dance and led K-State over Kentucky in the second round, when he scored 27 points and had 9 assists. Wait, it gets better. The victory sent his team to the Big Apple and Madison Square Garden, and where do you think Nowell’s from? You guessed it, up 5th Avenue in Harlem.
Overtime was supposed to be Izzo time. Except Nowell was on his way to 20 points and an NCAA tourney record of 19 assists. One of the assists may have been on a trick play while he was holding the ball near his bench and looking at his coach as the defense relaxed for a second. Nowell suddenly lobbed the ball to his basket for a reverse dunk by one of his towering teammates.
Did I mention Nowell had left the game with a severely sprained ankle? He came back and turned the ankle again. While stumbling, he heaved the ball toward the basket, where it slammed against the backboard and went in for a 3-pointer, the exact margin of victory before a meaningless last-second layup.
And now Kansas State advances to the Elite 8 in the East Region against ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic, which out-toughed the same Tennessee team that beat up Duke in the second round.
In the West regional, UConn blew out Arkansas, which was trying to reach its third straight Elite 8. In the second Sweet 16 game in Las Vegas, Gonzaga trailed UCLA by 13 points, rallied to go ahead by 10 with two minutes left before needing a 3-pointer from the March Madness logo to win. Coach Mark Few and the Zags made a series of unbelievable blunders and should have lost.
Gonzaga will not beat UConn, which has the best team you may have never seen. Coached expertly by Danny Hurley, the Huskies play suffocating defense and get great shots with slick offensive sets. They will advance to Houston and, no matter who else gets there, will win the NCAA championship, the school’s fifth.
You can bet on it.
Featured image via Associated Press/Frank Franklin II
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Maddeningly Good appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina may be getting closer to that coveted eight-man rotation.
Among the problems that surfaced over the recent basketball season was the Tar Heels’ inability to settle on the first three subs off the bench, which played less than 22 percent of their total 6,725 minutes, among the lowest in the country.
The generally accepted standard in college ball is a starting five and three top reserves, the first wing player off the bench, the first big man off the bench and a back-up point guard. It helps with more versatility like in UNC’s offense when the 2-3 and 4-5 men are almost interchangeable.
Carolina never got there, which resulted in too much pressure on the first five and a lack of confidence among whoever was hoping to get playing time off the bench. It resulted in one of the worst outside-shooting teams in program history and unproductive reserves. Hubert Davis may be on his way to solving that with a formula that is basically addition by subtraction.
Puff Johnson, who averaged 16 minutes as the de facto sixth man, is the fourth to enter the transfer portal, following Justin McKoy, Tyler Nickel and Dontrez Styles. That attrition may result in a more set rotation, now that Armando Bacot is taking his expected super senior year. That is a huge “get” for Davis since UNC’s all-time rebounder can’t be replaced by any transfer.
If the axiom applies that most improvement comes between the first two seasons, rising sophomore Jalen Washington could become a high-low post presence and a lethal combo with Bacot. The first big guy off the bench could be 6-10 sophomore Will Shaver, incoming 4-star 6-9 freshman Zayden High or possibly 6-10 Jarin Stevenson from Pittsboro’s Seaforth High School should he sign with the Tar Heels and reclassify from a senior in high school to a college freshman.
However it shakes out, that will be more game depth and certainly added competition in practice than Bacot and Pete Nance were getting.
The back-up point guard to R.J. Davis is set with sophomore Seth Trimble, a passer-defender who needs to work on his shot in the off-season.
The fourth and fifth starters and possible first wing sub may depend on whether Caleb Love enters the portal or NBA draft. If Love leaves, 6-5 junior D’Marco Dunn would not be a surprise starter after showing off his athleticism and shooting potential in a limited role. Also, 4-star 6-4 incoming freshman combo guard Simeon Wilcher is likely in the mix somewhere.
Then there’s the portal, from which Davis and staff try to solidify an 8-man rotation who all know their roles and minutes per game. Fingers crossed.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Addition by Subtraction appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Playing in the NIT is good for some teams, not so good for others.
Now that all the hubbub over UNC snubbing the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), not to be confused with the off-court competition for Name-Image-Likeness money (NIL), is over, the Tar Heels are looking pretty good in their decision to get started on having a better 2023-24 season.
While schools waiting for the best players to enter the transfer portal have finally seen 48 teams lose in the NCAA tournament, it looks like some NIT teams had hangovers from Big Dance disappointment. Especially in the ACC.
Clemson, the No. 1 seed in one of the four NIT brackets, ended an outstanding regular season and conference tournament by losing to unseeded Morehead State in overtime. In Death Valley. Hear that sound? It was however many fans showed up at Littlejohn high tailing it for spring football.
Virginia Tech got an NIT bid and was unseeded. So it had to travel to Cincinnati and play Wes Miller’s well-schooled Bearcats. The Hokies led by three points at the half before letting Cinci run them out of Fifth-Third Arena in the 81-72 final. Another loss to another lesser conference.
Two made it from the ACC, which had five receiving NCAA bids, so less than half the 15 teams in the once-powerhouse league didn’t play in the postseason. Wake Forest, which went 2-5 in its last 7 games, never got the NIT ask.
A few other schools should have followed the Tar Heels strategy.
Washington State lost to Eastern Washington, sure to be the summer punch line across the Evergreen State. EW lasted one more game before getting blown out by top-seeded Oklahoma State, which then lost to North Texas and failed to be the first Power 5 team to reach the semifinals in Las Vegas.
Despite Villanova having a worse season than third-seeded Liberty, do you think the Wildcats liked flying to Lynchburg and losing to the Flames? Well, they did.
And how about Rutgers, which with Carolina was one of the First Four Out, accepted a bid as top seed of its region and lost at home to Hofstra in OT. It was goodnight for the Scarlet Knights, who have slept it off by now.
The best game that nobody saw was Saturday at noon in Nashville when second-seeded Vanderbilt and dapper coach Jerry Stackhouse entertained third seed Michigan and beat the Wolverines, who blew a late lead with four straight horrendous, scoreless possessions. Vandy plays UAB tonight for a spot in Vegas, where Stackhouse would be a headliner.
As for UNC, well, it lost a bunch of tough games and said no to the NIT, just like Duke and Coach K did in 2021.
Featured image via The Sporting News
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: NIT Not for All appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It was almost one of the greatest comebacks in Carolina history.
The Tar Heel women were down by 12 points late in a true road game in the NCAA tournament. Against Ohio State in Columbus, playing the higher-seeded opponent with a loud crowd that was really into it.
And with her team down 62-50, leading scorer Deja Kelly went out with what looked like it could be a season-ending ankle injury even if UNC won. That’s where and when the Heels banded together and tied the game, then went ahead on Paulina Paris’ basket and had the ball on a steal by Paris with 1:43 left to play in the round of 32.
Old-timers watching on ESPN might have been reminded of “8 points in 17 seconds” against Duke in 1974, the baseline for any rally in any sport at UNC. That was when Walter Davis, Hubert’s uncle, banked in a 30-footer to complete the incredible comeback and send the game into overtime, where Dean Smith’s Tar Heels won.
Courtney Banghart’s Heels might have been remembered in a similar way 49 years later, had it not been for the Buckeyes’ Jacy Sheldon hitting a tough right-handed jumper in the lane with 1.8 seconds left, not enough time for Carolina to tie the game or win it with a 3-pointer.
“We just weren’t quite good enough, too many careless turnovers,” Banghart said after the 71-69 loss that ended their season at 22-11. The game was a turnover fest with the teams combining for 39 and 23 steals.
Good coaches take everything into account and not just the plays at the end of a game. And it wasn’t Kelly’s pull-up jumper after she returned, the last of her team-high 22 points. It was the 13-3 run by her teammates when she was in the locker room having her ankle retaped. They began a rally that almost resulted in a victory called ultimate.
It was Alyssa Ustby’s three driving layups in the paint and Kennedy Todd-Williams’ two baskets inside and her 3-pointer that quieted the crowd and gave Carolina a chance without its star.
When Kelly returned after almost 5 minutes, she hit a jumper and made two free throws to draw her team within one point and went ahead on Paris’ layup off Ustby’s steal. Carolina had a chance to go up by three on another Paris steal before Kelly missed a jump shot.
Ohio State never saw UNC’s last rally coming before the Heels nearly pulled it out and sent them to a second straight Sweet 16 in Seattle. A heartbreaking loss, for sure, but a team effort as gallant as it gets.
Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: As Gallant As It Gets appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Have you ever seen a narrative change like this within 48 hours?
Going into the NCAA Tournament, Carolina was the story for missing the Big Dance and turning down the square dance. And, according to social media extremists, Hubert Davis was on his way out as head man of the Tar Heels.
Then Tony Bennett, considered the best coach in the ACC, lost in the round of 64 for the third time in his last four NCAA tourneys, including the first No. 1 seed to lose to a 16 in 2018 (plus a quarterfinals loss in the NIT).
Then Matt Painter, the Purdue coach considered among the best in the country, joined Bennett as the second coach to lose to a 16. The top-seeded Boilers lost to tiny Fairleigh Dickinson in a fairly ridiculous upset Friday, a year after losing to 15th-seed St. Peter’s.
Then, of course, wunderkind prodigy Jon Scheyer, confirmed that youth (in coaching and playing) doesn’t win NCAA games against older, tougher teams. Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, who as a young wise guy at Clemson took on Dean Smith 28 years ago, won the rock fight with Duke he wanted.
The narrative also brings into play the age-old question for Tar Heel fans: what makes you happier, a Carolina win or a Duke loss? Hmmm.
Back to Hubert, who is busy reimagining his roster for next season. Without standing arms crossed on the sideline of a single postseason game, his narrative is decidedly different with the heat suddenly reduced.
After all, who is the ACC head coach having most recently reached the Final Four? Hubert, with only Miami’s Jim Larrañaga eligible to change that fact.
Davis and Scheyer now have a different juxtaposition as fledgling caretakers of the greatest rivalry in college basketball.
Hubert has to hang on to as many positive pieces of his second team while selectively hitting the transfer portal to regain offensive efficiency and dominating rebounding that triggered UNC’s surprise trip to the 2022 Final Four.
Scheyer has an even bigger challenge as he examines the 10-year tradition of signing one-and-done classes at Duke. Three freshmen (Filipowski, Lively and Whitehead) are projected first-round NBA draft picks but could come back.
If two or three of them return, Scheyer may have too many players next season with another 5-star class of five coming who all want to play enough to raise their own draft stock. After that, Scheyer may want to tweak the Coach K model, saying recently he will use the transfer portal more.
That could help him alter the proven narrative that freshmen, no matter how tall and skilled, lack strength and toughness to beat veteran, talented teams like Tennessee that use their physicality and ferocity to win big games.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris O’Meara
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Narrative appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Virginia went out in the worst of ways.
Sure, there are always surprise stories in the NCAA Tournament. Thursday’s first round was mind-blowing.
Princeton had the biggest upset, a No. 15 seed beating a 2 seed for the 11th time in 40-year modern history of the Big Dance, the Ivy League Tigers shocked Arizona, which is headed home after an otherwise great season.
But even more surprising than Princeton was fourth-seeded Virginia’s last-second loss to No. 13 Furman, which adds to the dismal post-season record of a school that won the national championship as recently as 2019. And the way the Cavaliers lost to the Paladins added more ridicule to their resume.
Tony Bennett has become a superstar coach in the ACC, but the Wahoos have now suffered two of the biggest upsets in the history of the tournament.
Their title in 2019, with six close wins, rescued Virginia from the prior year’s most embarrassing loss in NCAA history. Bennett’s top-seeded team in the South region lost to 16-seed Maryland, Baltimore County, the first and only time that has ever happened. Now, the loss to resilient Furman of the Southern Conference adds to a regrettable post-season record that includes upset losses as very high seeds.
Top-seed Virginia lost to No. 10 Syracuse in a 2016 regional final, clearing the way for Carolina to beat the ‘Cuse at the Final Four in Houston.
The Cavs also had two NCAA tournament upsets at the hands of Michigan State, once as a No. 2 seed in the second round and the other in the Sweet Sixteen as a No. 1 seed.
So, when they keep the score close and then don’t close out games, it becomes headline news. This may not be the saddest story in Wahoos hoops history, but it is close, especially the way it went down.
Fifth-year senior point guard Kihei Clark was one of the heroes of the national championship team as a freshman, when he assisted on the winning basket in the regional final that was called one of the smartest last-second passes ever thrown.
This time, Clark was double-teamed by Furman and, for some reason, instead of calling UVa’s last timeout heaved a long pass into the backcourt. It was intercepted and the Paladins hit the winning 3-pointer with 2.2 seconds left.
Bennett looked morose when the game his team had led most of the way ended in despair. That is a hallmark of March Madness, but this one seemed particularly cruel. Furman hung in there but did not deserve to win on Clark’s error.
For the undersized Clark, it was his last act before having to take off the Virginia uniform forever. And it will be one he has to live with among all of his much better basketball memories.
Featured image via Associated Press
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Bad Pass appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What does a “deep, deep dive” into Carolina Basketball mean, exactly?
Bubba Cunningham said this week that is what he and his administrative staff intend to do after a bitterly disappointing season that set several infamous statistical records internally as well as in the game’s historical lexicon.
Who among the dozens of people working for UNC, in and out of the basketball program, is qualified and willing to participate in that deep dive? What questions do they ask and what kind of answers do they get?
Who is asking Hubert Davis, “What went wrong with the flow of our offense?” And “why did you play your bench less than 300 other teams?”
Hall of Famers Dean Smith and Roy Williams would be insulted by those inquiries because they knew more basketball than every employee in the athletic department combined, plus members of the media that cover the team and each alumnus and former player who have strong opinions.
If Davis answered those questions by blaming bad ball screens, poor shot selection and not good player movement, the next question would be, “What are you going to do about it?” Hubert’s answer might be so far over their heads, how could such a deep, deep dive give Cunningham and his cohorts any confidence that those problems would get solved during the summer or next season?
Would Bubba approach Williams, who backed Davis as his successor and has supported him loyally ever since? That might require Hubert’s okay.
Mack Brown may have been asked why his 9-1 team finished 9-5. Brown isn’t going to the whiteboard in front of deep divers who don’t know a gap blitz from the mechanics of a run-pass option. So Mack would say what he has said publicly, “We’ve got to fix it.” Basketball has more urgency at UNC.
A “deep, deep dive” by administrators might include assistant ADs who are “direct reports” to Bubba and his senior staff from 28 different sports, or operations managers, media and marketing directors. In a close fraternity, coaches will almost never criticize each other even if they could help.
Those inside the basketball program who might know, or have good ideas, are not going to say anything critical of Davis and his coaching staff.
So, will Bubba be content with answers that range from “we’re going to play our bench more next season” to “we have to recruit better players”?
UNC had highly-recruited reserves who rarely played long enough to get comfortable and show what they could do. The deep dive may need to include trusted basketball outsiders who know what a second-year head coach should do better than he does.
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Deep Dive Dilemma appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Unintended consequences have become the cancer of college athletics.
Sometimes you have to wonder how smart are some of the people who make rules changes in collegiate athletics. Sure, they say that these changes are in the best interests of student-athletes, and they may be like NIL.
But the dates and details of how they are implemented can cause even greater problems for athletes and especially their coaching staff.
Mack Brown has had to play Whack-A-Mole with assistant coaches who began leaving right after the regular season ended and up to almost the day before spring practice began. It caused havoc with the bowl game, especially.
Brown believes coaches should not be able to start new jobs until their duties are finished for the current season they’re being paid for. If all schools had the same rules, head coaches could not force new hires to begin immediately and it wouldn’t matter.
The unintended consequences of that causes schools scrambling to fill their positions on a temporary basis, like Brown had to move up position coaches into coordinators’ roles and turn some duties over the unready aides for the Holiday Bowl.
In basketball, apparently no one thought through the NET rankings relative to sizes of conferences. The ACC has 15 basketball members, and half of them were good this season and the other half were not. So the good teams are not helped by beating bad teams but losing to bad teams really hurts. The Big 12 has only 10 schools and far less chance of having a bunch of bad teams that would affect all of their NET numbers.
The biggest faux pas was the NCAA changing the rule allowing transfers to play right away at their new schools at the same time NIL payments began with the stipulation that athletes could not be paid to play. That quickly turned into players who are transferring being offered large sums before the NIL ever came up.
Two days after the basketball portal opened, hundreds of players had already entered, and some websites covering the movement attached an arbitrary dollar figure to players’ NIL values. Now how could they ever come up with that?
You know there have been discussions with families and agents before the portal opened, or so many players wouldn’t be jumping on the first day.
It had to be one of the reasons Carolina declined an NIT bid. Hubert Davis likely knew he might lose some players and needed to scour the portal to manage his roster by recruiting transfers he wanted instead of taking up valuable time practicing for and playing meaningless games that could hurt next season’s lineup.
NCAA tourney-bound Illinois coach Brad Underwood said, “You have to stay on top of transfers at every moment because that’s essential in building a roster.”
If not, some unintended consequences may be waiting.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Beware the Unforeseen appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The good and bad of Tar Heel hoops is on public display.
The truth about Carolina basketball, one of the biggest brands in sports, is somewhere between the 2022 Final Four and not making the NCAA Tournament this year. The Heels weren’t as good as their hot month of last March, and they tumbled quickly from overhyped expectations this season.
We all know what happened last March. Brady Manek and R.J. Davis stayed hot and Caleb Love got hot, and behind Armando Bacot they pulled off some of the most memorable victories in the program’s storied history before losing a 15-point halftime lead to Kansas in the national championship game.
Despite having luck and losing Manek, Carolina had a book written about finishing second and a mock SI cover to mimic the 1982 Tar Heels, one of the most star-studded teams ever in college basketball. They were ranked No. 1 in most preseason polls, and we know what kinds of records they set since then.
The odds of going 0-for-7 with late leads in the second half are almost astronomical, and that itself is enough to call what occurred this season a “one off.” As for making the Last Four Out, winning one or two of those games against future NCAA tourney teams would have put UNC in the 68-team field.
But what has happened since then is almost as incredible. A fan base as rabid as any in America has gone berserk on social media arguing whether the Heels should have turned down the NIT, despite having ample reason to do so.
The chances of losing players in the Transfer Portal grew all season as Hubert Davis played his reserves sparingly. So far, fifth-year senior Justin McKoy and rising sophomore Tyler Nickel have declared, and Nickel seems like an avoidable casualty. The all-time leading scorer in Virginia prep history averaged six minutes a game for a team that shot record-low percentages.
Yet you could see that one coming a mile away. Nickel will likely go to Virginia or Virginia Tech, teams that know how to get their shooters open.
Fans who railed at the NIT decision said “play the subs and give them time.” It’s obvious that would have resulted in an early loss and more noise.
Bacot probably could not have played again so soon with his injured ankle, and how do you keep the four other starters out of a game you are trying to win and not ignite another public outcry as a one-and-done NIT entry?
So whoever’s final decision was to end the season, Coach Davis can focus on keeping other players from leaving while scanning the portal himself to add to a two-man freshman class coming in. It’s a tough position to be in.
Sort of like getting stuck between two months of March.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Stuck Between Marches appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
All kinds of surprises in the NCAA tournament pairings.
First and foremost, Carolina was in the “First Four Out” when CBS released the brackets Sunday night. That has to make the Tar Heels really mad that they were so close . . . as close as winning one of the seven games in which they blew second-half leads, all to NCAA Tournament teams.
Finishing games has to be No. 1 on next season’s playlist.
Normally, a team that close would take the NIT bid, but Hubert Davis has to get on with rebuilding his 2023-24 roster as soon as possible to change the off-season narrative from “bad year” to “next year.” And with the fluidity of college basketball these days, like the transfer portal, that is more important than playing meaningless NIT games with a team fans are tired of by now.
On that note, hopefully Armando Bacot is strongly encouraged by UNC and his thousands of followers to return for his fifth COVID year, when he could become more of a Carolina legend than he is now and also set every ACC rebounding record. And it may be a better financial move with his NIL success.
Among other bracket surprises was Clemson getting royally screwed in favor of N.C. State getting in. The Tigers skunked the Wolfpack three times – by 14 in Death Valley, by 25 in Raleigh and by 26 in Greensboro. Clemson is No. 60 in the latest NET rankings, largely due to a two-point loss at 11-21 South Carolina in which its best player, P.J. Hall, sat out with an injury.
State is 45 in this week’s NET, one higher than Carolina’s 46. That second-half loss in Raleigh to miss a sweep of the Wolfpack is just another the Heels should regret, along with the 4 OT defeat to Alabama, the overall No. 1 seed in the Dance. Yes, Clemson played one of the weakest non-conference schedules, but still placed 3rd in the ACC and blew out the Pack in the tourney quarterfinal.
Finally, the Greensboro mafia, which twice expanded the Coliseum to keep the ACC tournament in its regular rotation (not to mention remain one of Springsteen’s favorite venues) and is again host to first- and second round games, must be royally toasted that ACC champion Duke got shipped to Orlando and will not get the home-state advantage the best team in the ACC deserves. ESPN’s Dan Shulman and Jay Bilas talked about the winner of the ACC championship game being back in the Gate City as a reward.
It’s a good reason for new Duke athletic director Nina King to shed her anonymity and make it known to the committee that her championship team that won its last nine games and would have sold out the Coliseum got hosed.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Self-Imposed Exit appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Pick your poison why Carolina is (likely) not going back to the Big Dance.
Unless the NCAA tournament bubble explodes due to global warming, the Tar Heels took their last gasp at trying to reach a second straight Final Four with the ACC Tournament quarterfinal loss to Virginia Thursday night.
You may not find these choices on social media, which is ready to fire the UNC coach after the subpar 2022-23 season failed to meet almost every expectation. But let’s give you four more reasonable opinions.
Tony Bennett is in his 17th season as a college head coach, the last 14 in Charlottesville, where he has turned the program into a national power that rivals the Ralph Sampson era 40 years ago. By comparison, Hubert Davis is in his second year in the same job and the difference shows.
Or Virginia twice beat a more talented Tar Heel team with Armando Bacot playing sparingly in both defeats due to sprained ankles. In what may be Bacot’s last season of college basketball, his last two last chances to win the national championship ended with him hobbling around the court.
Or, for goodness sake, admit last year was lightning in a bottle after four months of being slightly better than the first four of this season, where the larger sample sizes are of teams perpetually on the bubble. And Roy Williams’ last two teams had a combined losing record and included his first NCAA first-round ouster ever.
Or the “noise” Davis talked about since last summer was a serious sign of distraction in everything from trying to replace a Brady Manek with a Pete Nance to none of the subs getting enough playing time to be effective in the crunch of important “one or two possession” games late in the season.
So pick your poison, but forget firing a coach who everyone knew lacked head-chair experience to match his love and devotion to his alma mater.
Bennett comes from coaching royalty and his mastery of recruiting players to fit his style and their detailed execution of his system was self-evident in how they outfoxed UNC in Greensboro.
The one time Bacot was healthy for the Cavaliers, Carolina won rather easily and might have done it twice more with Mondo on two good legs.
If you think last year’s run to the title game was more than just a hot month, review how the Heels shocked ranked Duke twice, Baylor and UCLA and luckily avoided a Purdue team that had beaten them earlier in the season.
The “noise” is far more about what college athletics is today than who’s talking and who’s listening. Assuredly, Davis will try to rebuild his program with all carefully selected freshmen and transfers.
And if he can’t replicate a standard that mentors Smith and Williams set, UNC won’t have to fire him.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Last Gasp appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina can’t seem to catch a break.
The Tar Heels opened the ACC tournament with one of their most impressive games of the season. Not that blowing out 10th-seeded Boston College is anything to crow about, but it was probably the one game they didn’t need Armando Bacot to win after their senior turned another of those tender ankles.
So, when Bacot went down late in the first half with another sprained ankle, the hopes of a championship sweep among Tar Heel Nation had to sink, even though AB insisted after the 85-61 win that he’d be ready to go for tonight’s quarterfinal against No. 2 Virginia.
Hubert Davis probably hoped for an easy victory so he could play his bench and keep as much gas in the tank for a possible four-game run in Greensboro. Besides Bacot’s injury, Davis got what he wanted with four guys in double figures, 10 getting into the scoring column and only roadrunner guards R.J. Davis and Caleb Love playing extensive minutes while totaling 40 points.
The team motor was running since the opening tip, and the Heels had the near-perfect balance of an inside-outside game, hitting 55 percent overall and 42 percent from the arc in one of their best games of the now 20-12 slate. Besides Davis and Love combining for 7 of 14 long balls, D’Marco Dunn and Dontrez Styles hit 3 of 5 in a free-flowing affair after recent rock fights.
Whether Carolina can beat Virginia and either Clemson or N.C. State to reach Saturday night with Bacot hobbling is the storyline moving forward, and it’s too bad since the Tar Heels sure looked like NCAA material on this night.
But what a bad break for their leader after Bacot came into the tournament with the pride of making first team All-ACC for the second straight season and maybe a slight chip on his shoulder from finishing only third for ACC Player of the Year. In that regard, he personifies his team that fell even further from its expectations and finds itself needing to beat some steep odds.
The Cavaliers play a low possession and slower tempo game, so maybe Mondo can bang his way through it without putting too much mileage on that ankle. In that regard, Clemson is the preferred opponent on Friday night even though the Tigers are just a Quad 2 team compared to the quicker Quad 1 Pack.
But the way the Heels took apart BC after the Eagles were playing their best ball is at least a hopeful sign that whatever they did to get ready is working so far.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fleet Feet, Tender Ankle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Buckle up, Boston College will be one tough out tonight.
The Tar Heels have not lost their opening game of the ACC tournament since 2014, when as the fourth seed they were upset by Pitt at the Greensboro Coliseum, site of this year’s event.
BC is playing better basketball than a 16-16 team, having won four of its last five games, including an upset of sixth-ranked Virginia and beating Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. The old axiom is teams need at least a .500 record to be invited to the NIT, and the Eagles must upset UNC to reach that goal.
Despite playing without 7-foot center Quentin Post, BC ran away from last-place Louisville in the first round Tuesday by shooting 52 percent from the floor in the second half and completing a 40-29 drubbing of the Cardinals on the glass.
Post sprained his ankle in the regular-season finale against Georgia Tech, did not dress out for the Louisville game and is questionable for the 7 p.m. tipoff tonight. The Eagles had four players in double figures, led by Devin McGlockton’s 25 points and Jaeden Zackery, who had 15 points, 8 assists and zero turnovers. Carolina beat BC at home, 72-64, in their only meeting.
Considering it a must-win to keep both team’s NCAA or NIT hopes alive, this could be a very physical game, especially if Post plays. The Tar Heels are regarding this as a new start for a disappointing regular season and actually have a favorable draw to reach the championship game Saturday night, which might be enough to lock up an at-large NCAA bid.
The common theory is that having one game under your belt is an advantage, so the Eagles will be warmed up and ready to go after nine players saw action against Louisville. The Tar Heels cannot afford a slow start in the first game of a doubleheader, with N.C. State playing in the nightcap against Virginia Tech with two big rival fan bases pulling for a BC upset.
This is UNC’s fourth meeting with Boston College in the ACC tournament. The Eagles knocked out freshman Tyler Hansbrough in 2006 and lost the following year in Carolina’s run to the championship in Tampa.
Their last tourney match-up was in 2015, when the Heels won easily on their way to a close loss to Notre Dame in the Saturday night title game.
For the reasons already stated, the 2023 Heels better be ready for a scrap if they are to mount a desperately needed turnaround. Going from preseason No. 1 in the country to a quick ouster in Greensboro would be a disheartening follow-up to the magical 2022 post-season when they became the upset darlings of the Big Dance they are merely trying to reach this year.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Must-Win Match appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Is the pressure off or on for Carolina at the ACC tournament?
Everybody everywhere, feel it in the air
Oh yeah, it’s time to take the pressure off
Everybody everywhere, step out into the future
It’s time to take the pressure off
Duran Duran says it all in the song “Pressure Off.”
Is it a clean slate for the Tar Heels or will they still be playing under the burden they’ve carried for a year? After the Duke loss, which was like many others this season, Armando Bacot acknowledged that high expectations were in their locker room before the first game.
They were the No. 1 pick, which meant they were as much as a 30 percent favorite to go one game further in the NCAA tournament than last year. So the players had that “championship or bust” attitude when, deep down inside, they knew it might have been lightning in a bottle for a month.
There had to be other factors, like who would replace Brady Manek’s quick release at the 3-point line and his reputation as a “hot head” who said what needed to be said in the huddle and the locker room. Fifth-year Leaky Black has grown into a quiet leader, and Hubert Davis told Pete Nance to forget trying to fit in and just be a dude.
Strategically and psychologically, it has been a different team that had trouble closing out games from Portland to Pittsburgh and all the way back to Chapel Hill. Now they have to play their way into the NCAA tournament or become the first preseason No. 1 to not make the Big Dance since 1984.
Are they going to Greensboro with clear eyes and open hearts, as they try to capture some more magic moments with pressure off because no one expects them to… or is the pressure still on becoming a national story for the wrong reason?
Personally, I believe pressure is a byproduct of confidence. You feel it when you are not confident and the pressure goes away when you regain that buoyancy and belief by doing something positive. It can happen at any moment, and it can be contagious from one player to another because all it takes is one guy who can shoot the Tar Heels out of it. Caleb Love did it last year, and he’s the same guy.
This is a veteran team that has been through it all. Love plays like he is carrying the weight of the world, but that world knows he can get hot at any moment, and when he does the light may come on for his teammates, too.
Featured image via AP Photo/Chris Seward.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Weight Of The World appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina still has a chance to make the NCAA Tournament, but it is slim.
The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), implemented more than 10 years ago, is the most publicized criterion for at-large bids to the NCAA tourney due to its confusing Quad system of wins and losses home and away and at neutral sites.
The reason the NET has been so relevant to UNC basketball the last two years is because the Tar Heels have struggled to win Quad 1 games (at home vs. NET top 30 opponents, on the road against top 75s or on neutral courts vs. top 50s). And it plays heavily into their current chances after finishing the regular season at 19-12 with a single Quad 1 win against Virginia at home.
A year ago, the Heels had better overall and conference records heading into the March 5 game at Duke, where the 94-81 upset victory assured their NCAA entry with what turned out to be a No. 8 seed and from where they nearly ran the table to the national championship.
This time it is a much tougher putt since their numbers are less in their favor after going 11-9 in the ACC compared to 15-5 in 2022. But thanks to a good draw in this week’s ACC tournament, there is a narrow path that includes more than just the NET ranking that currently stands at No. 49, down from 44 before the home loss to the Blue Devils Saturday night. Had Carolina won the game and moved up five spots, it would have assured an at-large bid.
But there are other factors. At ESPN Game Day on the Smith Center court Saturday morning, the panel that included analysts Jay Bilas, LePhonso Ellis and Seth Greenberg all held up “IN” signs when asked if North Carolina would make it. And none qualified his pick by saying UNC had to win that night.
Bilas said, “They have no bad losses,” compared to getting blown out by Tennessee and Kentucky on neutral courts, at Miami and Wake Forest and at home against Duke last season. So Bilas, at least, seemed to think that works in their favor this time. In fact, UNC’s worst loss was by 12 at Indiana after a grueling road trip.
The Tar Heels will likely face 10th seeded Boston College in the ACC second round Wednesday night, and BC has a NET of 166, which won’t hurt. If they win that, they play No. 2 seed Virginia (NET 30) in Thursday’s quarterfinal and that could be their second Quad 1 win over UVa.
Beating Clemson, with a Quad 2 NET of 61, in the semifinals would help further and mean they might get a bid by merely reaching the championship game Saturday night. It also depends on what other “bubble teams” do. For example, Michigan lost at Indiana on Sunday, which could help Carolina’s chances.
So, the Heels just need to keep winning and see what happens.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: There’s Still Hope appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
This is a tale of two seniors, both playing their last home games. Maybe.
Leaky Black is having his second Senior Night against Duke Saturday at the Smith Center. His first was Syracuse last February before deciding to take his fifth COVID year. It has greatly benefitted his game and NBA stock.
Armando Bacot could take a lesson from Leaky. Bacot said last fall that, unquestionably, he would be leaving Chapel Hill after his senior season. No doubt about it. “The coaches almost didn’t let me come back this year,” he joked when he was preseason ACC Player of the Year for No. 1-ranked UNC.
So much has changed for both players during the current season, when the Tar Heels now face a must-win over the Blue Devils just to return to the NCAA Tournament after once being confident of getting back to the Final Four.
Black feels blessed that he had the extra season to take. He has become the Tar Heel most likely to hear his name called during the NBA Draft in June.
He is Carolina’s nominee for ACC Defensive Player of the Year whom Hubert Davis has repeatedly called the best defender in the country. Black can cover positions 1-4, and has rounded into a full-court threat with the best 3-point percentage and assist-to-turnover ratio on the team, most steals (40), third in blocks behind Bacot and Pete Nance. Leaky has really upped his game, draining 10 of his 21 long balls and blocking 6 shots in the last three victories. “I decided to come back because I had more in the tank,” he said.
Bacot is in a different place from last October. Asked if this was his last home game at UNC, he said he hasn’t “thought about it,” which is a bit of a fib since his position has clearly changed. “I don’t like that this is my last home game. I have to mix all the things together, whether I want to be here.”
Bacot got a lot of publicity over the summer for the money he made from NIL partnerships. With defenses concentrating on him more, he still leads the ACC in rebounding (11 per game) but is less dominating than last year when he averaged 13 boards and 8 offensive compared to 4-plus now.
And he remains absent from most mock first-round draft websites. If he took his COVID season and spent a lot of time in the gym over the spring and summer, he might improve his moves and range with his shot and still make more NIL money than as a free agent in the NBA or in Europe.
Meanwhile, thoughts of again playing for the national championship have been replaced by merely making the tournament. UNC goes for its fourth straight win in what should be a wicked war of unranked big-brands tomorrow night at 6:30. All else is off to the side for now.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Two in the Queue appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Who has the mental edge going into this Carolina-Duke game?
Paolo Banchero, the freshman first pick in the 2022 NBA draft, was right in the middle of the Blue Blood rivalry in his one year at Duke. He did not have much to say after the Blue Devils spanked the Tar Heels, 87-67, at a hushed Smith Center on February 5, 2022, and he had 13 points and 10 rebounds.
It was a different tune after Carolina stunned Duke in Coach K’s last home game, running away with the 94-81 victory over the last 12 minutes. Banchero made no secret of his desire to meet, and beat, the Heels in the ACC Tournament, but that never happened as Virginia Tech defeated UNC in the semifinals before upsetting Duke in the championship game.
Banchero and his teammates did get their shot at revenge in the Final Four, where Carolina bested the Blue Devils again in a much closer game that went down to the final minute. Banchero was spectacular with 20 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks in the 81-77 loss.
Like most one-and-doners, Banchero turned his attention to the draft where Orlando tabbed him with the first pick. However, with the Magic playing at Charlotte the night after the first Duke-Carolina game this season, Banchero was at Cameron with several fellow pros including his current teammate Cole Anthony, the one-and-done Tar Heel from 2020.
After that game, which was not played as well as any of the three last year, Banchero said the 63-57 win gave him “closure.”
Whaaat? Whaaat? I guess if Leaky Black’s 3-pointer went in from the corner with 1:05 left and UNC down 59-57, closure would have had to wait.
So, the question looms, do Jon Scheyer’s almost all-new Blue Devils still have an old score to settle Saturday at the Dean Dome? Sure, a regular season sweep for the Dukies would even the series at three apiece over the last six meetings, but this one does give Duke the chance of knocking the archrival out of the NCAA Tournament. For them, that might be a real sense of vindication.
Carolina can only bruise the Blue Devils’ egos by winning the home rematch since Duke is already a lock for the Big Dance with a middling seed. But it just might keep Banchero from true closure even if the leader for NBA Rookie of the Year will have absolutely nothing to do with it.
This isn’t standard hype for the “greatest rivalry in college basketball” but still has ESPN’s Game Day setting up shop at the Smith Center at 10 a.m. Seven-plus hours before two “sort of soft” teams of different vintages decide which can be tougher, the experienced one or the one with more raw talent.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: True Vindication? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Tar Heels are better since February 4, but so is Duke.
The preseason question about the Blue Devils was not whether they had some of the best young talent in the ACC, if not the country, but how they would do under first-year head coach Jon Scheyer?
The answer is two parts. One, they are finally healthy after a rash of early season injuries. And two, Scheyer has them playing together and at times can look as elite as some of Coach K’s best young teams.
Duke completed its home season at 16-0 by beating plucky N.C. State, which was in it all the way despite a bad game from Terquavion Smith. How the Dukies repelled every rally by the Wolfpack demonstrated a two-headed monster out front in junior Jeremy Roach and 18-year-old Tyrese Proctor, who reclassified and would have been a high school senior this season.
Both those guys run the motion offense and will be a load to handle for R.J. Davis and Caleb Love, who are stronger physically but shorter than the Duke duo and will be fighting through or switching on ball screens all night Saturday in order to stop their dribble drives.
Armando Bacot, the likely ACC Player of the Year, will be matched against two freshmen in Kyle Filipowski, the shoo-in conference rookie of the year, or Dereck Lively, a superb shot blocker and alley-oop dunk meister. Pete Nance gets the other one to start. Leaky Black, as usual, takes turns checking opponents’ best wing scorers, and he will have to handle rugged Mark Mitchell or smooth Dariq Whitehead, freshmen with good strokes.
Where Duke goes into the game ahead is depth, having top-rated recruit and future first-round NBA pick Whitehead coming off the bench along with Nance’s old Northwestern teammate and inside brute Ryan Young. Senior transfer Jacob Grandison rounds out Scheyer’s now-established eight-man rotation, which Carolina has not developed beyond Puff Johnson of late.
The Heels must match State in keeping Duke from getting open on the 3-point line, where the Devils missed 17 of 19 attempts (11 percent) against the Pack. And whereas Duke controlled the boards, State held its turnovers down to 6, a must for UNC to prevent easy, crowd-deflating runouts.
Now 22-8 overall (13-6 in the ACC), Duke’s record away from Cameron Indoor is 6-8, and the craziest version of a Dean Dome will try to help prevent an early deficit for its team, like last year’s 87-67 blowout loss.
As with this season’s first match-up a month ago, both teams retain the rarity of being unranked but are still the fiercest of rivals. Ironically, the one that most successfully loses itself in the game will win. Ironic but true.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Losing is Winning appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If the Virginia game was weird, this one was other-worldly.
Armando Bacot hit a single free throw to keep him from going scoreless for the first time since the second game of his freshman year in 2019. Bacot picked up two quick fouls before the first TV timeout and played a total of 21 minutes despite never being in serious foul trouble.
Leaky Black tied Deon Thompson for playing in the most UNC games ever (152), and this one might have been his best, with 18 points on 6 of 8 from the field, 3 of 4 from the arc and 3 of 4 from the foul line. And his driving, rim-rattling dunk might have saved UNC’s possible NCAA Tournament bid.
The worst 3-point shooting team in the ACC made double-digit triples as it had against Virginia, this time 10 in the first half and 4 in the second, one short of Carolina’s ACC season-high 15 against Clemson on February 11.
R.J. Davis and Caleb Love controlled the first half with 27 points and six 3-pointers between them to help build an 18-point halftime lead that was sliced to four with 2:03 left before Black’s jamburger sealed the deal.
Pete Nance played another impact game, especially with Bacot’s benching, posting a 15 and 10 double-double that helped build the big lead and protect it with 9 points in the second half. If Nance had been nursing a sore back for a month, he looks fully recovered at just the right time.
Nance, Black, Davis and Love each made three 3-pointers, a first in Tar Heel hoops history. Black was spotting up for a chance to make his fourth when someone finally came out to guard him. So he pumped-faked for takeoff.
BOOM!!!! His high-slamma-jamma bumped the lead back to six points and the Heels held on to win. By the way, the game was at Florida State against one of the worst teams in coach Leonard Hamilton’s 37-year career.
The TV talking heads said 18 pro scouts were in the building, some to see Leaky, who at this point may be the Tar Heels’ best bet to get drafted by an NBA team. His dynamic dunk wasn’t quite as important, but it reminded old-timers of Dudley Bradley’s two-handed hammer over Duke center Mike Gminski in the 1979 ACC championship game. Bradley was known as the Secretary of Defense and was the 13th pick in the first round by Indiana.
Black should now be known as “under secretary” for also holding Darin Green, FSU’s most dangerous 3-pointer shooter, to 1-for-7 from the arc and 1-for-11 from the floor. In this game, at least, your mates didn’t need Mondo.
If the Heels’ big lead caused them to peak ahead to Saturday and lose their concentration, the blinders can now come off.
Featured image via ESPN
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: High Slamma Jamma appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Thirty years ago, Carolina and Florida State played another important game.
The tussle tonight in Tallahassee is different for its own reasons. The Tar Heels have to win to keep from slipping off the NCAA bubble. The Seminoles are having an awful season but won at 13th-ranked Miami in their last game.
I remember the game in Tallahassee back in 1993, when UNC was ranked No. 3 and FSU No. 6. They were both heading for the Big Dance, but who would win the ACC was the first question. The Heels and ‘Noles were vying for first place, Carolina at 11-2 and FSU 11-3 after getting crushed at third-place Duke. UNC would have been in second place had it not rallied from 20-plus points down in the second half of FSU’s earlier visit to Chapel Hill, when in a first half with his team leading comfortably Sam Cassell labeled the Dean Dome crowd as “wine and cheese.”
So, the Seminoles and the rare capacity crowd were ready for a rumble on national TV and got one. The game was chippy and three technical fouls were handed out for rough words and play. Aptly, halftime was tied 33-33.
Carolina inched ahead in the second half, thanks to better 3-point shooting with Chapel Hill sixth-man Henrik Rödl draining both his long balls. Cassell was going for 2-for-5, but FSU star Bob Sura was in the midst of a dreadful 1-for-12 day, covered mostly by defensive ace Derrick Phelps.
Brian Reese was the most unsung of a lineup with George Lynch, Eric Montross, Donald Williams and Phelps. But the eventual 86-76 win was perhaps Reese’s finest college game with 25 points slashing through the ‘Noles defense. He was featured on the next week’s Sports Illustrated cover with his gleaming blue uniform right next to the big headline “Look Who’s No. 1!”
Carolina went on to complete a 9-game winning streak to finish first and also would have won the ACC Tournament had Phelps not been injured early in the championship game against Georgia Tech and left the court on a stretcher.
Smith knew his 1992-93 team had it up to here with Duke’s back-to-back NCAA crowns, but he wasn’t sure early in the season if it had the confidence and toughness to make it all the way. He said after the memorable rally against Florida State at the Smith Center he knew they had the confidence, and after the rematch in the Panhandle he knew they had the toughness.
Indeed, Smith’s team won the rugged East Regional by beating 12th-ranked Arkansas and No. 7 Cincinnati. In New Orleans, the Tar Heels took care of Roy Williams’ fifth Kansas team and defeated Michigan’s Fab 5 in the infamous Chris Weber time-out game for coach’s second championship.
Featured image via Sports Illustrated
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tallahassee Tussle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
It’s time to evaluate UNC Basketball through the lens of reality.
As the Tar Heels head into the eight days that will determine their postseason fate for 2023, let’s look at the sample sizes over Hubert Davis’ first two years on the job. Doing so may better prepare alumni and fans for what’s coming.
Carolina had an unprecedented four-week run that no one can ever take away. Let’s call it March Magic that included two historic wins over Duke and left the Tar Heels one half and three points away from an NCAA championship.
But the big picture shows that to be an anomaly.
Those preceding four months have actually carried over to the first four months of the current season. The eight months have produced an 0-17 record against Quad 1 opposition. That’s no lie.
Yes, Brady Manek emerged over the last half of last season as a dynamic outside shooter and a dude that has not been found anywhere else in the program since his departure. However responsible the bearded wonder is for the failures of the current season is debatable, since there are other reasons.
March Magic was gloriously welcomed, but it was unsustainable and should have been obvious to all of us.
Through 26 games a year ago, the Tar Heels were 18-8 and 10-5 in the ACC. They were shooting 45 percent from the floor and 38 percent from 3-point range. Manek had taken the most shots for the same percentage, and the attention he drew helped Caleb Love, R. J. Davis and Leaky Black all shoot better than 40 percent from outside, higher than Manek albeit with fewer attempts.
That trio is currently averaging 32 percent, close to 10 percentage points worse than a year ago. As of yet, Love has not heated up like March Magic, R.J. Davis has played some of the season with an injured finger on his shooting hand and Leaky Black has already shot 17 more 3-balls than all of last season, some of them bad shots for him. Pete Nance, who was a 45-percent outside shooter at Northwestern last year and was expected to pick up some of Manek’s slack, is shooting 28 percent from the arc.
Add in Hubert Davis’ learning curve as a head coach, not the same chemistry and effort as the end of last year and possible distractions from NIL and other off-court stuff, and his second team is about where it should be, all things considered.
Carolina’s realistic goal for this season should have begun with merely making a return to the NCAA Tournament, and that is still a possibility.
Virginia is UNC’s last chance for a Quad 1 win, as was Duke on March 5, 2022. Neither Virginia nor Carolina has an NBA draftable on its roster. But the Cavaliers do have Tony Bennett, among the best coaches in America over the last five years.
The game is at the Smith Center, which is always worth 5-7 points, so the Tar Heels must use that to keep their adjusted dream alive.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Nothing But The Truth appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Tar Heels were on life support but lived to play another day.
After a historically bad first half that may have caused some damage in living rooms and bars across the country, Carolina responded to a verbal assault at halftime and rallied to beat the 14th-place team in the ACC for their third road win of a so-far disappointing season. “It was straightforward and loud,” Hubert Davis said after the 63-59 win. “And it was every coach.”
The first half hapless Heels had come out with similar energy as at Wake Forest two weeks ago, allowing Notre Dame to get hot and take a 27-19 lead after D’Marco Dunn’s apparent buzzer-beater was disallowed by the refs.
For the record, their 19 points was a low for a half this season and, get this, their five field goals were the fewest since 1980, 43 years ago. Fortunately it was an undeserved manageable deficit, and the coaches’ tantrum apparently spurred them to a 17-8 run to open the second half and go ahead.
But it remained nip and tuck for the last 13 minutes with no more than a three-point margin until Caleb Love swished his last two free throws to, as he said afterward, “seal the deal” for UNC’s 17th win overall and a 9-8 record that for the moment is good for 7th place in the ACC.
The mystery remains why a team on the brink of making mortifying history did not come out of the gate like rabid dogs. The offense started 0-for-11 from 3-point range and shot a dismal 19 percent without making a single assist, which is partly explainable since only five shots went in the basket while turning the ball over eight times. That turned into only one more giveaway.
The Tar Heels wound up dominating the boards, 52-33, with Armando Bacot, Pete Nance and Leaky Black combining for 32 of the caroms. Since the smaller Irish did not try to retrieve most of their own shots, the real statistic was Carolina’s 23-8 offensive rebounding advantage. That continued to keep the Heels in the game around the basket to offset a 2-for-23 record for 3-point shooting futility. Don’t bother going to your calculator; that is 8.7 percent, the lowest for any UNC team attempting at least 20 treys.
The resulting good news is that another NCAA tournament bid is still on the table if Davis’ team can string something together after winning only the second time in the last seven games, continuing Saturday night with a ranked Virginia team that will arrive wounded from its 15-point whipping at BC.
Carolina has to play much harder and better to beat the Cavaliers, but when the dust settled in South Bend, Bacot, Love and R.J. Davis made 17 of 36 shots, which will be needed versus UVa’s suffocating pack-line defense.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Maggie Hobson
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Got Away With One appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Ample reasons why the Tar Heels need to play their best game at Notre Dame.
Carolina begins its “win out or else” challenge tonight at 9 (on ESPN) in South Bend against a team that will belie its record and be ready to play in the second-to-last home game for veteran coach Mike Brey.
The Fighting Irish have beaten UNC three out of the last four games at the Joyce Center, including last season’s 78-73 win when the Heels’ late comeback fell short. Even during a seven-game winning streak in the Roy Williams era, they survived two one-point wins under the Golden Dome. So don’t let Carolina’s 12-5 record since the Irish joined the ACC deceive you.
Neither should you be comforted by Notre Dame standing 10-17 and 2-14 in the ACC with five consecutive losses, 9 in the last 10 games and 10 in the last 13. In there were essentially one-possession defeats at Syracuse, at N.C. State, at Georgia Tech, at Duke and at Virginia.
Even with Pitt closing out the home season in South Bend, this is the one that alumni, fans and especially students want to get for Brey, who has a 21-year record there of 482-276, including the 2015 ACC tournament championship win over the Tar Heels in Greensboro.
ND’s never-quit attitude comes from its athletic heritage and Brey’s dogged determination and a veteran team that feels responsible for sending its coach out with a bad season.
Four of their top six scorers are seniors, including fifth-year Nate Laszewski, who has built a reputation as a “Carolina killer” with great performances over the years, including games of 25 points and 9 rebounds, 20 and 8, and 17 and 8. He likely wants his last one against UNC to be his best. For a 14th-place team, Laszewski remains the No. 19 scorer in the ACC, the No. 8 rebounder and second-best free-throw shooter. As a team, the Irish are better marksmen than Carolina and way better from the arc (who isn’t?).
Hubert Davis has used adjectives like “unbelievable” and “fantastic” when describing Notre Dame and most other opponents his 16-11 and 8-8 team is about to face. The Heels clearly have their backs against the wall and, at very best, are hanging on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble. They need to win tonight and at Florida State, plus upset Virginia and Duke at home to have a chance to return to the Dance.
Carolina defeated the Irish in Chapel Hill back in January in a contested game, but will definitely have its hands full in this rematch on the road in front of a packed house chanting “NIT! NIT!” and waving signs that NIT stands for “Not In Tournament” which could be UNC’s unfortunate fate with another loss.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Last Stand? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Losing second-half leads could be fatal for the Tar Heels’ season.
So, here we are with our collective backs against the wall when it comes to the ignominy of possibly missing the NCAA tournament with a team that was the preseason No. 1 pick in the polls.
And saying “we” goes beyond the team that is hurting more than anyone. Carolina alumni and fans have long been invested in the results on the basketball court, and we have suffered through a litany of historically heartbreaking losses for once top-ranked teams. Indiana in Atlanta, Syracuse at the Meadowlands, Boston College at Landover and Kansas in St. Louis come to mind – and that was in the NCAA tournament trying to get to the Final Four.
This regular season is in a different category and is especially painful because the Tar Heels are way underperforming to expectations that were way over the top in the early rankings. And the way they have been unable to close out games they led in the second half is particularly perplexing.
Six times they’ve had leads deep into the second half only to squander them and victories that seemed at hand and, in the past, would have been closed out far more often than not. And regardless of Hubert Davis’ popularity and his magical run to the national championship game last year, coaching is under serious scrutiny after N.C. State followed the two Pitt games all the way back to Alabama and Iowa State losses in November.
I’ll use Dean Smith as an example, because Davis played four years for him; many coaches utilize the same philosophy that the most important parts of the game, especially near the end of the season, are the last 4-5 minutes. While that represents about one tenth of regulation, the very best coaches are known to devote as much as 20 percent of their practices to late-game situations, time and score and strategy.
Carolina has been one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in program history. From open looks that don’t go down and settling for tougher shots to fewer transition baskets resulting from not forcing turnovers or triggering fast breaks by no longer dominating the rebounding, how to take care of the ball and make the most of every possession is magnified as the shot clock winds down and the pressure mounts. Execution cannot be achieved without the kind of “preparation and practice” that Hubert talks about constantly.
The questions must loom in our minds: Do the Tar Heels practice enough of how to protect leads they have worked hard to build? That is up to Davis and his staff to review and fix while there is still time left.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Late in the Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
At the turning point, Carolina didn’t have the goods and N.C. State did.
Despite still shooting poorly, failing to force a single turnover in the first half and making critical defensive errors, the Tar Heels led the Wolfpack 54-48 with 09:32 remaining. They had three straight possessions but did not score to put game pressure on State, which went on to shoot 65 percent in the second half.
To that point, they were only winning on the glass and gutting it out, but when the superior home team took it to another level with a 27-9 scoring run, that was that. UNC may have to win its last four games to avoid becoming the first preseason No. 1 in almost 40 years not to make the NCAA tournament.
The Pack’s decisive 15-3 run with the score tied at 60 sent the capacity PNC crowd over the edge of hysteria, part of which was possibly knocking their archrival out of an NCAA bid. State’s turnaround is every bit as amazing as Carolina’s decline. After finishing 15th and last in the ACC in 2022, Kevin Keatts has pieced together an athletic and quick club that is 11-6 in the ACC with three quality shooting guards and a very big man who is tough to contain.
Leaky Black held State’s leading scorer Terquavion Smith to 5-for-16 from the floor and 0-4 from long range. But Smith’s running mate Jarkel Joiner had what must be a career high 29 points, 20 in the second half, 19 in the last 9 minutes. Armando Bacot, who had his second double double (16 and 14) of the season against the Pack, did a decent job on burly D.J. Burns, who abused anyone else trying to guard him, scoring almost at will in the paint.
Caleb Love led the Heels with 23 points but had 4 of their 13 turnovers.
Unlike the loss at Wake Forest in their last road game, the Tar Heels certainly came out with fighting spirit and scrapped their way into a position to pull an upset and win their first Quad 1 game in the NET Rankings.
“With the six-point lead, we had two turnovers and a missed layup,” Hubert Davis said after his second UNC team dropped to 8-8 in the ACC and 16-11 overall. “It seemed like every time we turned the ball over, it led to two points for them. Look how many points in the paint (46) and fast break points (25) and points off turnovers (16). Half of that gives you a chance to win.”
The Tar Heels had it coming, for sure, having won 8 of the last 9 over State in Raleigh, and 36 of the last 41 in the series.
Last year, they wrote the biggest story in college basketball. This year, they could wind up writing the most shocking story. Maybe or maybe not, with four games left in the regular season.
Either way, it will be a valuable life lesson for a group that, to this point, looks to be facing failed expectations.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Had It Coming appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Sunday’s game in Raleigh is shaping up as an uncivil war.
There is so much at stake in the State-Carolina game that it is almost too long to list. Traditional rivals, recent rivals, always rancorous rivals.
First of all, it’s Carolina and State in what is always a bitter battle, no matter when, where and how the teams are playing. That the Tar Heels have dominated the series for years (won 7 of last 8) never matters. And, this season, the Wolfpack is a better ballclub with a better record, 20-7 and 10-6.
Unless UNC can run its difficult five-game table, it will be playing on Wednesday at the ACC tournament in Greensboro. If so, the Heels would finish 13-7 in the ACC with tie-breakers over Clemson and State for fourth place, although it is unlikely the 11-4 Tigers will lose three of their last five.
State is still contending to finish in the top four and get the coveted double-bye into the Thursday quarterfinals, which right now has all non-Big Four teams in those positions. But another Wolfpack loss locks it into Wednesday as well and a possible 8-9 seeded third match-up with Carolina.
An upset by the hated Heels would leave the two teams even in the loss column of the ACC standings and increases the chances of meeting again in the tourney, which would then affect their double-bubble status for an NCAA tournament at-large bids.
Going into the 1 p.m. tilt at PNC Arena, State is No. 38 in the NET rankings that has the most impact on NCAA seedings. The Pack is 2-5 in Quad 1 games, 4-2 in Quad 2s. The Heels, ranked No. 45 in the NET, are winless in Quad 1 games (0-8) for the second straight season (at this point) but 6-2 in Quad 2 games, which reflects a stronger schedule than State has.
Then there is the first game against these old foes, when State was hanging in there before its leading scorer Terquavion Smith (also No. 2 in ACC scoring and 3-point shooting) landed hard after a mid-air collision with Leaky Black, who was ejected for a debatable flagrant 2 foul.
And this time, State’s most versatile player, Jack Clark, is back from an injury while burly center D.J. Burns has evolved into one of the most efficient big men the league, moving up to fourth in ACC field goal percentage.
For the Tar Heels, no longer a rebounding machine, it has come down to 3-point shooting in almost every game. When making at least 34 percent from behind the arc, they are undefeated. When hitting the 32 percent mark, they have lost only once (at Virginia when Armando Bacot went out after 90 seconds).
But any worse than that, the Heels are winless. UNC shot 35.8 last year.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Double Bubble Rivalry appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Questions and analysis of Carolina basketball seem unending.
All over social media and email chains, the debate wants to know what has happened to the Tar Heels. The comments run from statistics, to rotation, to recruiting, to style of play and, of course, to coaching. Here are a few samples.
STATS: Five of the 10 losses to date can be attributed to UNC’s very poor 3-point shooting, especially late in games.
- Iowa State, lost by 5, 3-18 3FG
- Alabama, lost by 2 in 4OT, (3-13 after halftime)
- at Pittsburgh, lost by 2, (1-9 in second half)
- vs. Pittsburgh, lost by 1, (1-14 in second half)
- Duke, lost by 6, 7-27 3FG.
The Tar Heels are last in the ACC, outside top 300 in the nation, close to their worst season ever in triples (.306)
DEPTH: Carolina’s starters have been set since Day 1 and only fluctuated due to injuries (Bacot, Nance). Seth Trimble has played in most games (26) of the second five and averages the second most minutes (11.3) behind Puff Johnson (15.7). Then D’Marco Dunn (11.2), Jalen Washington (6.6) and Tyler Nickel (6.4).
STYLE OF PLAY: Before the season, Hubert Davis said that “depth is really important for us, guys coming off the bench that give us consistent, great play, makes it even better for R.J. and Caleb and Leaky and Pete Nance and Armando to be the best they can be. And I think it’s going to make us better defensively, where we can change defenses, pick up full court, get more aggressive to create turnovers when we have more depth. It’s always a Carolina staple, wanting to be the fastest team in the country transitioning from defense to offense. Depth plays a part in being the best that you can be.”
Not much of that has happened.
Dean Smith used to say you build depth by playing depth, and Carolina is not hurting for projected talent with 11 players who were top-100 recruits; Duke is the only other ACC school with more than five. Why aren’t they playing more?
The Tar Heels change defenses rarely, full-court press occasionally, but are not creating turnovers that lead to transition baskets and have virtually no fast break because they do not throw outlet passes after rebounds, just give it to the guards.
Davis has been a basketball lifer from playing in college and the NBA for 16 years, watching dozens of other coaches while at ESPN and sitting next to Roy Williams for nine seasons. Some of the qualified feedback says all that doesn’t necessarily translate into head-coaching, at least not in the first two years.
Since defense has been inconsistent, Carolina’s success under Hubert comes down to scoring, and this team is neither hitting for high percentages nor doing much else to create easier baskets. “Post up Leaky!” one observer offered, “and surround him with the shooters.”
Yep, the fan base is really buzzing.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fans Chime In appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
How much has Hubert Davis’ life changed? A lot.
The second-year UNC basketball coach is a personification of the old saying, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” It is a 100-year-old expression and mostly about Chicago, Kansas, New England or any place with an iffy climate. It has never really been said about Chapel Hill until recently.
Davis began his first two seasons at the helm with short winning streaks against lesser opponents, then shocked back to reality when Power 5 foes came along. Bubble talk has followed him for more than a year with a heat wave of positivity in between. His beloved family has endured the weather change, as well.
It began with finishing 11-2 last season, including two wins over Duke that neither program will ever forget and a second-half loss to Kansas in the national championship game. On face value, Carolina’s anointment as preseason No. 1 was an absurd projection based on one month of hot shooting and lucky bounces.
Most astute UNC fans worried about a team without its most consequential player (Brady Manek) being picked over nine teams that had finished first or second in their leagues. After all, the Tar Heels had been in the middle of the ACC race until the late run carried them to the Final Four. And we knew that.
Davis had to know that, too. He talked early and often about turning off the noise of such hype, social media buzz and NIL opportunities for his players.
It’s no secret why Armando Bacot has been less dominant over the second half of the season, when teams figured out the Heels could no longer open the floor like they had with the bearded dude spotting up at the 3-point line. So it was up to the other returning shooters to up their games, and they instead have regressed.
As with most coaches being paid seven figures, the heat eventually settles on their head. And for the popular Davis, the honeymoon is clearly over. In that regard, his rookie season was both unforgettable and regrettable.
Despite college stardom under Dean Smith, 12 years in the NBA, 9 seasons under Roy Williams and four years with ESPN, Davis is on a learning curve. No matter how much basketball he already knew, every day is a weather change of some kind, both on and off the court. Now he presides over a program that both predated him and includes him in suffering four straight 10-loss seasons for the first time since before Smith arrived at UNC, albeit in the days of shorter schedules.
Undoubtedly, Hubert Davis will become a better head coach than he is on these “cloudy and sunny days,” as he likes to analogize. Will it be with another torrid run to the finish line this season or not until he has a roster of his own recruits?
We don’t know. If you can’t take that reality, move to Hawaii.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Iffy Climate appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Basketball is a pretty simple game. Can’t score from both inside and out, can’t win.
The Tar Heels were only down by a point at the half of their eventual 80-72 loss to a very talented Miami team. But listen to these stats.
In the first half, Carolina shot 15 of 29, which is 52 percent. Subtract 1 for 11 from 3-point range, and the Heels made 14 of 18 two-pointers, which is an astonishing 78 percent, by driving the ball to the U’s interior.
The No. 15-ranked Hurricanes made that more difficult after halftime, and the crowded paint should have resulted in the Heels shooting better than 4 for 20 from the arc to end the game at a season-low 16 percent.
Overall, Caleb Love and R.J. Davis were 4 of 19, and the Pete Nance-Puff Johnson combo at power forward went 0-for-7. Nance, who shot better than 40 percent from outside last season at Northwestern, is in a miserable 1-for-18 slump in his last four games. It may be time to give freshman Tyler Nickel, a reputed outside shooter, more than mop-up minutes.
“The only way to loosen up the defense inside is by making more perimeter shots,” Hubert Davis said after the game. “We had some wide-open looks. At the end of the day, we need to knock more of those down.”
For the season, UNC is dead last in the 15-team ACC with Boston College, shooting 30.6 percent from “3”. Last year’s Tar Heels finished just under 36 percent, and losing Brady Manek affects that difference because his departure leaves opponents daring them to do it from outside while double- and triple-teaming Armando Bacot. That should be giving Love and Davis more good looks, but neither is close to the percentage he shot a year ago.
So Carolina is back on the NCAA bubble, and in a far more precarious position at 16-10 overall and 8-7 in the ACC. After 26 games last year, the record was 18-8 and 11-5 in the ACC and still considered a bubble team before beating Louisville, N.C. State, Syracuse and Duke to finish the regular season 22-8 and 15-5.
The Tar Heels have five conference games left: Sunday at N.C. State, next Wednesday at Notre Dame, the following Saturday at home against Virginia, at Florida State on February 27 and the regular season home finale vs. Duke on March 4. They may have to win four of those last five to secure an NCAA at-large bid without needing to win a game or two in the ACC tournament.
And with the opposition employing the same suffocating game plan, Carolina has to start knocking more outside shots down than lately.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Risky Business appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I thought Duke had banned that crass behavior a long time ago.
I remember when Duke students were dubbed the Cameron Crazies by the late NBC broadcaster Al McGuire. Becoming national TV celebrities, the Crazies had no boundaries to the crap they would shout in unison and write on cruel posters that Dean Smith criticized openly after his games at Duke.
There was a Carolina player in the 1970s with some acne that the Crazies ridiculed ruthlessly. There was another sign about a Tar Heel of the 1980s, whom they said couldn’t read. And they trashed Smith and his assistant coaches mercilessly. It got better when Tom Butters became athletic director and ordered all signs and placards to be approved or would be removed along with their propagators. And all cheers in unison were cleared before the games.
The Crazies became just a raucous rooting section copied by so many student wannabes at other schools. Until recently when they got away with a malicious sign that parroted a rumor floating around on social media at the game against UNC on February 4.
It wasn’t original, just making fun of a published claim about two Tar Heel men’s basketball players and one on the women’s team.
Duke’s new athletic director Nina King might have seen the sign and confiscated it, but it was too late to keep it from smartphones snapping photos and being digitally shared all over the country. And this was a school that reacted strongly to racial slurs during a Duke volleyball match at BYU.
You know by now that gossip has been pushed out about Caleb Love and R.J. Davis, so much that Love tweeted a message with R.J.’s okay.
laughing at the BSwe locked 4 @ariidavis_ pic.twitter.com/taykrbZiZc
— Caleb Love (@caleb2love) February 9, 2023
“Rumors, I’m sure y’all have all seen it,” Love texted. “And that’s just what it is. None of that was true, as far as me and RJ. That’s my brother, and I love him. We don’t have anything going on, no beef, none of that they tried to label us. And so I told him, just tune out the noise and let’s hoop.”
Love had his best game of the season in Saturday’s win over Clemson. And despite a nagging dislocation of a finger on his shooting hand, Davis continues to be UNC’s best all-around player on both ends of the floor.
As for the Dukies, why don’t you return to being the grown-up, blue-painted entertainers you’ve been since Butters put you in your place.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dukies Back At It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Who do I like in the Super Bowl? Neither, literally.
Maybe this game will get great ratings in Missouri, Kansas and Pennsylvania, but I doubt it will pull big numbers anywhere else in the U.S. of A.
Why? Well, the Eagles are a great team but dull, dull, dull, with perhaps the best boring quarterback in the NFL, Jalen Hurts. If they win, their defense will have to contain the other QB, who’s still limping on a high ankle sprain.
Two-time NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes is great, but something about his personal life doesn’t add up and frankly is a little wacko for his All-American boy image: His wife and brother and their antics. Good thing the game is outside of Phoenix in Glendale, without any glitz that would light them up.
And, of course, I am prejudiced. Tom Brady was my guy when we had two great decades together in New England with millions of our best friends. Then he left the Patriots after the 2019 season because owner Kraft and coach Belichick had him playing with mostly low-caliber mates at skilled positions.
I didn’t root for Brady at Tampa Bay, where he eventually crashed and burned, not as soon as ESPN’s Max Kellerman predicted his fall off Cliff QB, and it was probably his divorce from Gisele, more than Max, that finally killed his career. My brother lives down there in winter and he stuck with TB12. Not me.
So, you guessed it, this notebook is way slanted.
Brady would have won his 7th Super Bowl with the Pats if the Eagles hadn’t pulled off the Philly Special and Belichick wasn’t so stubborn as to overlook whatever cornerback Malcom Butler did to get benched by the Hoodie. Shoot, Coach, didn’t you owe him one transgression for his super-pick in Super Bowl 49?
And the Chiefs are just too good for me. I don’t understand how they have the money to keep replacing or keeping great players like Travis Kelce, who is the best tight end I’ve ever seen because he catches balls all over the field. Unlike Gronk, who lived in the seam.
Belichick’s greatest win, leading to his last Super Bowl, was beating Mahomes in Arrowhead after they won the flip in OT just like they had against the Falcons, who blew that big game in Houston more than the Pats won it.
I went to see the Brady movie with the four old broads (“their words, not mine”) and enjoyed watching that comeback again if not the Hollywood happy ending on the beach in Florida for Brady and his highfalutin harem. His next gig will be analyzing for FOX in 2024, bumping Greg Olsen who has already become a favorite.
So, this Super Bowl is without anyone I cheer for. That’s fine with me.
Featured image via Associated Press/Ross D. Franklin
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Super Bowl Dreams appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Maybe Hubert Davis should sit down all five starters for the Clemson game.
Sure, star Armando Bacot and best-all-around player R.J. Davis do not deserve it, but if Hubert wants accountability for the TEAM then the top five may be better off watching the opening tip from the bench.
After the losses to Pitt and Duke, which granted were a play or two away from victories that might have changed the narrative, how the Tar Heels began their third straight loss at Wake Forest demands accountability from a group underperforming in a number of ways. Bacot was distressed after the game but unspecific about the problems.
Had they played their buns off and still lost to a very well-coached opponent, such accountability might not be on the table. But perhaps not getting the hosannas that come with all the digital dynamics and the downbeat of the drum line will send a message that Carolina Basketball is bigger than any one person. Hubert Davis certainly knows it’s bigger than the head coach. His mentors Dean Smith and Roy Williams would not hesitate to sit anyone if he wasn’t properly representing teams and former players over the last 60-plus years.
There is an old coaching maxim that goes like this: “The best way to get a message into a player’s head is through his butt. Put his butt on the bench until he is willing to compete the way he is supposed to.”
Davis played in a different era, and he is clearly struggling with all the “noise” in today’s college basketball. After an unusually long meeting with the team at Wake Forest, he listened pensively to each question at the press conference like he was thinking about how to answer it.
He said he wasn’t just talking to his players, he was talking to their friends, families, agents and phones. When you put on that uniform there is no escaping the attention that comes with wearing it. During the Duke-Miami game Monday night on ESPN, the banner along the bottom of the screen that said “North Carolina-Wake Forest Tuesday at 7 pm” never went away.
North Carolina is a brand built over decades, like Duke and Kentucky and Indiana and Kansas and UCLA. If your team is not playing up to expectations, there is nowhere to hide. You watched the game: were expectations being met against the Deacons? Careless passes, hurried shots and defenseless defense.
It’s always a 200-minute game, five players for 40 minutes each. Those who play should be those who have earned it. The starters can certainly come in at some point, but right now accountability is more important than winning.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Accountability appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
What would YOU say about UNC’s 7-point defeat Tuesday night?
Do you agree with Tar Heel loyalist Eric Montross, who on the Tar Heel Sports Network post-game show called it “a dismal performance, more of a loss by Carolina than a win by Wake Forest. . . it was embarrassing.”
Or do you agree with Hubert Davis, who said, “I was proud we didn’t quit. In the first half, I didn’t see Carolina play out there, not the competitiveness, fight or energy. We need to talk more and spend more time on the floor to find out what holds us back.”
Whatever your take, the facts tell the story. The Deacons beat the Tar Heels for the third straight time in Winston-Salem by blowing out to a double-digit lead early in the game that grew to 26 points in the second half, when Carolina wound up beating Wake 60-45 with more points than they scored in the entire loss (57) at Duke.
Unfortunately, the Heels’ 25 points in the first half matched their total in the second half in Durham to, in tandem, represent their worst 40 minutes of the season. It was so listless of a showing that at halftime ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi all but dropped the Heels from his NCAA tournament field, where they were what he called a “generous” No. 9 seed going into the game.
The comeback that cut the final deficit to seven points might have earned some credit from Lunardi, but at best UNC is back on the same bubble it spent most of the 2022 season before we all know what happened.
The first half, when Davis’ team was expected to come out breathing fire after consecutive losses to Pitt and Duke, looked like the blue team was running in slow motion compared to the white team’s speed and ability to get easy shots and knock enough down to shoot 51.4 percent with five 3-pointers compared to Carolina’s 33 percent and 0-of-5 from the arc.
The 47-25 halftime score also included forcing only 3 turnovers by Wake. One play epitomized the effort, when Leaky Black recovered the Deacons’ first turnover in the open court with an easy snowbird layup or dunk in front of him. Only Leaky slowed down to allow Wake’s Tyree Appleby to catch him, block the shot and foul Black, who missed both free throws.
The Tar Heels continued to help their hosts by letting Appleby and other Deacs drive by them and find teammates alone for layups and lob dunks. Though Carolina didn’t quit, Wake Forest got understandably lackadaisical with the big lead that made the game look much closer than , in actuality, their biggest loss of the season.
You can also see the comeback in one positive way. Caleb Love, who has led a three-game 16-for-72 drought from outside, made three late 3-pointers and could be a sign that he is ready to hit a hot streak the Tar Heels need desperately.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Embarrassing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
If there was ever a must win for the Tar Heels, it’s at Wake Forest.
Carolina has lost four of its six ACC road games this season, barely beating Syracuse and blowing out last-place Louisville for the two conference wins away from the Smith Center.
If the Heels hope to stay in the race for the top four spots in the ACC — and double bye for the tournament in March — they have to win in Winston-Salem tonight to avoid nullifying almost everything they’ve accomplished so far and have to play under the pressure of more bubble talk for an NCAA bid.
At 7-5, UNC can deadlock Duke for sixth place in the standings and make a move toward the top four with league leaders Clemson and Miami coming to Chapel Hill Saturday and Monday.
The Deacons (7-6 and 15-9) are not as big or talented as Carolina with the exception of dynamic scoring guard Tyree Appleby, who is second in the ACC with an 18-point average. They had lost four in a row before beating 13th-place Notre Dame.
Wake may be undermanned but is extremely well-coached by Steve Forbes, who will have a solid game plan ready. And a cheering capacity crowd at cozy Joel Coliseum that has witnessed only five wins over the Tar Heels in Roy Williams’ 18-years but began Hubert Davis’ tenure with a 98-76 spanking last January before they turned their season around.
UNC will be looking to do that again with a daunting remaining schedule. After Clemson and Miami comes a Sunday matinee rematch at red hot N.C. State and its last two home games against Virginia and Duke.
With the Blue Devils getting run over at Miami Monday night, the Tar Heels have to know their loss at Cameron was more on them than Duke.
Carolina has had only one full practice and some walk-throughs to figure out how to get Armando Bacot the ball in a better position to score or pass out of the double-teams that have become the way to slow AB and leave his teammates racing the shot clock to get a good look and easier baskets.
The Heels have been plagued by having to take contested shots and hurried 3-pointers that result in low field goal percentages. They need better ball movement side to side so their outside shooters can get open and their drivers and cutters can go downhill to the basket off effective ball screens for either points or more attempts at the foul line than the three they had in Durham.
It’s a lot to do in a short period of time, but it is reaching the point where Carolina’s experienced team with high expectations has to get gelling.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Gelling Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
By review, only 25 fouls called in the Duke-Carolina game was ludicrous.
Hubert Davis questioning how his team shot only three free throws, all in the first half, in the 63-57 loss to the Blue Devils is legit. Neither team got into the bonus in the first 20 minutes and only Duke did in the second half.
The officials took “letting them play” to a new level in a rivalry that is traditionally among the roughest games of the season. How the home team with two seven-footers and playing aggressive perimeter defense only committed 11 fouls is absurd, especially after watching a replay of the game.
The Tar Heels’ only free throws all night came on a two-shot foul when Armando Bacot made both and Caleb Love could not convert a three-point play in the first half. Meanwhile, Duke made 6 of 8 from the free throw line.
While Bacot had two early shots cleanly blocked by Dereck Lively II, he was knocked down in the paint by Ryan Young and clearly fouled by Lively on another no-call early in the second half, right after Davis told ESPN’s Holly Rowe, “We’ve been to the free throw line more than any team in the ACC, my hope is that will change.” It didn’t when UNC never got there again.
Just before the half, Davis went ballistic when the refs missed an obvious foul on Kyle Filipowski while he blocked Pete Nance’s shot on the left wing. The coach and his assistants were still barking at the zebras as the half ended and they left the bench.
With 17 minutes left in the second half, R.J. Davis went down on another of Lively’s eight blocks that sent him flying backward. That could have been called a foul. At the 9:20 mark, R.J. was knocked down again by Lively blocking his shot out of bounds. Even though Davis’ 3-pointer then gave Carolina its last lead, 50-49, the no calls kept the Tar Heels from getting into the bonus as the action got more physical down the stretch.
With 4:10 left, Love’s driving shot was contested by Duke’s two big men, as all three players hit the floor. At the 2:23 mark, Davis was fouled by Tyrese Proctor while the game was still tied at 57-57. That was only No. 4 on Duke.
By Carolina’s final possession, the Blue Devils led by four points and still had two to fouls to give, which helped them ice the game.
Certainly, Carolina committed some fouls that likewise drew no whistles, but the overlaying fact was that Duke got into the bonus but the Tar Heels never did in a rough-and-tumble 40 minutes of a very close game.
It may be the first time that ever happened to either team in the rivalry.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Foul Play appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The murderer’s row of a schedule could determine Carolina’s fate.
Even with the dramatic win at Syracuse, the next six games looked daunting for the Tar Heels. And with their home loss to Pitt (again), they’re banged-up and frustrated going into the gauntlet at Duke Saturday, when the Blue Devils will be ready for some payback.
It was the game that turned around UNC’s season last year, and it just may be the same stakes on the table this time. Duke is far from the team it was in Coach K’s last hurrah, but the Devils are still talented, big and facing their own critical stretch that could affect their postseason fate, as well.
The blue blood rivals are both unranked for only the fourth such match-up in their glorious history.
Duke is tied with UNC at 7-4 in the ACC, 16-6 overall, and after the ESPN blockbuster at 6:30 p.m. has three of its next four games on the road at No. 23 Miami, No. 6 Virginia and still-dangerous Syracuse. Can you spell HUNGRY to stay unbeaten at home before hitting the road again!
Hubert Davis’ team is now 15-7 and also looking at possibly falling back onto the NCAA tournament bubble with games at Wake Forest Tuesday and home dates against ACC leader Clemson Saturday and Miami Monday, followed by a Sunday visit to hot and vengeful N.C. State (8-4, 18-5) — all within a 15-day span. The previously top-ranked Heels now look like they cannot avoid a second straight season of double-digit defeats under Hubert Davis.
We know they will come out determined to replicate what happened last year at Cameron, which was a microcosm of their entire season. Just like they struggled early and pulled it together in March, Carolina was down seven points deep into the second half before blowing out the Devils over the last 12 minutes of the game and used that as fuel all the way to the Final Four.
Of course, Brady Manek isn’t walking in the door, and it appears more and more how much they miss Manek’s quick release and accuracy from the arc. That forced defenses to go out and try to guard him, which created more space for Armando Bacot to operate and gave Caleb Love, R.J. Davis and Leaky Black lanes to drive and score or hit open shots due to the attention on Manek.
Davis is the biggest concern going into the game. If he injured the finger on his shooting hand at Syracuse and did not fully heal in the eight days before the Pitt game, will it be okay by tomorrow afternoon?
It puts even more on the line for the 259th renewal than enormous pride.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: More Than Pride at Stake appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Carolina shot abysmally against Pitt and paid for it dearly.
The Tar Heels were outsmarted, out-toughed and obviously outshot by an opponent that played and acted like it was from the Steel City. The Panthers of ex-Dukie Jeff Capel may have left his archrival needing to win at his alma mater like last season’s memorable Quad 1 upset in Durham.
Except that game doesn’t follow four wins in a row like in 2022. It comes in three days against the Blue Devils, who with decidedly different rosters are still smarting from having lost 4 of the last 5 to the hated Heels.
The shooting against Pitt’s ultra-aggressive defense was near season lows from the floor, 3-point arc and foul line: 35 percent overall, 19 percent on way-too-many 27 3-pointers and missing 9 free throws are not very good.
The only starter in white and blue who was more accurate than his stats coming in was Caleb Love, who made 8 of 18, including 4 of 11 from downtown. Love drained his fifth seconds after Armando Bacot traveled while finding him with a pass in the left corner.
Hubert Davis would not blame his namesake’s worst shooting night of the season on an injured finger after R.J. Davis missed 12 of 15 and all 6 from outside. “He had some good looks, they just didn’t go in,” Hubert said.
Also contributing to this offensive disaster was Bacot, who never looked dominant and went 3-for-10 and 9-for-15 from the foul line. He was surrounded and manhandled by Pitt’s smaller-but-more-physical front court, and the Heels did not hit enough of the open shots that strategy allowed.
Just as he had in the first game in Pittsburgh, where he scored 31 points in that 76-74 win, Jamarius Burton took control after going scoreless for the first seven minutes. Of his 19 points, most of them were again Carolina killers. And the last two of his 6-for-6 free throws were the final points in the 65-64 victory that moves Pitt (9-3) comfortably ahead of UNC (7-4) in the ACC standings and climbed in the NET rankings for NCAA tournament seeding.
The Tar Heels’ best stretch was a late 13-2 run that produced a six-point lead. But Pitt’s high scorer Nelly Cummings answered with three straight long balls that recaptured the advantage until Bacot’s two free throws ended a gallant comeback that produced Carolina’s last short-lived lead. Hubert Davis summed it up with the truth that “we just didn’t play well enough to win. We were up by 1 and needed a stop or a score and got neither.”
The home crowd was again at its raucous best, trying to pull its team through before filing out into the cold and rainy night. It wound up like that after once seeming so promising.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Punitive Play appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Mack Brown doesn’t like Carolina’s 2023 schedule because it is not fair.
The UNC head coach’s big beef about the next football schedule that came out Monday is that the Tar Heels finish the new season with games at Clemson and N.C. State. What about having to beat the best to be the best, Coach?
Brown has said repeatedly that his program “needs to take the next step” after losing such opportunities against Notre Dame at home and Clemson in the ACC Championship game. And here is his chance, perfectly positioned.
The real problem with last season, after starting 9-1, the Heels could not beat Georgia Tech and State at home in games that went down to the last possessions. And there are several things Brown should like about the new slate.
One, the Heels have seven home games and will be favored to win all seven, ending with Senior Day against Duke in week 11 on November 11.
Two, they play lightweight Campbell in week 10 before Duke and their first trip to Clemson since 2014 and the regular season finale at State. The Fighting Camels are no longer an FCS school, which have been all but banned from FBS schedules, but is still very much a warm-up game for the tough last three weeks against ACC contenders and returning bowl teams.
Third, the season opener against South Carolina in Charlotte will be a high-profile national TV game with heralded quarterbacks Drake Maye and Spencer Rattler of the Gamecocks. That will be followed by App State’s return visit to Chapel Hill, a home game against Big Ten also-ran Minnesota and a trip to Pitt where the Panthers have their third starting quarterback in three years.
UNC has a real chance to be 4-0 or 3-1 by the open date, after which come three straight home games against Syracuse, Miami and Virginia, all underdogs under the pines. Carolina goes to Georgia Tech, which has another new head coach, and should end two straight upset losses to the Jackets.
Brown also said last season that “next year is supposed to be our best team.” If so, that means facing Clemson and State with quarterbacks who came on late last fall and will play opponents far better prepared for them this year. Besides the possibility to start 9-1 for the second straight season and in undoubtedly Maye’s last year before turning pro, what is unfair about another shot at becoming the program we all want it to be?
“They didn’t do us any favors,” Brown whined of the ACC. “It’s really difficult. We start tough and end with an unbelievably tough schedule. I’m disappointed. I told them I didn’t like it, didn’t think it was fair.”
Get over it, Coach, and get your team ready.
Photo via AP Photo/Chuck Burton.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Quit Whining! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The Pitt loss last year set up Carolina’s magical March.
The last time Pittsburgh was in Chapel Hill, the ACC also-ran Panthers delivered such a devastating loss that they left town with the Tar Heels barely hanging on the NCAA bubble with an 18-8 record but zero Quad 1 wins.
As we know, the Heels won 11 of their next 13 games before dropping the heartbreaker to Kansas for the NCAA championship. But how did they get there and how much did the low point against Pitt play into it?
The team said it had some kind of meeting after being outshot 51 percent to 41 percent from the floor and 10-7 from 3-point range. But a closer look shows that UNC won virtually every other aspect of the game – more offensive rebounds, assists, blocks and steals and fewer turnovers.
So ever-optimistic Hubert Davis had much to build on from that embarrassing and perhaps dangerous loss. Carolina won at Virginia Tech and N.C. State and beat Louisville and Syracuse at home for four straight Ws going to Duke for the memorable regular season finale.
In that game, the Blue Devils were ahead 56-49 with under 13 minutes to play. From there, Carolina outscored the stunned host 45-25 to complete a 55-point second half and win going away, 94-81. The shocking victory that soured Mike Krzyzewski’s swan song at Cameron Indoor essentially put the Tar Heels in the Big Dance to begin a March where they caught lightning in a bottle that also ended the Dukies’ season and Coach K’s career at the Final Four.
This time, UNC is 15-6 with a net ranking of 31 and is projected as an eight or nine seed in the NCAA Tournament. So stopping a two-game losing streak to Pitt, including the squandered loss up there on December 30, is more on the minds of Davis and his players.
That 76-74 defeat is stuck in their craw after leading by nine points with 12 minutes left and then allowing the much-improved Panthers to outscore them 30-19 to drop their third of four games in which they led after halftime. Forget catching lightning in a bottle again – at least until the tournament – and concentrate on their next six games that could put them back on the bubble if they don’t have their game together.
After Pitt is Duke in Durham Saturday, Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, home games against ranked Clemson and Miami and then the rematch at State, which has not lost since the game here and figures to keep winning with the next two against Florida State and Georgia Tech.
So doing what it takes against rugged Pitt is the only the first course on the menu.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Pitt Item appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
I have a Billy Packer story that most people have never heard.
While the (social) media is filled with memorial tributes to the Hall of Fame basketball broadcaster, the great majority of them are about Billy’s controversial calls and opinions rankling fans and coaches, like claiming that Gerald Henderson’s elbow to Tyler Hansbrough’s nose was not intentional.
But my story supports Packer’s claim that he was “never a sports fan.” He signed with NBC, and six years later with CBS, because the money was better than he was making on ACC telecasts and he could influence scheduling of regular season matchups. And it gave Packer time for his other loves such as his family, gardening and quirky news stories.
One he followed closely was the arrest and case of former Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth, who was eventually convicted for plotting the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. In the high-profile trial, Carruth was defended by Charlotte attorney David Rudolf, who began his practice in Chapel Hill. Rudolf went on to even greater fame by representing Durham novelist and columnist Michael Peterson, whose “Staircase” conviction for killing his wife led to books, documentaries and movies.
Rudolf and I were friends for years, and David said he often heard from Packer with opinions on the Carruth case since the shooting occurred near the swanky Piper Glen neighborhood in Charlotte where Billy lived.
“He had all kinds of theories on what happened,” Rudolf said. “Billy had a lot of free time and spent hours studying the case and watching on TV.”
Packer knew Rudolf and I were buddies, and he spotted me on press row when he was calling the game between No. 15 UNC and unranked UCLA in Pauley Pavilion on December 23, 2000, early in Carolina’s 15-game winning streak that took Matt Doherty’s first team all the way to No. 1 in the country.
Immediately after the Tar Heels’ 80-70 victory, Packer found me in the press room before the coaches came in to speak. He handed me two sheets of notebook paper filled with handwriting.
“I saw you were at the game, and I wrote down some things I want you to give to Rudolf,” he said.
Two sheets filled on both sides with his theory about the traffic pattern on REA Road and why the assault could not have happened as Charlotte police and the district attorney were claiming. TV time-outs were not as long in those days, so Packer had to spend some time DURING the game writing.
I wondered how he could analyze the action and craft theories on the case at the same time. But it was another example of Billy Packer’s brilliance.
Featured image via Associated Press/Michael Conroy
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Packer Case appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
The NFL playoffs are down to the Final Four quarterbacks.
What a doubleheader Sunday for the right to reach Super Bowl LVII. And the quarterback battle in each game will determine who gets to Phoenix. You can forget all the other players on both sides of the ball. It’s up to the QBs.
The Eagles have been the best team in pro football over the season and are playing at home against the 49ers in Mr. Underrated versus Cinderella.
Jalen Hurts has not gotten the credit he deserves for taking Philly to a 14-3 record, the top seed in the NFC and crushing the Giants in the conference round. Granted, Hurts is barely among the top ten signal callers in statistical quarterback categories. The Eagles are the No. 15 team in passing, but that’s because they are the third-best rushing team. All Hurts seems to do is win.
His opponent is Brock Purdy, who was the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft and started the season as the 49ers’ unknown third-string quarterback. Now he is undefeated in his seven starts and one win away from becoming the first rookie QB to go to the Super Bowl, let alone win it. He’s become America’s darling with millions rooting for him, but the moment will be too big for him.
All four rookies who have started conference championship games have lost, and the ferocious Eagles defense will make Purdy the fifth. Too bad, but there is always next year for the kid who has shed the tag of Mr. Irrelevant.
The Bengals vow to return to and win the Super Bowl. They have a three-game winning streak over the Chiefs, with Joe Burrow outplaying Patrick Mahomes in all three victories, including last year’s AFC title game.
Mahomes will try to play with a high ankle sprain that could affect mobility, the key to his brilliance. Normally, the Chiefs would win this game at home, but Cincinnati’s Joe Cool is just too good for a handicapped opponent.
Burrow outplayed Mahomes in last year’s AFC Championship on the same field in Kansas City, but while he is the No. 5 rated QB in the NFL behind the No. 1 Mahomes, his experience and confidence against a hobbled opponent will be a huge advantage and the Bengals will do it again.
Burrow is this generation’s Joe Namath, whose nickname was Broadway Joe when he played for the Jets and led them to a Super Bowl upset over the Baltimore Colts. While Namath had knee problems that shortened his career, Burrow has recovered completely from an ACL tear as a rookie.
Joe Cool and his talented wide receivers will advance to take on the underrated Hurts in two weeks in what should be a great Super Bowl.
Enjoy the games and the Final Four of pro football.
Featured image via The Sporting News
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: It’s Up to the QBs! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The never-ending New York Times story had a few flaws.
UNC athletics and Armando Bacot got a ton of publicity from the Times treatise that came out Tuesday and was so long that its audio version said it would take more than 43 minutes to listen to the whole thing.
Of course, we know most of what is reported because we live with it every day, but the major mistake was the premise that Bacot stayed for his senior year despite “projected to be chosen in the NBA Draft.”
That is dead wrong and perusal of the 2022 mock draft boards would have found Bacot almost never listed in either the first or second rounds, which meant that he would have to make a team as a free agent with an unknown income. Or go to Europe for a pretty good contract.
NIL money the creation of the Mondo Burger and other endorsements has made and since increased was really his only choice for instant wealth. His mother and business manager, Christie Lomax, is the pretty good source for the money he is making and has been quoted as saying “more than a half million” last season.
In fact, Bacot’s fame and fortune as the best rebounder in college basketball has not moved the needle into the first round, where all contracts are guaranteed, because scouts say he is undersized for an NBA big man and his game does not translate to the next level regardless of gaudy college stats.
So, he will face the same decision this summer — enter the draft anyway or choose to take his COVID super senior year at Carolina, where he will remain a poster child for those who turned pro when they weren’t ready like Tony Bradley, Nassir Little and others who have not become NBA fixtures.
The Times piece may have made Bubba Cunningham mad, because his access and candor wound up portraying the usually optimistic athletics director as a sort-of doomsday predictor for the future of college athletics. Comparing it to pro sports, he said carefully that their “model has always been different.”
While Bacot tools around in his $80,000 Audi, Cunningham and retiring field hockey coach Karen Shelton show their concern that UNC may eventually have to cut some of its 28 varsity sports if school revenues from companies that have sponsored the Tar Heels for years are seriously siphoned off to pay athletes oversized NIL deals. Bubba and Karen might tell you their reported uncertainty is far too off into the future to have any relevance now.
The only question that will be answered in the next few months is will Bacot be back for a fifth year like Leaky Black is taking this season.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Will He Stay or Will He Go? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels were tough enough with their manhood on the line.
Despite blowing big leads in both halves, Carolina made the plays and shots to somehow survive at Syracuse when it looked bleak. It was a must-game the Heels had to have before a week off with Pitt, Duke, Wake Forest, Clemson, Miami and the rematch at N.C. State in their next six games.
The Orange generally don’t lose close games at home and this time shot better than UNC from the field, the arc and the foul line and outrebounded the team in blue to have a two-point edge and the ball with 90 seconds remaining in a thrilling game that had six lead changes and three ties.
Pete Nance, who may have had his true baptism to college basketball, got tougher as the night went on with Armando Bacot spending a good part of the second half on the bench in foul trouble. Nance had 13 points in the second stanza, including the fortuitous go-ahead basket after missing a free throw to tie the game. He played all 40 minutes and was the difference.
Leaky Black, who did not play well on offense while dogging Syracuse leading scorer Joe Girard, got faked out of his shorts to let Girard get open for the 3-pointer that gave the Orange their last lead, 68-66. But Leaky was there when Nance missed the tying free throw, knocking the rebound loose from Girard, who tried to save the ball over the end line. Nance got it and dropped in the layup for the lead, and R.J. Davis took the brutal charge on a flagrant foul that put the game away on two free throws by Caleb Love.
Carolina played well against the Syracuse zone, moving the ball for 14 assists on 16 first-half baskets, finishing with 20 feeds on 26 buckets. But the Cuse climbed back in both halves and nearly pulled it off at the end. In the battle of 6-3 teams in the ACC race, Carolina earned its 10th win in the last 12 games and its second victory on the road.
“Playing on their home floor is difficult,” Hubert Davis told Jones Angell after the 72-68 win. “We need to be stronger with our moves to get to the free throw line, which we did better in the second half. R.J. put his body on the line, got hit twice in the face, once in the nose, injured his elbow and dislocated a finger. Now, we can take a deep breath during a week off.”
With Bacot missing a double-double by 3 rebounds, Nance learned how he, too, had to put it all on the line and finished with his 21 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and a block in his best all-around effort of the season.
Love had a sneaky good game, draining his first three 3-pointers, making 2 clutch foul shots and finishing with 15 points and 5 assists. Got to love him!
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Nance Steps Up appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The college basketball rankings show there is one dominant conference.
Have you looked at the latest AP college basketball poll? Notice anything wacky? Like the Big 12, which everyone wants to blow up because of football, has six teams from Kansas State to Baylor. And the Big Ten, which had 9 in the NCAA tournament last year, has one team, the No. 1 team, Purdue. The AAC (American Athletic Conference) also has one, No. 3 Houston, a former No. 1.
You have to give props to three other leagues with one ranked team, even though it won’t last long for any of them. Florida Atlantic University from Conference USA is at No. 21 with a 19-1 record. College of Charleston from the Colonial Athletic is 21-1 with its only loss to unranked Carolina, which will benefit from beating the Cougars back on November 11. And don’t forget 25th-ranked New Mexico of the Mountain West, where the Lobos are in fifth place but have an 18-3 overall record against what must be a tough schedule.
The Big (formerly Bad) East has four teams in the lower half: No. 13 Xavier, No. 16 Marquette, No. 19 UConn and No. 23 Providence.
The ACC is one of two leagues with three ranked teams: No. 7 Virginia, No. 20 Miami and No. 24 Clemson. Can you remember the last time both Duke and Carolina were not in the polls? I think it was the 2021 COVID season.
The SEC also has three, but further up the ladder with No. 2 Alabama, No. 4 Tennessee and No. 15 Auburn. Notice that Kentucky is absent.
The two conferences with two teams each are the Pac-12, with No. 6 Arizona and No. 8 UCLA, and the West Coast with No. 14 Gonzaga and No. 22 St. Mary’s. The Zags will move up and Mary will be gone with one more loss.
What all this says more than anything else is how many more great college basketball players there are than, say, 15 or 20 years ago.
So who will be the best conference when the dust settles and the 2023 Big Dance bids are handed out? It’s got to be the Big 12, which has 10 teams and not even one with a losing record. Kansas, the defending national champion and perennial conference kingpin, is currently in fourth place after losing its third straight game for only the third time in Bill Self’s 20-year tenure.
The ACC will have to scramble to get more than the five teams it had in the 2022 tournament. Right now, 10 teams have winning records overall, nine of them (except Virginia Tech) also are above .500 in conference play, nine of them bunched from first to ninth place in the ACC race. Whoever has the most games remaining against bad teams Florida State, BC, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Louisville will be in the best shape to get ranked and invited.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Scrambled Eggs appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For Tar Heel loyalists, time really flies.
You have to be at least 50 years old to have any meaningful memories of the fabled 1982 national championship, Dean Smith’s first, in New Orleans. Heck, the 19-year-old kid whose shot beat Georgetown said after the final buzzer he wasn’t even sure that was his team’s last game of the season.
Now, Michael Jordan will be 60 on his next birthday and is one of the few former athlete billionaires. And Smith, for whom every UNC fan wanted to win after six failed Final Four attempts, has been in Blue Heaven for nearly 8 years.
Like, when Roy Williams invited that team back for a reunion in 2007, we could hardly believe it had been 25 years. I felt the same way watching the 1993 team feted at halftime Saturday. And that was 30 years ago!
Smith’s two NCAA championships were different examples of his greatness as a coach.
The ’82 team had three players who would go on to be All-Americans and NBA all-stars: Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy, plus solid role players in point guard Jimmy Black and small forward Matt Doherty. Their bench played mostly in emergencies.
The 1993 Tar Heels had two great college players and first-round draft choices in Eric Montross (9th pick) and George Lynch (No. 12) who both went on to be NBA journeymen, playing for a total of 11 teams. They have become beloved alumni as much for their successes after graduation as before it.
The other three starters — Derrick Phelps, Brian Reese and Donald Williams — all went on to play semi-pro or overseas and are now in coaching. But that team had a bench that Smith used regularly, all the way through the national championship win over Michigan back in New Orleans. Their sixth man was Pat Sullivan, who is currently on Hubert Davis’ staff.
The ’82 team’s lack of depth caused Smith to coach carefully, often playing zone to keep players out of foul trouble. The ’93 team was perhaps his greatest coaching job as the sum of the individual parts proved truly terrific.
Smith’s second national champions played in the shadow of Duke’s back-to-back 1991 and ’92 NCAA Tournament winners and used the motivation to get UNC’s mojo back from the Blue Devils. He reluctantly allowed ESPN to feature their first practice in prime time, and they went on to win the ACC regular season and defeat East Carolina and Rhode Island in Winston-Salem and then 12th-ranked Arkansas and No. 7 Cincinnati in the East Regional before avenging a 1991 loss to Williams’ Kansas team in the NCAA semifinals.
Forty-one and 30 years in our rearview mirror, but never forgotten.
Featured image via Associated Press/Bob Jordan
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Clear in Rear View appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Expect a barnburner at the Dean Dome Saturday afternoon.
Sure, Carolina has had N.C. State’s number in the Roy Williams era and, so far, the Hubert Davis tenure.
Ol’ Roy used to talk about State being HIS archrival because he grew up outside of Asheville before the David Thompson days, and that only fired up his already established love for UNC. He went on to have a 33-5 domination of the Wolfpack as head coach of his alma mater. In his first season at the helm, Davis swept State with two easy wins.
But all indications are this isn’t the N.C. State we are used to seeing most seasons. The Pack is 15-4 and 5-3 in the ACC so far. The Tar Heels are 13-6 and also 5-3 in the conference nine-team logjam.
After finishing last (15th) in the league in 2022, this is a turnaround season Kevin Keatts needs to get off and maybe stay off the hot seat. After his team’s magical March, Davis is not on the hot seat but some of his players seem to take turns sitting there due to effort and energy.
As we round the bend toward the NCAA tournament, this is also a “Quad 1” game for both teams. The Quad system is the strength-of schedule metric most used by the selection committee in determining invitations and seeds for at-large entries.
It is a Quad 1 home game if the opponent is NET 1-30 in the rankings, and State comes in at NET 25. It is easily a Quad 1 road game for the Wolfpack, which to date has a 2-3 record against Quad 1 opponents. State has beaten Duke at home and Virginia Tech on the road. UNC is 1-6 in Quad 1s, its overtime win against Ohio State the only thing keeping the Heels from where they were this time a year ago.
Enough of those mind-bending metrics. The game is determined on the floor, where the Wolfpack is very dangerous (i.e., a 15-0 lead over Duke). Guard Terquavion Smith is the ACC’s leading scorer with a 19-point average and the most 3-pointers (57). Virtual unknown Jack Clark is the ACC’s No. 9 rebounder AND second in steals, showing his versatility. And 6-9, 275-pound unorthodox hunk D.J. Burns will be perhaps the most physical test for Armando Bacot this season.
More of a worry is State as the second-best scoring team in the ACC behind Carolina, but No. 6 in scoring defense compared to the Tar Heels’ spot at No. 13. Thus, the Pack leads the league in scoring margin (+11.1) while UNC is middling at +7.16.
So . . . put on your hard hats.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not Same Old State appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It’s clear that Hubert Davis has figured out how recruiting has changed.
How many of you are surprised that Carolina Basketball has the top recruiting haul from the high school class of 2024?
It includes four-star prospects Drake Powell, a 6-5 small forward from nearby Pittsboro-Northwood, and James Brown, a 6-9 center from Chicago; and five-stars Elliot Cadeau, a 6-1 point guard originally from New York City, and 6-4 shooting guard Ian Jackson from Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx.
The immediate incoming class of 2023 has two signees, four-star 6-9 power forward Zayden High from Texas and five-star 6-4 combo guard Simeon Wilcher from New Jersey.
With upperclassmen R.J. Davis, Caleb Love, Puff Johnson and even Armando Bacot eligible to return next season, Coach Davis has freshmen Seth Trimble, Jalen Washington and Tyler Nickel, plus sophomores D’Marco Dunn and Dontrez Styles expected to return.
Depending on who does not come back and who develops the rest of this season, Davis can always turn to the transfer portal he used to fill holes in the lineup with grad students Brady Manek and Pete Nance over the last two years.
This is where Hubert is already ahead of the game.
He said Monday night on his weekly radio show that the transfer portal has caused high school stars to start committing sooner than later because the best of them want to secure potential playing spots that could be filled by transfers before they ever make their decisions.
Obviously, this is where the recruiting game has turned almost on a dime. Much like NBA free agents decide where to sign based on how much they will play and the contracts they can command, transfers and high school stars are using similar metrics to pick a school.
Davis is on record saying that he never wants “a team of all freshmen” like some one-and-done programs recruit. Carolina obviously wants a foundation of experience supplemented by young stars who may be gone after a year or two.
That has been the Carolina Way since the Dean Smith era, and it still is with Davis figuring out how to mesh the two prospect pools into the best sustained program, year after year. It may not be a guaranteed plan, but one Hubert wants and has been successful formulating so far.
Featured image via 247 Sports
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sooner Than Later appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Do you Love Caleb or do you not Love Caleb?
Rarely has Carolina basketball had a lightning rod like the junior who wears No. 2. He is a streak shooter with a marksman’s mentality; he can miss 11 straight 3-pointers and fire off the 12th with confidence.
Caleb was all of that you may love, or not love, Tuesday night against Boston College, which did not make a three ball as opposed to 10 for the Tar Heels of 29 attempts — which Hubert Davis did not like at all because it was almost half of their total shots in the strange 72-64 win.
Eight of the 19 misses from the arc were by Love, who had gone 0-for-7 at Louisville and whiffed on his first four against the Eagles. But, man, was he something to Love in the last six minutes that suddenly got nerve-rackingly tight.
BC had stayed annoyingly close in the first half of the sleepy game, and then played offense near-flawlessly in the second half, making 16 of 28 shots to close what had been a double-digit deficit to 56-55 on a second-chance basket by sophomore guard Jaeden Zackery.
The slumber had become near panic when Love turned fearless shooter and drained his second 3-pointer in a week from the top of the key. He followed with a layup in traffic and, after four free throws by R.J. Davis and Armando Bacot, hit a short jumper and delivered the dagger off Leaky Black’s third and fourth steals (18 in the last six games). Love’s reverse dunk provided a 10-point lead and caused the last of several crowd eruptions.
Of course, Bacot notched his 60th career double double to tie Billy Cunningham, making it look as easy as the Kangaroo Kid must have in three varsity seasons. Notably, BC’s late run came with AB on the bench for three minutes with no back-up help from Jalen Washington, who sprained his ankle in the shoot-around Tuesday morning.
There was so much more to the win for UNC (now 13-6 and 5-3 in the ACC). Davis continued his solid play with 18 points including four 3-pointers (he’s made 16 of his last 28 attempts). Pete Nance returned from a back injury by hitting long balls with his first two shots. D’Marco Dunn and Puff Johnson played 27 minutes and combined for seven points.
BC is a physical team that looks for contact everywhere on the floor, and 7-foot senior center Quinten Post had 17 points and 5 rugged rebounds before fouling out in the middle of Caleb’s heroics.
Yes, he would have loved to be in there at the end.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Lot to Love appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was substance over style at Carmichael Arena Sunday afternoon.
Courtney Banghart said it best after her No. 22 Tar Heels knocked off 11th-ranked and archrival N.C. State, 56-47, in a game when neither team could find the basket consistently
“We don’t really care how the game goes, as long as we have one more point than the other team, which we did,” she said. “We’re certainly happy to have another ranked win under our belt.”
The UNC women rebounded from a four-game losing streak by beating No. 4 Notre Dame, Virginia and the Wolfpack to bolster their NCAA tournament resume with a fourth victory over a ranked team this season. The Heels are now 12-5 overall and 3-3 in the ACC.
Carmichael was slam sold out with fans, students and celebrities from the Tar Heel pantheon that included Mack and Sally Brown and Roy Williams to support a coach who has captured the hearts and minds of Carolina fans all over the state.
It wasn’t pretty for sure, as the ESPN national television audience might have taken Banghart seriously after her team recorded its lowest point total of the season and shot only 29.7 percent from the floor.
“We kept it interesting,” Banghart said. “I’m sure there were some people that were questioning if either team ever practiced offense.”
Just like in the dramatic comeback win at Virginia Thursday night, the Tar Heels caught fire in the fourth quarter, outscoring the Wolfpack 25-15 by shooting 58 percent behind Kennedy Todd-Williams, Alyssa Ustby, freshman Paulina Paris and sophomore Destiny Adams, who scored eight points in just under two minutes on a layup and back-to-back 3-pointers that gave Carolina a seven-point lead with 91 seconds to remaining.
UNC won the rebounding battle for the first time this season in ACC play, with Ustby hauling in a career-high 18 boards as Carolina outrebounded State 45-41. Todd-Williams had a team-best 15 points, eight in the fourth quarter, and was the only Tar Heel in double figures.
But as their coach said, getting the W mattered most as Carolina tries to keep pace with the loaded ACC this season. This is a helluva rivalry week with No. 16 Duke (16-1 and 6-0) coming to town Thursday night in what should be another sell-out on “Blue Night” at Blue Heaven.
Be there.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The ‘W’ Mattered appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina will have to shoot the ball better, no doubt about it.
Even if Armando Bacot plays at Louisville Saturday, he will not be fully recovered from his sprained ankle for weeks, maybe deeper into the regular season. It was last summer before AB was 100 percent back from spraining his ankle at the Final Four.
That will put even more of an onus on the Tar Heels to shoot the ball well since rebounding, which is not as strong this season, will be more difficult for them on both ends of the court. And making a decent percentage from the floor depends very much on shot selection.
R.J. Davis is one player who knows which shots he prefers to take and has bettered his shooting by 5 percentage points since the season started. Due in part to a nagging injury, Davis began shooting poorly and has gradually improved his numbers over the 17 games so far.
After the first eight games in November, Davis was shooting under 40 percent from the floor and under 30 percent from 3-point range. His streak-shooting running mate Caleb did a little better overall but worse from the arc, making only 25 percent of his long ball attempts.
Six games later by the end of December, both had improved their percentages slightly. Through the Virginia game on Tuesday, Davis was up to 44 percent overall and 36 percent from downtown. Love’s numbers were just under 40 percent and still less than 30 percent from 3-point range.
Aside from getting completely healed, Davis has been working with assistant coach Jeff Lebo to determine which shots are going in the most. He makes a higher percentage from short range, but there is a difference from where and how he attempts outside shots – catch and release spotting up or coming off screens or finding himself wide open on the 3-point line.
“I’m a great shooter,” Davis said earlier this week. “But I do look at my percentages. Catch and release, I feel like I can make it and am making about 40 percent of those, a little better than standing on the (3-point) line or a foot behind it. I want to be more efficient where I shoot from.”
Lebo relies on grading tape and analytics to determine from where all the Tar Heels make their highest percentages.
And getting the ball in the right position is always important, but never more so than in the weeks to come as ACC play heats up and Bacot recovers to keep rebounding as many misses as possible.
Davis and Love both strive to meet their 2022 percentages of 36 percent from the 3-point line. As a team, Carolina shot 45 percent and 36 percent from outside after playing for the NCAA championship. The current Heels are shooting 46 percent overall but only 32 percent from the arc.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Numbers on the Line appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Dré Bly’s departure is not a total surprise.
The UNC cornerbacks coach and former Tar Heel All-American leaving had to be tough for Mack Brown, who likes to say “coming to Carolina is not a 4-year commitment, it’s a 40-year commitment.”
But in athletics, the phrase “parting ways” is code for a firing, and on that Brown had little choice. The Tar Heels’ defense has gotten worse during his second tenure here, and critics and fans have brought back the old slogan, Friendly Skies of Carolina, after they consistently couldn’t stop the opponents’ passing game.
This past season, the pass defense wasn’t far behind Drake Maye’s yards and touchdowns. Maye threw for an average of 309 per game and 38 total touchdowns, while the defense gave up 271 yards and 27 TDs through the air, not a significant enough difference. That was fewer yards than in Brown’s first three seasons back but far more touchdowns, which was among the most of all major college football teams in 2022.
Bly is one of the most decorated UNC and college players, a Hall of Famer also known as a Super Bowl champion, two-time Pro Bowler and the all-time NFL return-yards leader. He had only one year of coaching experience with the San Diego Fleet of the Alliance of American Football when Brown tapped him as cornerbacks coach on his first staff in 2019. Clearly, he was hired as much for his notoriety that would bolster his recruiting and was assigned to his native Tidewater region in Virginia.
His biggest catch was 5-star Tony Grimes, who entered the transfer portal after his third season and will play his fourth and perhaps fifth at Texas A&M. Despite coming from Virginia Beach in Bly’s home area, Grimes and his family said Carolina didn’t use him the right way after he had modest three-year stats of 97 tackles, 1 interception and 1 sack.
Brown was effusive about Bly in his statement, calling him an “excellent coach” who will pursue other opportunities in the profession. It is not known whether Brown and Bly discussed him possibly moving to a full-time recruiting position, given his personality and contacts.
Let’s assume that Bly got the chance to stay in another capacity, as he is well within the “40-year commitment” since signing with UNC in 1996. Perhaps he will return after the dust settles on the defensive performance while he was here.
And don’t be surprised if there are others to go, as well.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Tough Call appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
You know the bad news, so let’s get to the unexpected good news.
The Tar Heels don’t break a seven-straight losing streak at Virginia when their All-American goes out with a bad left ankle sprain 1:18 after tip-off. Armando Bacot did not return, but it resulted in freshman Jalen Washington breaking out with 12 points in the first half that UNC led 29-27.
And while Bacot may be out for a few games, Hubert Davis can let his ankle heal as much as possible and still have a chance to win at Louisville Saturday and at home against BC and N.C. State next week. A chance.
The 6-10 Washington, recovered from serious knee surgery that cost him his senior year in high school, showed his array of skills including a second baseline jumper of the season and some nifty moves around the basket. He had a free throw in the second half to go with his 6 rebounds for the night.
Justin McKoy, the transfer from Virginia, scored a basket and fought for 6 boards in the first half and D’Marco Dunn scored 5 points as the bench outscored the starters 19-10, another good sign for the future.
Carolina grew its lead to eight points early in the second half, but the Cavaliers’ 20-5 scoring run put them in control of the game. The Heels twice closed the gap to one or two possessions when Caleb Love, who had been bothered most of the night by the defense of UVa’s Reece Beekman, suddenly hit three longballs. He must have heard the UNC fan base yelling or mumbling under their breath, “Get hot! Get hot!”
“We were more concerned with how Armando was, not whether he would come back in the game,” Hubert Davis said. “It was next man up, but there were too many blow-by’s, loose balls we didn’t get to and too many offensive rebounds we gave up. Mistakes are good if we learn from them and grow from them. You have to have commitment and consistency at this level.”
The Wahoos missed three straight free throws late to give Carolina a fighting chance, but they snuffed out each rally on 3-pointers by subs who made all six of the longshots Virginia had for the night. Plus, there were some late defensive breakdowns and the back end of 13 turnovers that led to 19 Virginia points for the game that did UNC in.
The Tar Heels scrapped and played hard but those errors left them 11-6 (3-3 in the ACC) after their fourth true road loss made their record away from home 3-6 with veteran big men Bacot and Pete Nance now battling injuries.
Bacot took most of the summer recouping the high ankle sprain he suffered at the Final Four; hopefully, this one to his other foot isn’t as bad.
Featured image via Associated Press/Mike Kropf
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Silver Lining appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown’s coaching staff could have more changes.
Brown said Monday that he was forced to hire a new offensive coordinator and line coach as soon as possible because Phil Longo and Jack Bicknell sprung it on him that they were leaving for Wisconsin.
“It totally surprised me,” Brown said of Longo’s phone call. “I’m in a recruit’s home in Atlanta and he tells me he’s leaving the next day. I’m preparing for the bowl game, so I gotta figure out what to do there.”
Brown said the assistants he temporarily moved into those positions “did a great job and gave us a chance to win.” New replacement coaches Chip Lindsey and Randy Clements attended the Holiday Bowl but did no coaching.
For most of the 9-5 season, Brown was unhappy with the balance between running the football and Drake Maye passing it. “Part of what we did was by scheme and we didn’t run the ball as much as I wanted. Therefore, we weren’t physical because Drake was so good we threw the ball so well, and then when he didn’t, we didn’t win.”
Lindsey has experience with the Air Raid offense that Longo coached, and Clements’ favorite saying is, “Run the damn ball.” He is the third offensive line coach Brown has had in three years after Bicknell and Stacy Searels, whose offensive line at Georgia is much superior to what he had at UNC and steamrolled TCU in the national championship game.
Under Bicknell, the Tar Heels had fewer sacks than in 2021 and now Clements’ job will be to develop a more physical offensive line that won’t be dominated the way Notre Dame and Clemson did.
On defense, Carolina gave up 437 yards per game and 27 touchdown passes, and Brown says he has yet to meet with defensive coordinator Gene Chizik and most of his assistant coaches because they were recruiting and attending the football coaches’ convention.
He will meet with Chizik and each of his coaches and perhaps with both. “There’s no urgency because recruiting is over,” Brown said.
“My job is to figure out what I need to do, what the coaches need to do. Maybe some of the coaches are speaking with other staffs. If you are, just tell me. I want people that are happy and like it here.”
The 71-year-old head coach is crystal clear about his top priority, and it is not losing five times. “I want to win all the games with really nice kids who play well on Saturday afternoon and that’s what I’m gonna do.
“And we are so close.”
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘So Close’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What would have happened if Sam Howell had started for the Commanders earlier?
Howell got his long-awaited opportunity to start for his new NFL team. And his performance bodes well for Washington having a new QB1 for the 2023 season.
It was a meaningless game for the Commanders, who had been eliminated from the playoffs late in the season. But one has to wonder if Howell could have kept them alive longer, or gotten them in, had his number been called weeks ago by coach Ron Rivera.
May be apples to oranges, but Howell started his first college game as a true freshman and led the Tar Heels to an upset of South Carolina and went on to be a record-breaking quarterback for three seasons under Mack Brown.
Howell threw for one touchdown and ran for another against the Cowboys, who entered the game with a reason to win if the Giants upset the Eagles in their regular season finale. That did not happen, but by the time their game was decided Howell had made his mark against a very good Dallas defense.
FOX color commentator Greg Olsen, the former Panthers tight end, sang Howell’s praises for most of the game, especially how he bounced back from throwing a poor pass that was intercepted in the end zone.
Howell finished with a decent 83 QB rating after completing 11 of 19, including a touchdown toss on his first throw of the game to give the Commanders an early lead they expanded as the game went on.
FOX was clearly rooting for Howell because the former Redskins had mostly losing records when they have started 27 different quarterbacks since being a consistent playoff team. Carson Wentz’s erratic, injury-prone play and Taylor Heinicke’s inability to get his team across the playoff finish line should have forced Rivera to go to Howell before the last week.
Howell looked like his Tar Heel days when he ended a six-play drive by running 9 yards for a TD to give his team a two-touchdown lead. The Cowboys might have mailed it in after the Eagles were beating the Giants badly, but that is no excuse for the poor play of Dak Prescott, who has to go against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in their wildcard game next week.
Meanwhile, Howell’s 204 total yards when his team ran the ball 41 times to milk the clock will give him the off-season buzz. It is a small sample size, but that and his college career should mean that he deserves the chance to start when training camp begins again this summer.
Featured image via Associated Press/Nick Wass
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sam’s Number Called appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The ACC is balanced again, but is it good or just average?
Last year, ACC Basketball took hits from almost the beginning to the end of the season, when all the data used by the NCAA tournament selection committee yielded only five bids among the 15 schools.
And then two of those teams – regulars Carolina and Duke – made it to the Final Four and the ACC attention changed almost overnight. The credentials are confusing with Quad 1 wins at home and on the road, plus overall strength of schedule and maybe some other voodoo mixed in.
But here we are in early January, and the question looms: Is the league just balanced or kind of meeting in the middle of mediocrity once again?
Look what happened on Wednesday night alone in the Big Four doubleheader on the ACC Network. Duke fell behind 15-0 to N.C. State’s improved Wolfpack and suffered a historic 84-60 loss. Carolina held serve against a scrappy Wake Forest team. Both games will be rematched in February, swapping home courts.
Georgia Tech, which was 0-4 in the league and looking like a contender for 15th place, rallied at home to stun previously 4-0 Miami, which was getting ACC championship and Final Four buzz before that game.
Clemson won at Virginia Tech and remained the only other unbeaten with Pitt in first place. Remember, the Tigers, Yellow Jackets and Panthers didn’t get a sniff of the last Dance with losing records buried deep in the standings. For the moment, at least, the Tigers are the class of the conference with their second road win in Blacksburg. Pitt is a total make-over in talent and toughness, having beaten 25th-ranked Carolina and No. 11 Virginia within a three-day span at home.
Heading into the weekend, when only Miami is idle, the new symmetry of the ACC has usual have-nots (Clemson and Pitt) at 4-0 and schools with basketball brands (Notre Dame and Louisville) in dead last at 0-4. Miami (4-1) and Syracuse (3-1) are your third- and fourth-place teams, followed by six tied with 2-2 records including perennial powers Duke, UNC and Virginia.
If the usual cream rises to the top, there will surely be more than five getting NCAA bids and they will have to prove their worthiness in March, just like the 2022 Tar Heels did from the eighth seed to a three-point loss to Kansas in the championship game.
As Churchill said (and it could apply to today’s world as well), the ACC remains a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
Featured image via NC State Athletics
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mysterious ACC appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels stood tall by going small against pesky Wake Forest.
It began when Pete Nance left the game in the first two minutes with a back injury, and Hubert Davis went to his bench earlier than usual.
He played little-used senior Justin McKoy, big-time freshman recruit Jalen Washington and inconsistent junior Puff Johnson, and it was McKoy who contributed 17 minutes of 2s – points, free throws, rebounds and blocks with a defensive effort that should earn him more time on the court.
But it wasn’t until Hubert tried three guards with Leaky Black and Armando Bacot that UNC came back from a six-point deficit and ran off to the 88-79 win that got some of the Pitt taste out of their mouths and ours, as well.
Seth Trimble, the athletic 6-3 freshman, joined R.J. Davis and Caleb Love to play the determined defense that finally slowed down Wake Forest’s drives and long balls in a game interrupted for 10 minutes so an ill fan could be taken out of the Smith Center on a portable wheelchair.
By then, the Heels had wrestled the momentum away with the small lineup that remained on the court for the last 14 minutes of the much-needed win. Fortunately, they kept the Big Mo and went on to outscore the black-clad visitors 27-19 to even their ACC record at 2-2 and 10-5 overall.
R.J. Davis was the offensive fireplug, hitting five 3-pointers and finishing with 27 points, three off his college max of 30 in last season’s NCAA tournament win over Baylor. He hit 6 of his 8 shots and all four free throws in the second half, and his quick-release bombs ignited a once-nervous home crowd. He also had four assists and no turnovers in his 38 minutes.
Along with Trimble’s college high of 11 points were two blocks that became four of the 32 points scored off Wake’s 15 turnovers. He was stellar on defense, staying with quicker Deacons and creating open shots through his movement without the ball that he said “kept our offense from getting stagnant.”
Wake’s last lead was 65-64 at the 10-minute mark before the Tar Heels exploded with a decisive scoring run that included a Trimble layup and follow shot, Bacot’s dunk, and R.J.’s last two 3-pointers sandwiched around Caleb Love’s only one of the night to put the game away.
UNC needed its torrid 60 percent shooting in the second half because the Deacons shot 55 percent. Hubert credited Love whose bad shooting (3-for-15) was offset by his aggressive defense. “We don’t win without Caleb,” he said.
The player of the game was Black, who was Mr. Offense in the first half with 3½ three pointers (one went halfway down before popping out) and Mr. Defense in the second with constant pressure on Wake’s wing shooters and big men. “Leaky’s defense was elite,” said Coach Davis.
Bacot’s 21 points extended his streak with at least 20 to four straight games. He had 9 rebounds and dished out 5 assists with no turnovers, the first time he has done that in college.
All in all, it was night they hopefully all remember moving forward.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Night to Remember appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
As we ring in 2023, let’s look back on some past Tar Heel teams.
We’ve all played the game of where we were so many years ago. Why don’t we use the round number 10 and attach it to the 2012-13 school year?
Carolina football was just beginning the Larry Fedora era, after Butch Davis was fired and interim coach Everett Withers did not get the permanent job. Fedora inherited a program serving a one-year NCAA probation, so his inaugural 8-4 season in 2012 did not lead to a bowl bid.
In 2013, Fedora began two regular seasons of playing .500 football, with a 7-6 record capped by a Belk Bowl win over Cincinnati followed by a 6-7 season ending with an embarrassing Quick Lane Bowl loss to Rutgers.
In men’s basketball, Roy Williams had already won NCAA championships in 2005 and 2009. He had the best team in the country in 2012 before injuries to John Henson and Kendall Marshall weakened those Tar Heels who lost in the regional final. In 2013, his Heels began a streak of four straight seasons with double-digit losses before the 2016 team rallied down the stretch to win the ACC championship and return to the Final Four.
In women’s basketball, Sylvia Hatchel ended a run of 10 consecutive NCAA tournaments in 2012 and went only four times in the next seven years before she was replaced by Courtney Banghart, who is rebuilding a power.
And in women’s soccer, Anson Dorrance won his 21st national championship in 2012 and, despite repeated trips back to the College Cup, has not won an NCAA title since. His men’s counterpart Carlos Somoano won the national championship in 2011, but did not get back to their College Cup for five years.
That narrative, comparatively, doesn’t make what has happened in the last few years look that bad.
Mack Brown returned to Chapel Hill in 2019 and took his teams to four straight bowl games that included UNC’s first Orange Bowl in 2020 and its second ACC Coastal title in 2022. Brown does have three losses in those bowl games.
Williams won a third national championship in 2017, and his successor Hubert Davis led his Heels on a magical March rookie run with two upset wins over Duke and a spot in the NCAA championship game.
Add four national titles in field hockey and three in women’s lacrosse, and a trip to the College World Series, and the recent past and immediate future look brighter than a decade ago. Call it a little perspective.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Perspective appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Damar Hamlin’s injury was horrifying but somewhat familiar.
The way Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field that led to the stoppage of their Monday night game with the Cincinnati Bengals may have resonated with UNC football fans.
Those who were at Kenan Stadium when official Jim Knight lay motionless on the field early in Carolina’s 48-20 win over Virginia in September 1997, probably had some hope that Hamlin would live.
The unconscious Hamlin, a former All-ACC defensive back at Pitt who played at Kenan in 2018, was given CPR on the field and then rushed out of the stadium in an ambulance, and reports later in the night said he survived.
My mind wandered back to Knight, a middle-aged man at the time, since an ambulance had taken him to the nearby UNC emergency room, where he was diagnosed with a major heart attack.
“His heart was stopped,” said Dr. Greg Mears, head of the Orange County Emergency Medical Services and one of the first to reach Knight. Thanks to Mears and the UNC medical trauma staff, Knight not only survived but returned to officiating the next season.
Besides similar initial treatment, there is little else in common with that and what happened to the 24-year-old player, whose future in football is obviously unknown.
We don’t know much about Hamlin’s recovery, but his injury seemed so severe that players on the Bills and Bengals were in such shock and tears that both head coaches lobbied the NFL for the game to not continue.
The UNC game went on with one less official, and the NFL did call off its game, which was critical in the playoff race and will create a scheduling conundrum in the last week of the regular season.
But, in a violent collision sport with injuries expected as part of the game, it was heart-warming to see the emotion of the players, coaches and fans who make pro football the most popular game in our country.
Certainly, this will create more criticism about dangers of football, and more parents will keep their kids from playing it.
What occurred in Cincinnati will not end the sport, but hopefully this will spur even better medical facilities on site and more research into safer rules and equipment in the future.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Dean
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Today and Knight appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Beware, this isn’t the fluke Pitt basketball team of a year ago.
The Tar Heels resume ACC play for good Friday at noon at Pittsburgh, which suddenly has become a team to watch after nearly firing head coach Jeff Capel after last season’s dismal 11-21 record, 11th in the ACC (at 6-14).
The highlight of Capel’s fourth straight losing season was the 76-67 upset of Carolina in the Smith Center on February 16. Former Tar Heel Jason Capel, an assistant on his big brother’s staff, said after the game that his old program was soft around the edges and not very tough inside either.
Perhaps bruised by that comment, Hubert Davis’ first UNC team went on to win 11 of the next 12 games, including two historic triumphs over Duke, on the way to losing the NCAA championship game to Kansas, 72-69.
So, Pitt will try to make it two straight over Carolina with a team that has only two of the eight players from last year’s game on the roster this season – John Hugley, who had 18 points, and Jamarius Burton, who had 14 points and seven rebounds at the Dean Dome.
But Capel has added experience, size and talent to his roster with nine transfers and four freshmen who have helped the Panthers to the same 9-4 record as the Tar Heels and have won their first two ACC games at N.C. State and Syracuse, two of the tougher road venues in the league.
The comparative statistics are surprisingly even except for strength of schedule, which has UNC at 13 and Pitt at 183. Still, this is a dangerous test for the Tar Heels, who have a favorable January slate of seven games and will likely be favored to win six of them. The same can’t be said of February with nine games that include at Duke, at Wake Forest, at N.C. State and at Notre Dame plus a home rematch against Virginia from January 10.
Clearly, Pitt is bigger and better than a year ago, with four players averaging in double figures and four with at least five rebounds per game. Capel uses nine men who average nine minutes or more. The Panthers’ leaders are point guard Nelly Cummings and forward Blake Hinson, and their biggest is 7-foot sophomore Fede Federiko. But all of them can play ball.
Davis acknowledges that Pitt “just kicked our tail last year. . . [was] more physical than us, beat us to every loose ball, every spot.” Perhaps based on that embarrassing loss, he called the Panthers an “extremely well-coached team with confidence and physicality on the floor, and to have a chance you have to bring that yourself.”
That was a message for how much better the Tar Heels must play to win, but not necessarily how much better the opponent might be.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sudden Reversal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Can North Carolina and the ACC stay bowl unbeaten?
After NC Central and East Carolina won their bowl games, the Old North State and the also 2-0 ACC will try to keep their spotless postseasons going.
The Big Four of North Carolina all qualified for bowl games from the ACC’s impressive total of nine teams that made the postseason, and it appears all nine games will be played.
A year ago, the conference also earned nine bids before BC, Virginia and NC State all had their bowl games canceled due to lingering COVID protocols. Of the six remaining ACC bowls, only Clemson and Wake Forest won — a pretty awful 2-4 result.
So far this postseason, Louisville (8-5) and Wake Forest (also 8-5) have won their bowls. The Cardinals defeated Cincinnati in the Fenway Bowl in Boston, the Deacons defeated Missouri in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, with the old blueblood rivals playing their final games today.
Duke faces Central Florida in the Military Bowl in Annapolis at 2 pm on ESPN and Carolina plays Oregon in the San Diego Holiday Bowl at 8 on FOX. The Blue Devils and first-year head coach Mike Elko carry an 8-4 record into their first bowl trip since 2018, and the 9-4 Tar Heels have their fourth straight chance at winning 10 games for the first time since 2015 in their fourth straight bowl game under Mack Brown (and 37th in UNC history).
On Thursday, Syracuse (7-5) meets Minnesota in the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium at 2, followed by Florida State (9-3) versus Oklahoma in the Cheez-It Bowl at 5:30, both games on ESPN.
NC State (8-4) goes against Maryland at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl Friday in Charlotte at noon on ESPN, Pitt (also 8-4) plays UCLA in the Sun Bowl that kicks off at 2 on CBS, and ACC champion Clemson (11-2) takes on Tennessee in the Orange Bowl at 8 on ESPN in the Tigers’ 18th consecutive bowl.
As of this posting, no team from North Carolina or the ACC has lost a bowl game. NC Central (10-2) edged Jackson State and departing head coach Deion Sanders in double OT at the Cricket Celebration Bowl in Atlanta. East Carolina (8-5) routed Coastal Carolina, whose head coach also left early in the Birmingham Bowl.
How much can the in-state and ACC schools improve on their combined 4-0 record to date?
Featured image via USA Today Sports/Scott Taesch
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Keep it Going! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Guess we could call this game the QB Bowl or the Meltdown Bowl.
There are several themes of the Holiday Bowl Wednesday night at 8 when the unranked Tar Heels take on No. 15 Oregon in a game where you could play whoever has the ball last will win.
The Ducks have quarterback Bo Nix, the transfer from Auburn who is eighth nationally in total offense with 324 yards per game, 16th in passing with 3,400 yards and 27 touchdown passes and six interceptions. Drake Maye is second in NCAA total offense with 367 yards per game, third in passing with more than 4,000 yards and 35 TD passes and 7 picks.
If it matters, Oregon is 75th in total defense with 386 yards allowed per game. UNC is 116th with 438 yards allowed. The Ducks are 14th in rushing and the Heels are 62nd. That all evens out between running and passing.
What may be more important is the frame of mind each team carries into the game, both with rough finishes to the regular season. Oregon was 8-1 after nine games but lost two of their last three including a blown 31-10 lead against archrival Oregon State in their last game to wind up 9-3.
That sounds sort of similar to Carolina blowing a 9-point lead at NC State in a New York minute to finish the 2021 regular season 6-6 and then mailed it in for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and a bad loss to South Carolina.
Maybe Oregon will come in with that kind of hangover, but you have to doubt it playing for a 10-win season. So is UNC, which was 9-1 a month ago before losing to Georgia Tech and State at home on the last possession and getting blown out by Clemson late in the ACC Championship game.
So playing for that elite 10th win of the season is probably a big deal for both teams, if they can shake their second halves in their most recent games.
The coaches are on opposite sides of the age and experience spectrum. The Ducks had Mario Cristobal before he left for his ACC alma mater Miami. Dan Lanning is 36 and in his first season as a head coach after a career as mostly a defensive assistant.
Mack Brown is almost twice Lanning’s age and is the active college coach with the most wins, including a national championship at Texas. But he has lost his offensive coordinator and it may be Maye-Day calling most of the plays.
Both coaches are in the middle of the revolving door transfer portal while their teams get ready for the bowl game with a few missing parts.
UNC is without All-ACC slotback Josh Downs, the Ducks won’t have All- Pac 12 linebacker Christian Gonzales. Both are preparing for the NFL draft.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Whose Hangover? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It took an elbow to the mouth to turn the Tar Heels into dudes.
If Carolina wasn’t quite ready to continue playing tough basketball with another physical Big Ten opponent, the Heels got the message late in the first half against Michigan in Charlotte.
“Our best players have to be dudes,” Hubert Davis said after the 80-76 win over the Wolverines. The Heels led most of the game but never comfortably against an athletic foe that got hot from the floor at any time. They trailed by as many as eight midway through the first half before mounting a 13-4 run to halftime that included a weird play when on one whistle, four personal and four technical fouls were called after a long visit to the TV monitor by the officials.
It began when Michigan’s 7-foot center Hunter Dickinson caught Armando Bacot in the mouth with his right elbow and a scuffle ensued under the basket with Caleb Love getting kneed in the face. It resulted in Carolina showing its own physicality and leading 41-34 at the break and occasionally by nine in the second half but never able to shake the maize and blue in front of a mostly light blue crowd at the Spectrum Center. It hurt the Heels, usually a good foul-shooting team, by missing 10 of 15 free throws before making 10 of their last 12.
When Michigan got hot and within one possession, some smart passing and shooting helped UNC grab its fourth straight win and a 9-4 record that should result in a national ranking that evaporated with the four-game losing streak.
Bacot returned late with four fouls and, after a steal by Leaky Black, converted a neat pocket pass from R.J. Davis. Black, who finished with 9 points and 10 rebounds, scored in traffic from the elbow. Davis then banked in a runner over Dickinson and combined with Love to make five straight free throws to seal the victory. The scoring guards totaled 37 points.
The celebrity-filled lower arena, led by Roy Williams and country music Tar Heel Eric Church under the home basket, was up and down for much of the game and appreciated the hard-fought effort for the last 36 minutes.
“When Armando got hit in the mouth, it was like ‘let’s start fighting,’ Hubert Davis said. “This team keeps getting back up. Armando is playing like a first-team All-American and first-round NBA draft choice.”
Bacot led all scorers with 26 points, but playing away from the basket much of the time pulled down only 5 rebounds and was still a dominating force all over the court. Especially after taking one for the team that is off until resuming ACC play at Pitt on December 30.
“We deserve a break, they earned it,” said Hubert. “Merry Christmas.”
Featured image via Carolina Basketball on Twitter
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Merry Christmas’ Win appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Heels4Life, UNC’s NIL collective for football, won’t comment on whether it helped Drake Maye stay.
After Mack Brown railed about the tampering going on in the illegal pursuit of college freshmen and transfers, he refused to say which schools had offered Maye money to leave UNC for what will surely be his last season playing college football.
“I can’t say that,” Brown said, “and don’t ask Drake. He’s a young guy and that’s uncomfortable for him. You know who they are. Just look at all the schools that are getting the top recruits. They’re the ones paying all the money. So you can figure that out. Take two of those 10 and you’re right. You got it, and it’s probably more than the two that I know of.”
At 71, and admittedly at his last stop in coaching, Brown doesn’t care who he is slamming when it comes to breaking rules that he says he has followed for more than 40 years. “Cheaters cheat,” he said.
Brown was asked if exposing what is going on so that the media can share it isn’t the best way to eliminate the cheating.
“It’s a great question,” Brown said. “The problem is it’s all done through agents and they would absolutely say it was a lie.” Asked if that meant there is no paperwork on these NIL offers, Brown said, “There’s no paper trail, there’s no way to prove it. It’s all agent to agent.”
Meanwhile, Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi claims Maye was offered $5 million by two schools.
Brown related that one transfer visited UNC and left Brown with the impression he was coming. “He went to another school and called us 30 minutes after he got there and said, ‘Coach, they offered me this, this, and this. So I’m going.’ He didn’t even see the campus. He just got off the plane.
“So, I hate it, but cheaters cheat and that’s the way it is out there. And they are actually just purchasing kids, which I hate. And there are some that are saying now that promises being made aren’t being fulfilled.
“So we’re gonna see lawsuits and guys that don’t get what they wanted or they didn’t play well enough and they’re not gonna pay ’em what they said they were gonna pay ’em. People paying guys up front and not going through the collectives and doing it the proper way, it’s completely out of control.”
Graham Boone, the CEO of Heels4Life, declined to comment on how they might have helped Maye make up his mind, even though explaining what happened might encourage UNC alumni and fans to be proud of their school and more willing to get involved.
We just have to take his word, and Brown’s, they are doing it the right way and staying competitive in this new world of NIL.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Cheaters Cheat appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown had his pre-bowl press conference and let it all hang out.
The Carolina football coach is excited about his new coaching hires, upset about what the transfer portal and NIL are doing to the game and is glad his team has a chance to beat 15th-ranked Oregon, which is a two-touchdown favorite in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego on December 28 at 5 pm EST.
Brown introduced new offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey and new offensive line coach Randy Clements, who he says are going to tweak the Air Raid offense of Phil Longo, who left for the same position at Wisconsin and took one-year O-line coach Jack Bicknell with him. “I don’t need guys who want to install their own system,” Brown said. “I need guys who want to fix things.”
Lindsey comes from one season at Central Florida after three years as head coach at Troy and, according to Brown, is well-versed in the Air Raid offense. “I started as an ‘Air Raid’ guy way back in high school,” Lindsey, 48, said, “and over the years learned a lot from different coaches.”
Clements, 56, who comes from North Texas after three years under Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, met Brown in his office wearing a cap and T-shirt that says, “Run the damn ball!” And that is why Brown hired him because the Tar Heels had an average running attack this season in 13 games and put too much pressure on Drake Maye’s passing fancy. Brown says Clements is “very physical, old school, they knock people down and run north to south, none of this sideway stuff. I was trying to look at how do we fix red zone offense.”
Clements’ only connection to UNC was coaching at Baylor in the 2015 Russell Athletic Bowl, where the Bears ran a wildcat offense that shredded Gene Chizik’s Carolina defense for 653 yards rushing in the 49-38 win.
Now that he’s moved assistants around for the bowl game, where Lindsey and Clements will be observing but not coaching, Brown is working on the outgoing and incoming transfers and trying to stay out of any discussion about NIL, other than saying, “Drake got offered a lot of money to go to different schools, and it’s tampering, a hundred percent tampering.”
He won’t name the schools that offered Maye, only that Maye is coming back for his third year in the program because “he believes in this university, it’s his school and that’s why he stayed and didn’t take the money and leave.”
Brown said he doesn’t know if UNC’s collective Heels4Life offered Maye anything to stay because university employees cannot be involved in NIL. “All I promised was to get him a great teacher who would help him with footwork and throwing motion. And Chip is a great teacher of quarterbacks.”
Featured image via Inside Carolina
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Turnover, Tampering appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The dramatic win Saturday was a brand name game.
In one of the earliest Road to the Final Four broadcasts on CBS, the Tar Heels and their fans came up big at Madison Square Garden.
It is hard to say exactly how many in light blue were in the sold-out building, but there were thousands for sure. UNC alumni, students and fans reunited where they hadn’t in 10 years because the Barclays Center in Brooklyn has stolen some of the Garden’s college basketball thunder.
It was a return that Hubert Davis plans to make every year he is Carolina’s head coach, and there could be another visit in March if the Heels get hot again and are assigned to the NCAA East Regional, where the Sweet Sixteen and Elite 8 are scheduled for the “world’s greatest arena.”
Despite Duke playing there more often over the last decade, Carolina proved that its brand is alive and well in the Big Apple, where the program cut its teeth with a first-round win over Yale in 1957 on the way to the fabled undefeated season and NCAA championship under Frank McGuire.
Dean Smith always credited The Irishman for his own love affair with New York City, where the Kansan bought sharp suits, put his teams in 5-star hotels and ate at the fanciest restaurants. Smith especially loved to dine the night before or after games at Danny Patrissy’s Italian eatery on the lower East Side where McGuire first took his former assistant coach.
Smith learned to recruit “the City” as well as McGuire, embracing ’57 starters Pete Brennan, Bob Cunningham, Tommy Kearns, Joe Quigg and Lennie Rosenbluth who all hailed from that area. As Carolina’s reputation grew – long before cable TV – Smith made sure his radio broadcasts were carried on WBT-AM in Charlotte, which had a massive North-South signal and carried games all the way up the East Coast.
Every Smith team had a handful of players from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania – who inspired future stars from the South to follow the likes of Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Larry Miller, Charlie Scott, Dennis Wuycik, Mitch Kupchak, Mike O’Koren, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith and Rasheed Wallace.
The brand recognition stayed through the Roy Williams era and remains very important to Hubert Davis, who played as a collegian and pro at the Garden, loves its legacy and wants it to remain a part of Carolina’s program.
Featured image via UNC Basketball on Twitter
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Big Apple Blue appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Ah, “The World’s Greatest Arena.” That’s how they describe the Garden.
Hubert Davis said last week that as long as he coaches the Tar Heels, they will play at least one game every season at Madison Square Garden. And it was shocking to find out that, in his nine years as an assistant to Roy Williams, Davis and the Heels did not play in the world’s greatest arena.
When Carolina tips off against Ohio State Saturday at 3 p.m. in the CBS Sports Classic, it will be the first time UNC played there since December 2010, beating Rutgers in a bounce-back season that would end in the NCAA Elite 8.
Nine months earlier, Carolina had lost to Dayton in the championship game of the NIT there after a five-game run that gave Williams a respectable 20-17 record; after a dismal seven-week stretch when those Tar Heels dropped from No. 12 in the polls to out of sight and contention for their usual NCAA bid.
Since then, Williams took his team back to New York, but it was as a pretty regular participant at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, from the ACC tournaments to another CBS Sports Classic, in which Carolina spanked UCLA in December of 2015 on the way to the Final Four in Houston.
The Tar Heels will be playing in a building that underwent a $1 billion upgrade from 2011-13 when, somehow, the Knicks, Rangers and college basketball continued to play there. UNC is 29-11 in the Garden, the first visit coming at the 1968 Holiday Festival that ended in bitter disappointment.
The second-ranked Tar Heels, two-time defending ACC champions, were set up to play No. 1 and two-time defending national champion UCLA in a rematch of the 1968 NCAA title game in Los Angeles. The Heels had lost All-American Larry Miller, but the Bruins still had 7-1 center Lew Alcindor who was converting to Sunni Islam and would take the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
It was freezing and snowing for three days outside on 34th Street but it was hot, hot, hot inside the Garden.
UNC had beaten rugged No. 8 Villanova with All-American to-be Howard Porter in the first round and was a heavy favorite against unranked St. John’s in the semifinals. But the then-Redmen held the ball and pulled off a 72-70 shocker in Charlie Scott’s return to his hometown.
No rematch with “Lewis Kareem” (as John Wooden called him) and they settled for blowing out Princeton, 103-76, in the third-place game. Bummer.
So Hubert and UNC return to his homecourt with the Knicks for 4 seasons, and he’ll have stories about trying to guard and score on Michael Jordan and other all-pros.
By the way, the Heels are 12-3 all-time against Ohio State.
Featured image via MSG.com
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Mecca of Hoops appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Unfortunately, NIL is about the money first.
Inside Carolina has an informative interview with Graham Boone, a young man whose family from Concord is Tar Heel blue and true. Boone is the new executive director of Heels4Life, UNC’s football collective in these wild west days of Name-Image-Likeness (NIL).
Boone rolls out in detail what Carolina is doing with NIL to try to keep pace in the unregulated marketplace while staying true to the university’s long-held standard of doing it the right way, which only a few times has turned out to be not exactly true (i.e., NCAA problems in the Butch Davis era). Heels4Life is ramping up its program that is working with the Rams Club and UNC Compliance setting up systems for athletes to not only earn money but also learn how NIL works and what benefits it will provide for their business and future lives. It sounds really good.
The problem is that some other football programs (if reports are true) do it differently by way of the refrain “money talks and nobody walks” in trying to secure 5-star and 4-star freshmen and transfers. That translates into wins on the field and continued support at the box office and traditional fund-raising.
Mack Brown has talked of the tampering he knows goes on and how players and their families he has recruited are openly asking “how much money will we get” because other schools are putting a number on the table.
NCAA rules have been violated for decades, but at least there are rules that many coaches and schools follow. There are no rules that govern NIL, since the NCAA stepped away and now only hands down “suggestives” for collectives. Schools that are serial cheaters are still doing it their own way, which adds to the athletic wealth gap between haves and have-nots.
All the steps Boone outlines in the IC story are noble and sustainable for whenever, if ever, the NIL gets regulated and policed (both of which may never occur). Meanwhile, Carolina and other schools that don’t have a baseline offer from the very start risk losing the best prospects to those that do.
If rosters turn over every year through recruits who don’t come and transfers who leave for money being thrown around by other schools, Carolina’s NIL program might be sustainable — but the Tar Heels’ growing success on the field might not be. That will create uncertainty and unhappiness among donors and fans that could affect financial support and ticket sales.
UNC has been playing by the rules for a long time. But there are no rules to NIL right now, and that is the difference. So, it must figure out a way to thread the needle on short-term success and long-term sustainability.
Photo via USA Today Sports/Brett Davis.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What Heels4Life Means appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Biscuit Boys did it off the bench against The Citadel.
Two days after the UNC women sat on 99 points for more than three minutes, their male counterparts created the most excitement possible of a blowout win by scoring 10 points in the last 2:16. The Tar Heels created the loudest roar from the crowd that came down from on high to almost fill the lower arena in the 100-67 victory over the small but scrappy Bulldogs.
It was a rather hectic race against the clock since the Heels’ last 27 points came from their bench, by far most of the season, and went through some scoreless chunks of time until they got to 90. The fans seemed to pick them up like they REALLY wanted those Bojangles sausage biscuits for a buck.
After Caleb Love made his fourth 3-pointer at the 11-minute mark, Hubert Davis began emptying his bench and the reserves scored only 17 points in 9 minutes; it looked like no biscuits with less than two minutes remaining.
Then freshman Tyler Nickel, who is becoming the first frontcourt sub, made his third 3-pointer of the half and added two free throws to reach 95. All the walk-ons came in with 90 seconds left and the two best shooters among them did the rest.
Creighton Lebo, the son of record-breaking marksman and assistant coach Jeff, missed his first long ball, but Beau Maye grabbed a rebound that led to Lebo swishing a wing jumper to reach 97. Now the crowd was going crazy. Maye pulled down another board and fed Lebo, who found Jackson Watkins for the long 3 on UNC’s last possession of the game. Watkins squared up in front of the home bench and hit nothing but net for 100.
It was all good fun but also symbolic of what Coach Davis is trying to do with this team in terms of energy and urgency going into the last non-ACC tests against Big Ten brutes Ohio State in New York and Michigan in Charlotte.
The Heels started slowly and were outshot early by The Citadel cadets who were hitting a better percentage until Carolina closed the first half on a 22-8 run to lead by 15. By the home stretch, the advantage grew to 33, and that’s when the game within the game took hold.
The bench points wound up 42-18, which was reflected in the final box score with no player taking more than 10 shots and still putting four of them in double figures. Nickel, also fast becoming a fan favorite, had all 16 of his points in the second half and added an assist and two steals.
UNC recorded its most assists so far with 24 and scored 32 baskets off them, also a season mark. Now, it’s off to New York and the biggest stage.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Biscuits, Part 2 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Tar Heel Nation, let’s give big Jalen Washington room to breathe.
The lead over Georgia Tech had grown to 20 points, 73-53, when an unknown figure got off the UNC bench and checked into the game with 02:22 left on the clock. Jalen Washington has a majestic name to match his 6-foot-10, 220-pound frame, but we didn’t know much about his game at that point. We still don’t. We do know he is an honor student who plays cello and piano.
When he got the ball in the paint, took two dribbles, pivoted and dropped in a short jumper, what was left of the Smith Center crowd cheered loudly. It was Washington’s first action in an organized basketball game since the end of his junior year at Gary West Side Leadership Academy in Indiana.
After the game, questions about him were directed to Hubert Davis, the uber-positive coach who heaped praise on his big kid’s work ethic and attitude in getting ready to play. The media went to his locker for the first time. He had been doused with water by teammates and barely knew what to say. Who could blame him? He had played two minutes and scored two points.
Washington had committed to UNC and accepted his scholarship offer from Davis in July of 2021 and a few weeks later tore the ACL on his right knee that required major surgery and began his long rehabilitation. Washington only started to go full speed in practice last month and missed UNC’s first nine games.
He was one of four newcomers to the program who all carried 4-star ratings in high school, from grad transfer Pete Nance to fellow freshmen Seth Trimble and Tyler Nickel. So because of his size and supposed skill level, he was mentioned by most prognosticators to add to Carolina’s much-needed depth.
That was patently unfair, as was all the attention he got for his 2-plus minutes and 2-point debut. Anyone who has followed sports closely knows how difficult it is to return to form from that kind of surgery, especially someone carrying 82 inches and more than 200 pounds.
Washington said he has been working harder than ever to get back into playing shape and learning a major college system compared to a smallish public high school where he towered over most others on the court.
Some recruiting services listed him among the top 20 recruits of his graduation class, which is impossible as a 4-star. There were many more than 20 players with 5-star status, so Washington has to be one or the other. We need to remember that as we cheer him onto the regular rotation of this season’s team. He may not earn that until he’s a sophomore next year.
What do you say we give him a chance to do it on his own schedule?
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Give Him a Chance! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Did the Tar Heel women miss biscuits in their win over Wofford?
Frankly, I am not sure if the Bojangles basketball promotion about scoring 100 points in a game applies to the women as well as the men. But how the Tar Heels of Courtney Banghart fell short says way more about her program than getting a biscuit special for reaching that rare milestone.
In Carolina’s 99-67 Sunday romp over a Wofford team that had won seven straight, the Tar Heels broke it open and ran away from the Terriers in the first half and outscored them 71-41 the rest of the way.
They had 99 points for the last two minutes but failed to score again, largely due to the unselfishness Banghart’s teams have demonstrated since she arrived from Princeton almost four years ago.
Freshman Paulina Paris gave up an easy basket to pass to senior Ariel Young, who has been sidelined with a knee injury. A turnover resulted, but Banghart cared more about the intent than the mistake.
“It says a lot about our team when Paulina had a chance to score 100 and get 10 points for the game,” Banghart said, “and instead she wanted Ariel to have her first basket since being out so long. That kind of encapsulates what we’re all about.”
The eighth-ranked Heels look like the best team Banghart has had of the four so far, even better than last season’s NCAA Sweet Sixteen entry. They are athletic like Alyssa Ustby, who had 17 points and 12 rebounds for her fourth double-double, and strong like Eva Hodgson, who had five 3-pointers in six attempts. And they are not afraid to be very physical.
Banghart is building something special, and the former Dartmouth star player says the camaraderie of UNC athletics is unlike anything she has ever known. She joined several coaches, including retired Roy Williams, to attend the NCAA championship women’s soccer match and supports all of her peers.
And where many new coaches would not do it, she has embraced the tradition of her program as authentically as the many banners in Carmichael Arena earned by teams of her predecessor Sylvia Hatchell.
She also appears to be innovative beyond strategy. Rather than clearing her bench in a one-sided game, she mixes in her reserves so they can play with the starters and stars for the experience more than just “mopping up.”
However long it has been hanging in Carmichael, the largest banner sums up what Banghart is all about. It reads, “PLAYING AT CAROLINA IS AN HONOR. WINNING AT CAROLINA IS A TRADITION.”
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Anthony Sorbellini
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Banghart’s Biscuits appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis has a 3-point plan about NIL.
Speculation abounds over UNC’s sudden drop out of the polls from the No. 1 ranking, the fastest that has ever happened.
Some say it’s because Brady Manek is no longer around as the best stretch forward long-ball shooter in college hoops to open the lane up for Armando Bacot’s rebounding and drives from the guards.
Some say it is all the adulation the Heels received after having a torrid month of March that vaulted them from the wrong side of the NCAA bubble to the championship game loss to Kansas.
Some say it is the prospect of NIL money that is making it harder to keep their eyes on the ball in favor of marketing deals to profit from their Name-Image-Likeness attached to certain paying sponsors.
Davis has an interesting answer when asked about NIL, which he strongly favors because he believes athletes deserve a piece of the billion-dollar pie that college athletics has become.
He tells his players there are three boxes they have to check to put themselves in position to make money. And he knows this as fact, since he had a nice revenue stream while playing for the NBA’s New York Knicks.
Davis says they have to be performing on the biggest stage, which he did at Madison Square Garden in New York and his team does while wearing the argyle and blue of Carolina basketball.
No. 2, the better individuals are playing, the more money they can command from NIL sponsorships.
And No. 3, their team must do well to profit the most.
He said it worked for him in New York, while draining NBA 3-pointers and the Knicks were going to the playoffs every year.
When he was traded to the Raptors, he and the team were struggling on the court and Toronto is hardly NYC. He got no deals.
So far, the only box the Tar Heels have checked is that they are playing on the biggest stage, which continues Saturday in their ACC home opener against Georgia Tech in the Smith Center at 3:15.
Bacot is the only player to talk publicly about his NIL money. Caleb Love has a new deal, and other players have made smaller sums with local companies in Chapel Hill and the state.
But, according to their coach, the bigger bucks will come by checking those other two boxes.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Checking Boxes appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Was Phil Longo looking, hired away or asked to leave?
Yesterday, we talked about the Carolina defense and how it could be weakened moving forward by losses to the transfer portal. That unit has been shredded for years, including the four in Mack Brown’s return.
Today, it is the offense. Coordinator Phil Longo has taken the same position at Wisconsin under new head coach Luke Fickell, who will get the perfunctory grace period while rebuilding that Big Ten program.
Longo has developed a great reputation for his so-called air-raid offense, run by star quarterbacks Sam Howell and Drake Maye in his four years in Chapel Hill. But a look under the hood tells more than the massive yardage numbers and points the Tar Heels have put up.
The Heels were certainly explosive between the 20-yard lines, but their red zone efficiency fell off dramatically over the last few games, all losses. Sure, some commentators will tell you how much harder it is to turn possessions inside the 20 and especially inside the 10 into touchdowns because the field shrinks so much.
That is where Longo and offensive line coach Jack Bicknell, who is going along to Madison, have taken the most heat among the fans and especially inside the walls of the Kenan Football Center. Maye’s poor pass from the Clemson 5, which turned into the game-deciding pick 6, is the most memorable failure, but there were three other trips to the shadow of the Tigers’ goal line that resulted in no points.
For the last two seasons, UNC hasn’t had a running game close to what Michael Carter and Javonte Williams, both in the NFL, produced. But, like Ty Chandler last year, Elijah Green is not chopped liver. A good OC with a dual threat QB figures out how to score down there.
The poor play of the offensive line, especially on the right side, was a continuing problem for Bicknell, who has coached in both college and the NFL. Notre Dame was the first team to blow up Carolina’s blocking schemes. That was also the formula for Georgia Tech and NC State to sack Maye eight times and hold UNC to 9 for 34 on third downs during upsets in Kenan Stadium.
So Brown has lost his coordinators in successive seasons who both had guaranteed, high six-figure contracts that are mitigated by Bateman moving to Florida and Longo to Wisconsin.
Four days from the last game and 3 weeks to the bowl, Mack must figure out how to get enough points to beat high-scoring Oregon.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Longo Gonzo appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
So far, 8 of 11 UNC transfers are from the defense.
These are still uncharted waters with the college transfer portal interfacing with NIL payments and how much one has to do with the other. As Carolina announced its wide range of collectives to help athletes, this is more about the football program than profits.
The name that stands out the most is 5-star cornerback Tony Grimes, who battled injuries through three seasons, all of which were under-productive with only one interception. If he is still considered a hot prospect, perhaps his new start comes with NIL money.
Kicker Jonathan Kim, who wanted to put points on the board more than merely kicking off, and quarterback Jacolby Criswell, who was beaten out by Drake Maye, obviously desire more playing time and perhaps money will follow. But it’s unclear why the other seven besides Grimes left a defense that clearly needs help.
So, does this go back to a defense that did not improve much with the change in coordinators from deposed Jay Bateman to celebrated Gene Chizik? Bateman’s last defense that got him fired gave up 5,500 total yards in 13 games or 422 per game. Chizik’s defense so far this season has allowed 5,700 yards or 438 per game.
Against the rush, last year’s team gave up 300 more yards and 23 touchdowns and 500 fewer yards passing but 27 TDs. This season, which still has one more game to go, the Tar Heel defense was better vs. the run by 200 yards that allowed 27 touchdowns and considerably worse against the pass, giving up 500 more yards and 25 touchdowns.
So the players who left had plenty of opportunities to get more snaps on the field but did not stay. And we’ll have to see how many defensive transfers Mack Brown signs after the Holiday Bowl to not only fill those roster spots but shore up what has been, at best, an inconsistent defense that forced Maye and the offense to try to outscore the opponent in most games.
This is the conundrum for Carolina and Brown, who clearly don’t “buy” players up front with NIL money. They need to improve their defense for next season in order for Maye to get the ball back sooner with the score in his favor. And while the incoming transfers may have plenty of potential, some proven stars won’t come for no cash.
Featured image via Inside Carolina/Jim Hawkins
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dilemma For Defense appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Heartbroken for UNC women’s soccer and their coach.
The Tar Heels of Anson Dorrance were 16 seconds away from their first NCAA championship in 10 years, despite five trips to the College Cup since then. There have been some tough losses along the way, but nothing like this one.
Almost 80 minutes into the national championship match with UCLA, Carolina led 2-0 on a pair of header goals by junior Avery Patterson. It became clock-watching time when the Bruins risked giving up a meaningless third goal by pressuring all over the field.
And when they scored on a rebound kick with 10 minutes remaining, the clock was our enemy, especially for those who knew the Heels’ four losses this season all came after they had led. UCLA kept forcing the action and got a corner kick with 16 seconds left.
The ball swooped toward the net, where a New York City subway car during rush hour was forming. From my eyes, the ball was almost across the goal line as freshman goalie Emmie Allen was shoved to the back of the net by the charging Bruins.
I know very little about soccer, but that looked like goalie interference to me as a Bruin forward headed the ball to the back of the net. Carolina was 16 ticks away from giving Dorrance and his school their 23rd women’s soccer national title to end the drought.
The referee allowed the goal to stand, and the play was non-reviewable. A collision in the goal mouth in the NCAA final, for some reason, is non-reviewable and it counted to tie the game. Through the first overtime and into the second, UCLA had all the mojo.
The light blue crowd that dominated the sellout at Wed Med Soccer Park in Cary was stunned and stayed that way until the Bruins scored on another rebound to win, 3-2. No one said so, but this one was going to be for Dorrance in his 44th season of taking women’s soccer from a club sport to a nationally dominant program.
He probably won’t complain and will compliment UCLA for being more aggressive down the stretch. And he’ll be back for a 45th season and try to reach his seventh College Cup in the last 11 years.
Heartbreaking for one and for all.
Featured image via Associated Press/Ben McKeown
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: For One and All appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Now, Hubert Davis has something to show to them.
The second-year Carolina basketball coach loves to talk about things in real time. Not necessarily what has happened in the past or what will happen in the future. What is happening NOW.
He may have that, despite it coming in a fourth straight loss for his team. The Heels were getting blown out at Virginia Tech, one of the toughest venues in the game, and it did not look like they could recover.
It may have been Davis getting hotter and hotter as a 10-point halftime deficit swelled to 18 midway in the second half. Or it might have been when RJ Davis was called for a phantom foul under the basket.
But there it was – without the sore-shouldered Armando Bacot and up-and-coming sophomore D’Marco Dunn, who broke his left hand in practice the day before. RJ Davis, Caleb Love, Pete Nance and freshmen Seth Trimble and Tyler Nickel started to fight – through screens, block-outs, and the pain of likely losing another game.
Win or lose, we saw the essence of sport come out in our very-likely-spoiled Tar Heels, who have now split their last 10 games dating back to the symbolic NCAA championship loss to Kansas. They were trapping like they hadn’t before, moving without the ball like they rarely have and fighting for everything they could on the court.
The deficit got as low as three points late in the game, and they would have needed some extra help from the Hokies, who are very good this season. It really doesn’t matter right now, but it may well have an effect on these Tar Heels in January and February.
With Bacot leading the players on the bench standing and cheering, something might have been born or reborn on this afternoon in Blacksburg. Now, with a solid week of practice before the next game, the home ACC opener against Georgia Tech on Saturday, there is an opportunity for this team to understand what it has to do to have a chance to be as good as the last team finished last season.
“Film doesn’t lie,” Hubert Davis also likes to say. After the 80-72 loss, he said, “One thing I know is my players and I like to fight and that’s what we’re going to do, fight.”
And now they have something to show them that they can.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Maggie Hobson
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Some Good News appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Call me crazy, but Carolina will bring home the ACC championship.
Yes, Clemson is the best team in the ACC and a touchdown favorite over the Tar Heels in the championship game in Charlotte. But, statistics aside, here is why UNC wins its first conference football crown in 42 years. And it’s all about why a good offense beats a good defense.
The Heels are at the top of all ACC offensive categories while the Tigers are in the middle of most defensive stats. Drake Maye has been off his last two games, but now that he’s won every ACC accolade he will return to form against the ninth-rated pass defense in the league.
And it just feels like the right time to win a very big game.
Carolina must stop Clemson’s rushing attack behind NC-native Will Shipley and Phil Mafah and contain quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, who is a better runner than passer. He went only 8 for 29 in the home loss to South Carolina that ended the Tigers’ hopes of getting back to the College Football Playoff. That is a big point of my pick.
Dabo Swinney, his team and their fans are hungover from failing for the second straight season to get back to CFP, which they played in for six straight years from 2015-2020, winning two national championships, only to miss out again. When that has become part of your DNA, what does winning the ACC championship really matter?
Even the Clemson bloggers are talking about the lack of fire around the program’s attempt to win another ACC title with nothing else at stake. It’s the one psychological advantage Carolina has off the field to go with Maye’s ability to shred a defense. The Tar Heels have a better chance of scoring in this game than do the Tigers.
Mack Brown’s best teams in Chapel Hill did not win an ACC championship because of Florida State’s dominance in the 1990s. The school’s last of five came in 1980 when Brown was cutting his teeth as a 29-year-old assistant coach at Iowa State.
The last two losses to Georgia Tech and N.C. State would have been demoralizing if Carolina hadn’t already locked up the Coastal Division and a spot in this ABC nationally-televised game at 8 p.m. at Bank of America Stadium. This is another chance to right the wrongs of this season and years past.
The Tar Heels are among the most dangerous offensive teams in the country, and I like them to prove it again and win in a shootout.
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Jeffrey A. Camarati
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tar Heels Win? Yes! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Well, the pressure is off in more ways than one.
The formerly first-ranked Tar Heels continue what could be the fastest drop out of the polls in college basketball history with their third consecutive loss over the last week.
The fall down the elevator shaft will take the pressure off a team that clearly was riding on the laurels of a hot last month of last season, and they are surely happy that the latest 77-65 loss is over along with the stifling defensive pressure Indiana applied all night. The Hoosiers forced 10 turnovers off which they scored almost every time.
A month does not a season make, and that will apply to how Carolina has opened so unimpressively with a 5-3 record. That doesn’t mean the road-weary Heels cannot get it together to have a better December, when ACC play starts, and climb their way back into the conversation like they did last March.
At this point, they are not close to being that team, and it’s not about the loss of shooting ace Brady Manek, who is replaced by Pete Nance’s more nuanced game. It is actually the four returning starters who are most responsible for the way this season has gone so far.
“At the end of the day, our better players have to play well,” said Hubert Davis, who refused to use the four-game and ten-day trip to Oregon and Indiana or some nagging injuries as excuses for being embarrassed by the 10th-ranked team on both ends of the court.
On offense, the Tar Heels were completely flustered and shut down by the kind of defense Indiana’s Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight used to play. The Hoosiers were aggressive from the jump in shutting off the passing lanes and the sight lines, resulting in UNC going 3-for-17 out of the gate and shooting a season-low of 34 percent for the game.
And the Heels’ D was zero match for IU’s pass and screen and cut offense that runs through their preseason All-American big man Trayce Jackson-Davis, whose 21 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocked shots led the dominating performance for the 7-0 Hoosiers.
After a summer of opponents watching tape, Carolina is getting the best prepared and most intense efforts from every team on the schedule. And that won’t get any easier unless they fix things fast.
With exams starting, Davis hopes to get in at least two days of practice before the ACC opener at Virginia Tech Sunday.
At least the expectations are gone and the pressure is off.
Featured image via Associated Press/Darron Cummings
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Time to Start Over appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The thirteenth game is a lot different from last year, isn’t it?
Sparked by having three players named first-team all-conference, and 11 honored overall, a completely different atmosphere permeated Carolina football as the Tar Heels get ready, in their minds, to win UNC’s fifth ACC championship but the first in 42 years.
You remember the postseason in 2021, when Carolina had about a month to stew over blowing that nine-point lead at N.C. State and finishing a disappointing 6-6 long after opening in the top 10. By the time it got to Charlotte for the bowl against South Carolina Mack Brown’s team, he conceded recently, “had checked out.”
What a difference a year makes. Yes, the current Heels lost their last two games on the final possession. But they have, in the words of All-ACC linebacker Cedric Gray, “something much bigger to play for” when they return to Bank of America Stadium Saturday night against Clemson.
While taking a hard look at the losses and coach and practice intently for the 8 pm kickoff, the awards for the 9-3 Heels equaled the 2020 team, which went to the Orange Bowl and where this weekend’s winner will go.
Gray was joined by first team All-ACC quarterback Drake Maye and wide receiver Josh Downs for their pre-game media session. All three (plus defensive lineman Kaimon Rucker) were ebullient over their chances to bring back a trophy that was last won in 1980, by a team that also had a pretty good linebacker named Lawrence Taylor.
“This was our goal for the season,” said Maye, who besides being QB1 also leads the nation in total offense. “Why would you play football if you aren’t excited by this game?” Maye’s connection was next to take the podium. “The last two weeks were frustrating,” allowed Downs, who with Maye led the ACC in passing and receiving, respectively. “Our players know a lot of Clemson players and we are looking forward to the game.”
In short, there was almost nothing to play for last season (well, a bowl trophy and a winning record) compared to what’s at stake for both teams. UNC would like to occupy the top of the mountain where Clemson has been perched for with five straight ACC titles and two national championships.
The three All-ACC awardees pushed all that aside in favor of what they agreed would rock their football program, university, students and hometown. Maye said a couple of ex-high school teammates signed with Clemson. “I told them, ‘See you in two years at the ACC Championship.’”
Featured image via Eli Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Different Air appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
There is a lot to unpack over Carolina’s first seven games.
Hubert Davis likes to say that film tells the truth, which it does. So do statistics, especially when they tell you the harder truth.
The Tar Heels are not shooting terribly overall, hitting 46.5 percent of their attempts. They are much worse from the 3-point line, draining only 31 percent. And the worst are the two guys who are supposed to be the best at that.
Neither Caleb Love nor RJ Davis is close to shooting 30 percent from the arc, combining to go 22 of 85. From the floor overall, they are averaging just over 40 percent. Both of those stats are way under their improved shooting of a year ago. It may have something to do with their shot selection, which often comes after some one-on-one dribbling or pulling up from way downtown. So far, not a lot of screens are being set to create open shots. Granted, opponents are switching on screens more than ever, which does make it harder to get good looks.
The playmaking is way below Carolina standards, with 86 assists and 84 turnovers. Heels aficionados would love to see that ratio at 2-1 or even 3-1 with the passing skills of Love, Davis and Pete Nance, and the size inside.
For a big, athletic team, UNC isn’t close to the vacuum cleaners under the boards that we are used to. Roy Williams’ Tar Heels were perennially among the best rebounding teams in the country. So far this season, they only average a plus-4 on the glass.
Armando Bacot is averaging a double-double as he did last season, but wing guard Leaky Black is easily the second-best rebounder on the team. Not the outside shooter Brady Manek was, Nance was supposed to be an upgrade on rebounding, and so far he is not.
The bench looked deeper than it was behind the Iron Five, but so far that hasn’t kept pace. Freshman guard Seth Trimble and, since his return, Puff Johnson are getting the most minutes. Next is the improved and athletic D’Marco Dunn. The minutes for Dontrez Styles and Tyler Nickel have gone down in recent games, and senior Justin McKoy, known for his hustle and defense, has barely scratched.
It’s too early to call the starters the Iron Five 2, but by the end of Sunday’s four overtime loss to Alabama, the regulars appeared understandably gassed.
Featured image via Associated Press/Rick Bowmer
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Numbers Don’t Lie appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Are you over-timed out after the weekend? I am.
I’m pretty sure they don’t keep records like the strange occurrence of beginning the Thanksgiving weekend with a double overtime game in football and ending it with a quadruple overtime in men’s basketball.
Six overtimes on the field and court, and both hard-to-take defeats. Thank goodness for the women’s basketball and soccer teams for their big wins over the weekend!
We were getting prepared for what happened in Kenan Stadium for most of the regular-season finale against N.C. State, which outplayed the Tar Heels due to a reserve quarterback and a good defense doing better than expected.
Carolina should have been ready for yet another benchwarmer to start and have the game of his life against the guys in light blue. Didn’t Jeff Sims of Georgia Tech do that last year before he got buried on the Yellow Jackets’ two- or three-deep chart?
And, earlier this season, a second-stringer from Notre Dame played the game of his life here, and then a third stringer (not Sims) from the Ramblin’ Wreck engineered yet another home upset. Redshirt freshman (and third-year player) Ben Finley was ready to graduate from State with a degree in finance, and now he is the Wolfpack’s QB1.
Still, the Tar Heels had their chances to win and could not finish, which was their main malady all of the 6-7 2021 season. They do have a chance to erase all prior disappointments by winning the ACC championship Saturday night in Charlotte over a Clemson team that finally looks beatable.
The hoop Heels had already blown a seven-point lead late and lost to Iowa State in the Phil Knight Invitational, but they could never imagine what happened to them in the third-place game against athletic Alabama of the SEC. Not only did they lose, but it took them four overtimes to do it, with all kinds of weird things happening between officials’ calls and Armando Bacot sitting out most of the four overtimes while he still had a fifth foul to commit.
Thanks to Steve Kirschner, we know that Caleb Love’s 36 shots attempted was only the fourth most in one UNC game. And he probably knows whether RJ Davis’ 24 set a record for two players combining for 60 of the 91 shots the team took during the 103-101 loss.
Hubert Davis will have to explain Bacot’s benching in favor of Pete Nance, who played very well in OT before making the final turnover on UNC’s last reasonable possession. And surely he did not like his inside-outside offense being so dominated by two ball-hogging backcourt players.
And now the once No. 1-ranked team has lost two games and faces the prospect of dropping four straight with visits to top 10 Indiana Wednesday night and at always tough Virginia Tech Saturday. Over time, we shall see.
Featured image via Eli Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Weekend Woes appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
These Tar Heels never really took anyone’s best shot a year ago. They weren’t the old Carolina that was at or near the top of college basketball with a Hall of Fame coach, and their uneven regular season left them on the outside of the NCAA bubble looking in. Then came the postseason, where every […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Expectations appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Does Mack Brown like talking to the media? Sure seems like it. The Carolina football coach must spend more time in press conferences and interviews than any of his compatriots. And he does more of it than his first stint in Chapel Hill, when he gabbed a lot but didn’t show much of himself. On […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not Coach-Speak appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I just saw Duke play, and who are those guys? Full disclosure: I don’t follow recruiting very closely so my interest arrives after I see them play. Why expend any time and energy on some kid who might not come to your school? I am happy when they sign with UNC but want my first […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Duke Looks Good appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Appropriate for college basketball, Hubert Davis sent his team to school. Coming off three mostly lackluster victories, the top-ranked Tar Heels came out with noticeable effort and emotion against the best opponent of the season so far in the 80-64 victory over previously unbeaten James Madison Sunday at high noon. Davis was frustrated after the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Homework appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Paul Hoolahan was one of the Carolina building blocks. Back in the fall of 1970, I was covering UNC sports for the Daily Tar Heel. After practice one day, senior offensive lineman Paul Hoolahan stopped me and said, “Watch out for the Tar Heels this season.” I wanted to believe the block of granite from […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Building Blocker appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown calls it a trap game, and indeed it could be. His Tar Heels are a 21-point favorite over 4-6 Georgia Tech Saturday at 5:30 in Kenan Stadium, but while the Carolina coach prefers a blowout, he will take a one-point win since the Jackets lead the ACC in takeaways (forcing turnovers). As the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Just Win, Baby! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Even uber-positive Hubert Davis was at a loss for words. The Carolina coach wasn’t sure what to make of his top-ranked, still undefeated team’s third slow start this season. The first game against UNC-Wilmington, the Tar Heels were up by 11 points at the half and could only extend the final margin by two. They […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Frustration appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is Josh Downs the best receiver in Carolina history? No, he doesn’t hold many UNC football records because he is only in his second full-time season. As a true freshman in 2020, he played behind Dazz Newsome who is all over the record book for yards, receptions and touchdowns in four years. Downs appeared in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Downs is Up There appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Looks like the Tar Heels may have to do it the hard way. Anyone who watched Carolina’s two basketball games so far must admit the first three halves were not exactly what we expected. The Heels may have made up for it with their 59-point, 71 percent second half against College of Charleston, but we’ll […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Early Report Card appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Two second-year head coaches are among the top 25 rated. They are younger than most of the others recognized in the CBS Sports preseason college basketball head coach ratings, but Hubert Davis and Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd are getting extra credit for their pedigree. Davis erased much of the doubt that followed ascending to Carolina’s head […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: First-Years Feted appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Sam Hartman will try to take the mantle away from Drake Maye. The Tar Heels’ headliner at Wake Forest Saturday night in Winston-Salem has a lot of subplots, from team success to individual honors. The Demon Deacons try to stop a late-season swoon that has become all too familiar to their fans in recent years. […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: One for the Books? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For a game with no flow, opening night was still live action. What a wonderfully strange start to the season for the top-ranked team in the nation. The head coach, who loves the excitement around his second team, said he was moved by the pre-game buzz that included chants of “Huuuubert” when he came out […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hoodies on High appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Suddenly, Jeff Saturday is exactly where he’s supposed to be. The former Tar Heel football center will be the first to admit he had a fairy-tale career, always too small to become a two-time All-ACC center on Mack Brown’s last two teams of his first tour here. And then working as an electric-supply salesman when […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Saturday on Sundays appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
As the new season starts, let’s follow the team and not the narrative. The Tar Heels were last ranked No. 1 before the first game back in 2015, seven years ago. That team did advance to the Final Four behind Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson before losing the heartbreaker on a buzzer-beater by Villanova in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A New Narrative appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Two losses caused by players going the wrong way cost Carolina dearly. Mack Brown takes a team to Virginia Saturday for the second time since he has been back in Chapel Hill. And like before his first return to Charlottesville, Brown was asked about the 1996 game when the Tar Heels blew a 17-3 lead […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Wrong-Way Losses appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Astros are at it again, throwing in a no-hitter to boot. Despite the wild card Phillies becoming America’s darlings by wiping out the Cardinals, Braves and Padres in the playoffs, Houston had the best record in the American League for many reasons. The Astros’ pitching is the best kept secret in baseball and their […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Never Count Them Out appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Here’s why what took place at Michigan could never happen here. Yes, at the end of Larry Fedora’s last game in 2018, a brawl erupted in the end zone after another frustrating loss in overtime against NC State. And several players on both teams received suspensions that were served the following season. By comparison, what […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Civility and Ability appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Forty-one years later, how close are the two SI covers? The one thing about the preseason college basketball edition of Sports Illustrated produced by the official UNC Twitter site compared to the true 1982 cover is that the price is the same — $1.50. Do they both really have the same value? Is this clever […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Cover Comparisons appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Pitt fans are out of control over their football coach. Despite their team winning the ACC championship last year and winning the Coastal Division before that in 2018, Pitt alumni and fans are slightly berserk over the Panthers’ 4-4 start to this season. First of all, a team not named Clemson never wins its ACC […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Narduzzi Doozies appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
When the Atlantic Coast Conference places five teams in the men’s basketball Top 25, it’s expected. Heck, in some years, it’s even viewed as a disappointment. The ACC putting five teams in the football Top 25 is much less common, and when two of those teams are ranked in the national top 10, the league […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Party Like It’s 2016! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye, who leads the nation in total offense with 380.1 yards per game, made his team-first mentality clear this week when he was asked about his status as a Heisman Trophy candidate. “I don’t know about all that,” Maye said. “(The Heisman) usually comes with winning.” Maye probably hasn’t had time […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Maye for Heisman? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For different reasons and in different ways, college football’s national spotlight will shine on North Carolina, NC State and Wake Forest this week, beginning tomorrow night, when ESPN’s weekly Thursday night matchup will feature Virginia Tech taking on the Wolfpack in Raleigh. The 5-2 Wolfpack, which is ranked #24 nationally in the Associated Press poll, […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: 10-Win Tobacco Road appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Last week, the Associated Press announced that its panel of college basketball voters ranked North Carolina #1 in the AP’s annual preseason poll. This week, the Tar Heels, with four starters back from last year’s NCAA Tournament runner-up, will begin their 2022-23 schedule with a home exhibition Friday against Johnson C. Smith University. Perhaps that […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Number One… For Now appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
North Carolina, Duke, NC State and Wake Forest, known as the “Big Four” to many North Carolinians, have been fellow members of the Atlantic Coast Conference for the entire 70-year existence of that league. During those seven decades of football, the Tar Heels, Blue Devils, Wolfpack and Demon Deacons have never all posted winning records […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Big Four First appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
At least the opponent after an open date isn’t Notre Dame or Virginia Tech. The Tar Heels are 0-6 following their last six scheduled open dates, going back to 2018 in Larry Fedora’s last season. Five of those six losses were to Virginia Tech or Notre Dame. The other was to Pitt, Carolina’s opponent when […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Relax, Then Buckle Up! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Tom Brady has offered up another reason to root against him. When the Tampa Bay Bucs allowed the Rams to drive for the winning score last season, and deny Brady yet another Super Bowl appearance, he was mad enough to not want to see his defensive teammates ever again. So he announced his retirement at […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: End Of Camelot appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Where do these Tar Heels stack up against No. 1s of the past? With little surprise, Carolina has been picked to win the national championship for a record 10th time by the Associated Press in its preseason rankings. Of the previous nine, only two UNC teams went on to cut down the NCAA nets on […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Awesome Legacy appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Critics and commentators keep debating over the Duke game. Despite the classic in Durham the other night, here is what they say: The Blue Devils aren’t the football rival that N.C. State has been over the years (statistically incorrect, by the way). We need to play more “name opponents” in our non-conference games for people […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Of Course It Matters appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The MLB playoffs are both fantastic and a bit unfair. Doesn’t it seem wrong for a team to play 162 regular-season games and then have to play its best baseball to survive and advance in these short playoff series? That’s the way it is, but how about the Braves and Dodgers and perhaps the Yankees […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Gotta Stay Hot! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The scoreboard game sparked the Mack-Spurrier friendship. As long as Mack Brown keeps beating Duke, the infamous scoreboard game will be brought up. It was again this week, as the Carolina coach’s pre-game interview ended with stories about him and the Head Ball Coach. The Blue Devils will be trying to snap a three-game losing […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mack and the ‘Ball Coach’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has an older, but not a deeper, offensive line. Three graduate students, two seniors and a junior protect that precious commodity named Drake Maye, who has been sacked 14 times this season, including five at Miami last week, but thrown only three interceptions. One of them, right tackle Spencer Rolland, transferred from Harvard with […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Old Head’ Rolland appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Astros ended the road team madness in the Major League Baseball playoffs. In 2021, the record of visiting teams in the postseason was a dismal 13-24, beginning with the Yankees’ ouster in the wild card game at Fenway Park in Boston, all the way through the Astros’ anti-climactic 7-0 loss to the Braves in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Road Warriors appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
David Tepper proved that money doesn’t make you smart. The billionaire owner of the Carolina Panthers made his money in the financial world. But it took him until the very end of his press conference after firing coach Matt Rhule to admit that he has a lot to learn about pro football. Tepper had reason […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Steep Learning Curve appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown has Miami’s number. Does he still have Duke’s? The Carolina coach was hoarse and sweating after the emotional win at Miami Saturday, which was his fourth straight against the Hurricanes. That wouldn’t be the case had The U been in the ACC in the 1990s, like Florida State was, but that’s not Mack’s […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Next Up, Duke appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis is a Carolina man and his own man. Davis was tabbed to succeed Roy Williams because of his basketball background, which began in earnest as an underrated player for Dean Smith and, after he proved himself on the college court, as a 12-year veteran in the NBA. He topped that off with nine […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Look Late Night appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Why Aaron Judge may stay in New York, but with the Mets. As we head into a historic Major League Baseball playoff, with six teams from each league contending for World Series spots, the Yankees remain the biggest story of them all. And it’s all about their biggest name and body and what he’ll do […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: There Goes the Judge? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Miami’s Tyler Van Dyke: Cinderella or pumpkin? When the Hurricanes played in Chapel Hill last year about this time of the month, Tyler Van Dyke was their starting quarterback only because fellow freshman Jake Garcia and veteran transfer D’Eriq King were both out for the season with injuries. Van Dyke was starting his fourth game […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Drama at The U appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Phil Longo has enlisted Drake Maye’s parents to help him. We all have our hearts in our mouths when UNC’s freshman sensation goes airborne at the end of a run. You can imagine what Aimee and Mark Maye do when their youngest of four sons leaves the ground. Carolina’s offensive coordinator knows how he feels. […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: For ‘Leaping’ Sake! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is Sam Howell’s number ready to be called? Judging from what is happening in the NFL these days, the Washington Commanders may be getting ready to give their rookie quarterback a chance, too. Whether it’s injuries to the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott and the Patriots’ Mac Jones, or inconsistent play from the Steelers’ Mitch Trubisky, backup […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Sooner Rather Than Later? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It is time for Carolina football to get back to what and where it is. So, the Notre Dame game is over, which was our almost annual chance to prove the Tar Heels can compete on a national level. As with a history dating back to the 1972 Ohio State game (and the unveiling of […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Our Own Sisyphus appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Pete Nance is already the most talked-about Tar Heel. He hasn’t played a real game for Carolina, and he is learning a new program after spending four years in a diametrically opposite place. UNC plays in the finesse-filled ACC, resides in a small southern town and has enormous expectations after last season’s NCAA finish. Northwestern, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: He’s ‘Really Good’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Remember those rainy days at Kenan Stadium? Here comes another. I recall three games that literally dampened the spirits at the old lady in the pines, and all of them ended up with much different outcomes than we expected. If you have any more, comment below! I will start with the best on the absolute […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Great Equalizer? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Does anyone mind the longer timeouts in college sports? Never has an industry been more dominated by TV than college football and basketball. All pro sports, for example, are trying to do something about the length of games. Baseball has a pitch clock and time limit between innings. The NFL is bullish about making the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Endless Timeouts appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The ACC Coastal Division could be some team’s savior. After this coming weekend, all ACC football teams will have played division games, and right now it looks like the Coastal is where to be. The Atlantic is a bear with three teams – Clemson, Florida State and Syracuse – at 2-0 in division play and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: It’s Coastal, Baby! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
“Welcome to Chapel Hill” should be the refrain of the day. If you have ever been to a football game at Notre Dame, you are made comfortable long before kickoff. Miles away from the stadium, in parking lots and hotels and on buses, they know you are there and the “Welcome To Notre Dame” greetings […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Let’s All Make it Happen appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The day Carolina introduced Joe Montana to the world. Notre Dame makes a ninth visit to Kenan Stadium Saturday in a series that overall dates back to 1949 and stands 21-1 in the official record book. On the field, the Tar Heels have beaten the Fighting Irish twice, both in Chapel Hill. The thrilling 29-24 […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Comeback Kid appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Who will win the irresistible force paradox this weekend? From physics to Batman movies, the question is brought up often between an immovable object versus an irresistible force. So let’s apply it to Notre Dame-UNC Saturday, a battle between massive brands that are both unranked in college football. The Fighting Irish come to Kenan Stadium […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unranked Brands appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I was reminded why Pittsburgh is such a great football city. I made my first trip back to the Steel City in more than 20 years and was so impressed with the scene surrounding an NFL game at what used to be Heinz Field, where the ACC’s Pitt Panthers also play. Full disclosure, I went […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Super Scenario appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Notre Dame’s tale of two halves should scare Carolina. Early in Notre Dame’s eventual victory over Cal, Tar Heel fans might have been encouraged by the mistakes made by the Fighting Irish, who had lost their first two games and were facing an 0-3 start for one of the few times in their storied football […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Early ‘Must’ Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What has happened to student youth in America? Political divide notwithstanding, some college kids seem to be more stupid these days. Where did they get the license to be so dumb? At the University of Utah’s home game last Saturday against Southern Utah, two coeds decided to cover their upper bodies with paint and walk […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Student Stupidity appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina’s offense, not Notre Dame’s, will be the key. The annals of college athletics are filled with stories about underdog teams pulling together for big victories after losing a key player. Notre Dame will try to add one of those to its tradition as well as win a football game. Depending on what happens in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Wounded But Dangerous appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina’s basketball schedule is front-loaded, to say the least. Some people say that, in college hoops, it is not how you start but how you finish. That is especially true if you are expected to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. But to make that run, teams must play well enough early to keep […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tough Out of the Gate appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Roy Williams recruited Jacob Stallings away from his father. The former Carolina catcher, who recently set the Major League Baseball record for 224 consecutive games without a passed ball, made a decision back in 2007 that had pitted UNC versus the school where his dad, Kevin Stallings, was coaching basketball. And it wasn’t an easy […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Blue Blood Battle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
If NIL is the great separator, the transfer portal is the great equalizer. College athletics has been very confusing the last few years, thanks to the implementation of Name-Image-Likeness allowing certain amateur athletes to be paid like pros. That only applies to a small percentage of elite jocks who make the big bucks from their […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Depth and Experience appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
George Karl is ready for his day as UNC’s 12th Hall of Famer. Karl will be inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame Saturday night in Springfield, presented by other Tar Heel legends Bobby Jones and Roy Williams, and it will be for his NBA coaching career with six teams that yielded 1,997 regular-season and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: He of the Floppy Sox appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is Jon Scheyer Coach K’s successor or his own man? The royal straight flush the new Duke basketball coach continues to run raises a number of questions. Does Scheyer landing 6-foot-8 forward TJ Power as his next 5-star in the class of 2023 show that he has Mike Krzyzewski’s recruiting chops or more about the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Power’ of Duke appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Yep, it sure looks like Devin Leary is ACC Player of the Year. I shook my head after the 2022 preseason All-ACC team came out with N.C. State’s Leary tabbed as the conference player of the year. After the first week, he is among the worst QBs in the league. Sure, he was the ACC’s […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not Even Close appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Now that the craziness of that game is over, there are legit questions. Why was Mack Brown dancing with his players after they escaped App State scoring a record 40 points in the fourth quarter? Did any defensive players dance, too, or get sent to take cold showers for that exhibition? Was beating a mid-major […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Questions, Questions appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
There’s a running joke that App State fans moonlight in Carolina blue when no one is looking. But for yours truly, that’s rather close to the truth. My family moved to Boone back in 2000. Though I was born in New England, I still consider Boone my hometown and likely always will. I grew up […]
The post Koh’s Notebook: Homecoming appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The coming hoops campaign already worries me to death. This is a sermon I am going to preach on the road toward Houston, where the Tar Heels are favored to win the 2023 national championship. They are not a consensus pick but some of the early polls are scary. CBS Sports, for example, has Hubert […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Prolonged Pressure appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is App State the most important game of UNC’s season? Mack Brown is singing the same tune in 2022, but it ends with a different refrain. While winning remains his highest priority, he insists his Tar Heels “will have to play great to have a chance” to beat the Mountaineers at Kidd Brewer Stadium at […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No-Lose Situation appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Serena changed tennis, women and the world. Rarely does an athlete, celebrity or even a politician win the hearts of some people who aren’t rabid followers of what they do. Serena Williams is one of those bright stars, playing professional tennis for 25 years and becoming an international icon. First, Serena broke into the women’s […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Game Changer appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Gene Chizik has to repeat what he did during his first stay at UNC. Drake Maye’s first-game heroics might have won the night, but Carolina’s defensive story was not so positive. The talented Florida A&M offense racked up 279 passing yards and stayed in the game until the fourth quarter despite supposedly being overmatched. New […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: On the Spot appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
A UNC loss Saturday would be the biggest upset in college football history. Yes, the Tar Heels are 35-point favorites against Florida A&M for the Week 0 opener for both teams. The question, with the offensive unknowns and the presence of a great opposing linebacker, is can Carolina cover? A straight-up loss is out of […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Game Within a Game appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hope Florida A&M isn’t as good as its head coach. Ever notice how great coaches were usually average players? Bobby Knight and Dean Smith, for example. How about Mack Brown? Similarly, great players usually don’t make good coaches. Bart Starr comes to mind. So does Bob Cousy. Or Wayne Gretzky or Isaiah Thomas. Even Larry […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Coaching Chops appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It had to be Maye. It had to be Maye. Remember that old ditty by Sinatra, “It Had To Be You”? Here is why, in my humble opinion, freshman Drake Maye got the nod over sophomore Jacolby Criswell as Carolina’s starting quarterback. With next-to-zero experience at running back, this team cannot find itself HAVING to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: It’s Gonna Be Maye appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Davis Love is the silent type. But when he speaks, people listen. Love is one of the all-time stars of the PGA Tour since his All-American days at UNC. He has earned $45 million in pro tournaments, captained the U.S. Ryder Cup team and will do the same with the next President’s Cup, calling it […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Love Hates Power Grab appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
No matter which quarterback starts Saturday, both will play half the game. Mack Brown is expected to name his starting quarterback for the opener against Florida A&M sometime this week, perhaps at today’s press conference. Or Brown may wait for one more practice. Either way, there is reason to believe that Brown will say “Jacolby […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Decision Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
This week the Big Ten Conference signed national television and media-rights deals with CBS, Fox and NBC collectively worth more than $1 billion per year, starting in 2023, shattering the previous record for any league in the history of college sports. How did the Big Ten do it? It starts with the league’s track record […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Big Money for the Big Ten appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
With North Carolina’s season opener against Florida A&M just nine days away, the Tar Heels’ ongoing quarterback competition offers a stark contrast to almost every other team in the Atlantic Coast Conference in at least one potentially important way. All but two ACC teams, UNC and lowly Duke, expect to have either their 2021 starter […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Young Guns appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
While the concept of preseason polls may seem silly — how can anyone rank teams that haven’t played any games yet? — the Associated Press preseason college football poll has developed an impressive reputation over the last two decades in at least one way. In 16 of the last 18 seasons, college football’s eventual national champion […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Predictive Polls appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
While the University of North Carolina has produced more than 230 National Football League players overall, led by the likes of Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers, the Tar Heels have had shockingly little success at sending quarterbacks to the NFL. In fact, only two UNC players have even become starting quarterbacks at the next level, […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: UNC’s QB Tradition appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The first full week of National Football League preseason games, which concluded Sunday night, offered a reminder of the professional league’s heavy Atlantic Coast Conference flavor, especially at the most important position on the field. While the NFL’s regular season won’t begin until Sept. 8, current projections have eight former ACC quarterbacks as the likely […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: ACC Arms Aplenty appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What a surprise, the LIV golf tour has turned political. You know this is a waste of time, worrying about the fight for money in golf. The guys who have defected from the PGA are doing so for the dough, but they should at least own up to it. Brooks Koepka, the four-time major championship […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: LIV the Life appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I’m both sorry and happy to say goodbye. One of the greatest athletes of all time – men or women – is retiring at 40. Serena Williams will make her last appearance at the U.S. Open, which starts in late August. Serena and her sister Venus set stuffy tennis on its collective ear when the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good, Bad & Ugly appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Will the Big Ten’s TV glut help the ACC with ESPN? It has only been speculated, but it looks like the Big Ten may be knocking the Mothership – as ESPN is known in the sports television trade – out of the box. Fox remains the Big Ten’s primary TV partner and financial backer in […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Billion-Dollar Boys appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
How lucky are we to have coaches like Mack Brown? For 12 straight years, WCHL has had a sweepstakes sending lucky UNC fans to a special destination where the football or basketball teams are playing games in the upcoming season. It began in 2011, with a Take Us To Vegas contest to watch Roy Williams’ […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Party Favors! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Ben Griffin, the million-to-one shot, won almost a half-mill at the Wyndham. The Chapel Hill golfer, who has gone from selling mortgages to making birdies on the pro tour, had the most thrilling weekend of his young career in the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield in Greensboro. The former East Chapel Hill and UNC star just […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Griffin Cashes In! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
We know about Roy Williams, but do we really remember Larry Miller? Two very deserving Tar Heels will be entering the College Basketball Hall of Fame in November, a coach already in the Naismith Hall, and a player who was one of the best to ever suit up here. I’ve got to give it to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Late But Deserving appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Stephanie Pace deserves some kind of MVP award. When Pace’s documentary on the 1957 Tar Heels came out in January, reviews said she had been working on the film for seven years. It seemed more like 17, based on all the talks we had about where the project was going and how she planned to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Shared Miracle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I guess winning is more important than getting vaxxed. Former Wake Forest and ACC baseball star Whit Merrifield has refused to get vaccinated all season while playing for the lowly Kansas City Royals. He apparently wanted to get into the postseason so badly that he reversed his commitment to family and whatever reasons he refused […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: To Vax Or Not To Vax appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown isn’t taking any chances with his two quarterbacks. I love it when Brown says of his two neck-and-neck leaders, sophomore Jacolby Criswell and redshirt freshman Drake Maye, “You’re going to tell us who should start. We’re not going to tell you, you’ll determine that.” UNC and offensive coordinator Phil Longo are acting like […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Two is Better Than One appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Bill Russell, who died at 88 on Sunday, was a true giant with no jump shot. I remember as a kid rooting for the Celtics and Bill Russell, who taught a lot of people about the value of defense in basketball. I think that’s why Dean Smith’s teams resonated with me. When defensive specialist Russell […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Great Man appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Southeastern Conference is going to do what it wants. So let it. It is clear that the football-crazy SEC is in the driver’s seat over conference realignment. They already have the highest annual distribution among member schools because of the hundreds of millions, soon to be billions, of dollars that ESPN and Disney are […]
The post Chansky: SEC, Different Breed appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
UNC heads for training camp with another 3-game schedule to start. Remember how long it took the football Tar Heels to pop the balloon filled with mostly (hot) air before the 2021 season? Mack Brown tried to tamp down all the hysteria by saying, “We are looking at the first three games, and if we […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dangerous Beginnings appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
This is only a sports story because Eli Evans was a HUGE Tar Heel fan. Evans, a dear friend, died peacefully in New York on Monday. Very old grads know him from being UNC’s student body president in 1958 and a distinguished alum. I know him from belonging to the same fraternity and collaborating with […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Goodbye, Dear Friend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Why is the Carolina brand is so appealing in college realignment? While he is against almost everything going on in college football and conference realignment these days, Mack Brown says he is not worried about what happens to UNC when all the dust settles. We know Brown is against eliminating divisions in ACC football because […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Brand in Demand appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The ACC is spoiling Mack Brown’s plan to be conference champion. When Brown returned to Carolina for his second stint, he was asked about the Tar Heels’ realistic chances to win their first ACC championship since 1980. He smiled and said, with divisional play, he liked their chances better than when he was here from […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Divisions Daunting appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
A few things to remember as summer turns into fall. The energy and excitement around Chapel Hill is reminiscent of the days when that feeling was an off-season rite. Football was a prelude, hoping those Tar Heels could have a great start and not turn the fans’ attention in October to the roundball sport. But […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Oh, What a Feeling! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
R.J. Davis is the leader no one is talking about. He came in with Caleb Love as the “other” guard in the Class of 2020, and he started one-third of the games his freshman year and made about one-third of his shots. He also made about as many turnovers as assists. Roy Williams retired, and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Unsung One appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
You want the good news or the bad news about Armando Bacot? The good news is that one of the most engaging, and rapidly becoming one of the best, players to ever don a Carolina uniform can actually play a super senior season in 2023-24. Yes, he’s one of those COVID kids who, because he […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Comeback Kid? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Pete Nance is the perfect fit for Carolina in so many ways. The grad transfer met the media for the first time Monday and, as Stuart Scott used to say, was as cool as the other side of the pillow. Nance gave the NBA a look-see and got word he wasn’t quite ready, so he […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Good Get appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It is fun rooting against the Yankees again. Remember those seasons when your team wasn’t good enough to win a championship and the arch rival was favored to do so? My first recollection of that was just out of college when NC State had David Thompson and Tom Burleson on a team that just about […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Joy of Losing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Editor’s note: This Sports Notebook was written before the news of G.G. Jackson’s decommitment from UNC was made official Thursday night. Looks like G.G. Jackson might take the money and run. Social media has been chirping the last week or so over speculation that Jackson may decommit from Carolina and do something else. Turns […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bye-Bye, G.G. appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The big names are at the Old Course, but their games are not. Finally, the The Open no longer has the adjective “British” in front of it because arrogant Americans concede that the game was invented somewhere else like Europe, where the 150th “Open” begins today at perhaps the most famous 18 holes on the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Claret Juggle appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What a fairy-tale golf year for Chapel Hill’s Ben Griffin. The former East Chapel Hill High School star and All-ACC and All-American at Carolina seemed destined for the pro tour. He won two high school state championships, chipping in on the last hole to win his first as a freshman. He earned a scholarship to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Local Legend Rebounds appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I say let’s keep the NCAA in one form or another. There has been so much speculation about what will happen next with conference realignment, you can read almost anything you want to hear or don’t want to hear. For example, will the ACC survive if Clemson and Florida State bolt for the SEC? Will […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Super Conference Is It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
So what kind of a school is UNC anyway? During his heyday as a Hall of Fame, national championship coach, Dean Smith liked to take the attention away from his team by crediting other Carolina coaches who had also won NCAA titles. “We’re a women’s soccer school,” he said of Anson Dorrance’s program when it […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What Dean Would Say appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis is not only smart, he has savvy. I am beginning to think that Carolina’s current basketball coach is a combination of his Hall of Fame predecessors Dean Smith and Roy Williams. Spiritual and coy who figures things out like Smith. Emotional with his kids in public, tough in private like Ol’ Roy. One […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fantasy ‘Campers’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The question is not whether UNC would be a good fit for the Big Ten or SEC. Of course, Carolina would be welcomed by the two leagues apparently on their way to forming super conferences. So would Duke and N.C. State for the same TV market reasons. So would Clemson and Florida State for their […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Daunting Task appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What is behind the staying power of Michael Jordan? It has been 19 years since the Carolina legend has played a professional basketball game, flaming out of the NBA in controversy after winning six world championships with the Chicago Bulls. It is not like Jordan has continued to be the best at anything – except, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Money Over Morals appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Has the grant of rights spelled doom for the ACC? UNC’s John Swofford was considered a great commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. He followed Gene Corrigan’s brilliant move of bringing Florida State into the conference to bolster its football reputation, and the Seminoles did so by dominating the league and winning national championships that […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Dream to Nightmare appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Can athletes go unvaccinated and still be team players? This question has raged since COVID hit this country and eventually everyone had the choice to be vaccinated or not. For individuals, it is their absolute right to choose, although some organizations require it for them to keep working. The various professional players associations seem to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: To Vax Or Not appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Do we owe Worthy, Ford and Cunningham any old NIL money? Armando Bacot is in the news a lot lately, and in the off-season so little of it is for playing basketball. The Tar Heels’ rising senior center-forward decided to stay in school and get his degree, and he also beat the mock draft boards, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The ‘Worthy Burger’ Days appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has another national Hall of Famer of note. Curry Kirkpatrick, UNC Class of 1965, was inducted into the National Sports Media Hall of Fame Monday at the same ceremony in which Hubert Davis received the Clarence “Big House” Gaines Coach of the Year award. While Hubert has gotten plenty of props since turning the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Hall of Famer appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown’s commitment to HBCU football is a family thing. When Brown met his wife Sally on a blind date back in 1992, he found a young woman who knew next to nothing about the game he was coaching at UNC. But the former Sally Jesse knew something about a problem he was having with […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Embracing Race appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Dukies were crying all the way to and through the NBA Draft. Reports continue to filter in that Duke is still hung over from losing its last two games of the Mike Krzyzewski era against arch-rival Carolina. Having four players drafted in the first round and five in the first 42 selected has left […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Flippin’ The Script appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hidden Dynasty – the story doesn’t get older, it gets better. Ross Greenburg, the decorated documentarian, came through with what may be his best work ever in chronicling the history of Carolina women’s soccer under Anson Dorrance on the ACC Network special. Those who live on some distant planet may have enjoyed learning how Dorrance […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Learning to Be Great appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Do you realize that six teams from each league make the MLB playoffs this season? Before the Major League Baseball playoffs expanded with divisions and wildcards, there were 10 teams in the American League and 10 in the National League. Only the pennant winners in each league advanced to the World Series. That is two […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Hope Springs Eternal appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It would not be an understatement to call Lennie Rosenbluth the Father of Carolina Basketball. If not for a momentous blunder by NC State’s hall of fame coach Everett Case, Rosie might have ended up in Wolfpack red and UNC’s magical season of 1957 would have never occurred or, worse, happened instead in Raleigh. Rosenbluth, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Father of All Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis seemed to know something we didn’t. Dean Smith used to have an old recruiting axiom — schedule the last visit of a coveted prospect in his home or on your campus. One of the few times that failed was in 1990, when Grant Hill committed to Duke the weekend before Smith and his […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Last Visit appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
When Notre Dame takes on Texas tonight on the first day of the College World Series, the Fighting Irish will be the only participant from the Atlantic Coast Conference in an eight-team field that also includes four current members of the Southeastern Conference, two soon-to-be members of the SEC, and Stanford of the Pac-12. What […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: ACC Anomaly appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Three members of the NCAA enforcement staff visited the University of Miami last week, in what is believed to be the organization’s first inquiry into whether some of the name-image-likeness agreements between college athletes and various third parties are being done in violation of NCAA rules. For several reasons, the Miami case is a good […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: A New Reality appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Generally speaking, American sports fans watch the biggest games in the most popular professional sports in much larger numbers than they watch the biggest games in the college versions of those sports. For example, in the National Football League, the Super Bowl often attracts an average American television audience of more than 100 million viewers. […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: All Eyes on UNC appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Whether the Boston Celtics or the Golden State Warriors capture the NBA championship later this week, the state of North Carolina will be represented on the title team for the 14th year in a row. Last season, for example, the world champion Milwaukee Bucks had three players with North Carolina ties: former UNC forward Justin […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: NC Connections appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
While North Carolina’s sweep at the hands of Arkansas at the NCAA Baseball Super Regional in Chapel Hill sent a lot of Tar Heels home disappointed Sunday night, there may have been an even greater sense of devastation about 100 miles away in Greenville, N.C. The East Carolina baseball program has, for decades, been on […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: ECU’s Wild Weekend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has had an even more glorious baseball past than you would think in its more than 150 years playing. Granted, the Mike Fox era with so many trips (7) to the College World Series and coming home with no titles is a little bit of a black mark. But if you read Jody Jones’ […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Glories Past appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Duke is staying ahead of the field again. While Duke may think it is always the smartest entity in any room, the private school with all the money and no state oversight keeps proving it. The latest innovation by the Blue Devils was to create the general manager’s position for men’s basketball and fill it […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Innovative Duke appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
We get yet another home weekend of Carolina Baseball. Boshamer Stadium has been a wonderful venue for 50 years, nestled into the UNC sports complex between the football practice fields and the newer Karen Shelton Stadium for her field hockey perennials. Sure, it’s a hard place to reach by car, try Ridge Road from the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Back to the Bosh appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Vance Honeycutt is one reason college baseball can be so special. If Honeycutt, the Diamond Heels’ super freshman, played basketball the way he plays baseball, he’d be one and done for sure. But baseball has a rule that if a high school player accepts a college scholarship, he cannot enter the MLB Draft until after […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Honey-Do List appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Another Carolina team is trying to get it done the hard way. The Diamond Heels have been following a familiar pattern for certain UNC sports this school year. After blitzing Hofstra in their NCAA Tournament opener for an eighth straight victory, Carolina could not defend the home field advantage that winning streak produced, lost to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rallying to Victory appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Apparently, it’s true that money doesn’t make you smart. David Tepper must have known what he was doing in accumulating a net worth of more than $1 billion (that is a million dollars multiplied by one thousand if anyone is counting). But what he has done with that money in the sports world is a […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Man With No Plan appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
A tough school year has come to an end for N.C. State athletics. A trip to the controversial 2021 College World Series left State with 13 eligible players due to COVID protocols and cost the Wolfpack a chance to win its fourth national championship of any kind in school history. That was only the beginning […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: State’s Royal Flush appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Hurricanes lost the seventh-game coin flip. Remember when we talked about the Carolina Hurricanes playing with fire because they had not won a single road game? The Canes not only lost all six playoff games away from PNC Arena, they did so by an aggregate score of 26-10. That’s bad and dangerous. So after […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Canes Failed on Road appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Was this the greatest day ever to be a Tar Heel? Sunday, May 29, 2022. Within a late afternoon hour or so, the Carolina Women’s Lacrosse team finished off a 22-0 season with its third NCAA championship and the first such undefeated record in the sport since 2017. And the UNC baseball team completed a […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Best Ever GDTBATH appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Young, smart, cool, contemporary, that’s Courtney Banghart. The last time women’s basketball meant as much to Carolina and the Chapel Hill community, Sylvia Hatchell had it going. She won a national championship in 1994 on a Charlotte Smith buzzer beater that had fans saying “back-to-back” after Dean Smith had won his last NCAA title the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: She ‘Undersold It’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Sooner or later the Carolina Hurricanes are going to do it. But what are they going to do? If you are not a hardcore Caniac, you might not realize that the local National Hockey League team is having a Jekyll and Hyde postseason. They are still alive after four games of the second round but […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Road Warriors appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Steve Kerr is so much more than a basketball coach. The NBA and NHL playoffs went on as scheduled Tuesday night, but Steve Kerr clearly didn’t want to talk about his Golden State Warriors in the game tipping off in less than an hour. He entered his pre-game press conference before his team was trying […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Enough! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is Hubert Davis willing to play the waiting game? One week remains before the deadline for players who have declared for the NBA Draft to pull themselves out and return to college. And some of them are also in the transfer portal and can pick a second school to play for next season. It’s pretty […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Deadline Dilemma appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The longer Mike Fox is retired, the more his greatness grows. Mike Fox was honored over the weekend with his No. 30 now gracing the façade and the pitching mound at Boshamer Stadium. He has been retired for three years, and since then the mediocrity has returned that defined the Diamond Heels pre-Fox. It’s not […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fox, the Legend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Has the NBA Playoff magic gone away? The first two rounds of the postseason made it look like we were headed for the best Final Four in NBA history. Close games, dramatic comebacks, surprises and the superstars coming out, the compelling matchups seemed like they would escalate into the conference and NBA Finals. The Celtics […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Faux Final Four? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Ademola Okulaja is remembered most as a great teammate. Tragically, another former UNC basketball player has died unexpectedly. The 6-9 Okulaja, who started for four seasons during the Dean Smith-Bill Guthridge eras, passed away at age 46 from a recurring cancer that he first had 14 years ago. In the freshman class that had future […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Only the Good Die Young appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Rich Yonakor didn’t make it to his last UNC-Duke game. Not sure how I missed it, but just heard that Yonakor – the infamous “Chickie” of the 1977-80 Tar Heels – passed away on March 3, two days before Carolina turned its season around with the dramatic 94-81 upset at Cameron Indoor. Man, time flies. […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Mr. ‘Air-Ball!’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham has a new contract and raise. Is Hubert Davis next? A couple of days after the Tar Heels returned from the Final Four, Cunningham acknowledged that “we’ve got to do something” when asked about Hubert’s income being near the bottom of the 15-school ACC barrel. Davis made $525,000 in merit […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Davis Must Be Next! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Surely, there’s a team out there that will give the UNC women’s lacrosse team a game. I was late getting to the start of Sunday’s NCAA tournament second-rounder between top-seeded Carolina and Virginia, which turned out to mean it’s a bad regional. Driving to campus, for a moment, I thought I had the wrong day […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unbeatable? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The NBA playoffs are the greatest floor show on Earth. This season shows why so many college players are determined to get to the NBA regardless of what else they do on the way. There is incredible play by the best basketball players in the world, dramatic comebacks and controversy from the officials’ whistles to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: National ‘Best’ Association appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
How is the NCAA going to enforce new NIL guidelines? To use a term from modern communications, who is Zooming who here? The NCAA, which washed its hands of regulating and watch-dogging the Name-Image-Likeness deals on each campus, is now taking charge again. I don’t think so. The NCAA will be knee-capped by all the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Unfixable? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Hurricanes need to take care of business in Game 6. Have you ever seen a postseason in pro basketball or hockey so dominated by the home teams? Most teams are defending their home court or ice vigorously. Only the Celtics-Bucks NBA series has seen two games won on the road. The Canes dispatched the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Win It In 6! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina football finished No. 11 in the recruiting class of 2022. With only 17 players signed, Mack Brown and his staff still finished very close to a top ten dominated by the so-called ‘football schools’ from the Power 5 conferences. UNC followed Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Michigan […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: We’re No. 11! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Six in a row for the UNC women’s lacrosse team. Since Congress passed Title IX in 1972, colleges have done more than balance their athletic teams with the gender ratio on campuses across the country. Most have taken women’s sports very seriously, and Carolina is at the top of that list. The national juggernauts over […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Ortega the Great appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Leaky Black is the latest face of Carolina Basketball. The soon-to-be super senior is a throwback to the days we all loved the Tar Heels like members of our own family, even if we had never met them. Leaky has been here long enough to embrace our embrace. He did it Thursday night when he […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Embraceable You appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Can lavish facilities trump the glut of NIL money? Carolina is in the closing stages of another multimillion-dollar expansion to its football center. From advance reports, the Tar Heels will have a Disneyland type of training and conditioning addition to the Kenan Football Center that was completed just as Mack Brown left UNC for Texas […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fight For the Almighty Dollar appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Have you noticed that Duke went away from the Brotherhood? One of the more interesting offseason moves in college basketball occurred at Duke, which had filled its coaching staff with former players over the last half of Mike Krzyzewski’s Hall of Fame career. Nolan Smith, a teammate of new head coach Jon Scheyer on the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Curious Move appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Kerwin Walton’s transfer gives Carolina a golden opportunity. Before Walton entered the transfer portal, Hubert Davis had all 13 scholarships for the 2022-23 season allocated. And that meant a second post man next to Armando Bacot would have to come from a veteran playing out of position or an untested freshman big. While we may […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Portal Possibilities appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Sam Howell’s chip just became a boulder. Speculation will go crazy over why Sam Howell fell from a prospective first-round draft pick to No. 144 – the first name called in the fifth round of the NFL’s beauty and the beast pageant — by Washington. Did Carolina’s dive from a preseason top 10 team to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Howell Has the Fuel appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Carolina Hurricanes, going all the way back to the birth of their franchise in 1972 as the Hartford Whalers, have never had a better regular season than the one they finished at PNC Arena in Raleigh last night. While a Metropolitan Division championship by itself may not be enough to move the state of […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Storm Coming appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Decades ago, the National Football League passed Major League Baseball as the most lucrative sports organization in the world. The NFL Draft, which begins tonight in Las Vegas with the first round and runs through Saturday, offers another major reminder why. Millions of Americans care, and they care a lot, even when games aren’t being […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: For Millions Of Americans, NFL Draft Is Must-See TV appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
In college basketball, there is more than one road to the top of the mountain, more than one way to capture the national championship. Throughout the long, proud history of North Carolina basketball, though, all six of its NCAA title teams followed a similar path in at least one regard: seniors and juniors led the […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Experience Factor appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
North Carolina’s victories over Duke in early March and early April will be remembered fondly by Carolina basketball fans for many reasons. The first ruined Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium on a night when approximately 100 former Duke players joined the Cameron Crazies for both a nationally televised game and a […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Additional Glow appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
One by one, North Carolina’s four starting players with NCAA eligibility remaining recently announced their decisions to remain with the Tar Heels for the 2022-23 season. As a result, UNC almost certainly will be talked and written about for the next six months as one of the favorites for the national championship next spring. When […]
The post Glenn’s Notebook: Huge Expectations appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The mass exodus has begun for Duke basketball. It’s one thing when a college program loses its iconic, hall of fame coach to retirement, but players lining up to follow him out the door means Jon Scheyer won’t have it very easy taking over the Blue Devils. Coach K got a puppy from his team […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The 5-Star Cupboard appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What are Carolina’s keys for next season? Even though four starters may be back, in my opinion there are two important factors that will determine how good the Tar Heels can be in their second season under Hubert Davis. College basketball is a year-round job, and how coaches spend their summers doesn’t differ greatly. Besides […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 2-Part Question appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Tomari Fox got screwed, there is no two ways about it. We all know the NCAA works in strange ways. Most of the college sports world believes one of those strange ways was Carolina getting off with no penalty for its involvement in the highly publicized scandal, if you consider $30 million in legal fees […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: One Less Fox In Hole appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Why Armando Bacot might be the smartest man NOT in the green room. Bacot’s returning to Carolina for his senior season should be examined beyond the mere decision. He obviously considered all his options and coming back as a fourth-year player for the Tar Heels won out. In his sterling junior season, when he became […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Creating Legacy appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was an NBA playoff battle between Duke one-and-dones. What theater. You couldn’t turn it off, the first game of the first round of the playoffs between the second-seeded Boston Celtics and 7th-seed Brooklyn Nets, both teams good enough to win the NBA title. Why were they meeting so early in the postseason? Because the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: My Dukie appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
By the way, Erin Matson will be back next season, too. With all the hoopla and anticipation of eligible basketball players returning to try for a repeat trip to the Final Four, someone else in the Carolina pantheon of stars is coming back as a super senior. Three-time national field hockey player of the year […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: WHOOP! WHOOP! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis’ love story is taking hold with the Tar Heels. From his very first press conference as Carolina’s new basketball coach, Hubert told the story that he has repeated many times since. That the only reason his journey has taken him to this next step at his alma mater was because Dean Smith gave […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: At The Heart Of It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Editor’s Note: This column was published before Armando Bacot announced his intention to return to UNC for his senior season. Maybe Carolina is learning to play the NIL game. If Armando Bacot will be joined by Leaky Black and Caleb Love in returning to the Tar Heels next season, there must be some […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Is The NIL Game On? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Sam Howell has risen in the draft thanks to his pro day at UNC. Mack Brown said the mock drafts by bloggers and websites are, basically, full of it. He said they either don’t know what they are talking about, or they are being misled by sources from certain NFL teams that don’t want to […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Howell’s Stock Rising appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown has a decision to make… or does he? In a spring game hampered by unsatisfying formats, chilly temperatures and almost as many guys sitting out as playing, Carolina football was left with the same question that apparently won’t be answered until summer training camp, if ever. Who’s the quarterback? Jacolby Criswell and Drake […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Who’s The Quarterback? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Tiger Woods may indeed be a cat with nine lives. Not dishonesty, infidelity or irresponsibility can keep our most popular golfer from losing any of his enormous appeal… about 17 months after a car accident, in which he was speeding and driving recklessly, and was charged for neither. Despite saying his doctors told him they […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: New Tiger Tale appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
This just in: Hubert Davis is far from the 13th best coach in the ACC. One of my favorite things about Hubert is when he says that coaching basketball at the University of North Carolina is missionary work, an act of service. And he really believes that. But none of it is volunteer work, which […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Time To Pay Up appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina basketball fans to any degree know of the day after. If you’re old enough to drink, you’ve had at least three of them. There was the euphoria of 2005, 2009 and 2017, when no matter how bad things were in the world, at school or in your job the day after felt perfect. You […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Day After appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Final Four experience is all about experience. What Kansas proved with its dramatic win over Carolina is that experience counts in college basketball. Despite all the hype and hoopla of one-and-dones, the Jayhawks and Tar Heels played for the national championship without a freshman on the court. Kansas won because it was older and […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Age Matters appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Will Carolina own Bourbon Street for the third time? Some afterthoughts on the biggest Carolina-Duke game of all time in which the winner had every right to declare it the signature game of the storied rivalry. Whatever happened in Durham when assistant coaches Chris Carrawell and Nolan Smith blew off the post-game handshake with Hubert […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Big Easy Again? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The famous Superdome picture is now 29 years old. Very early in his first season as Carolina’s new head coach, Hubert Davis told a small group of UNC athletic sponsors that his staff had placed a picture of the Superdome in each player’s locker before the first day of practice. The picture represented the long-term […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Picture This! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
How the game is called Saturday night could be the difference. Let’s begin with the premise that Duke has more talent and a slightly deeper roster, but Carolina has become the better TEAM over the last six weeks when the Blue Devils were struggling. Both teams reached the Final Four by playing good basketball, Duke […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Here’s To Fair Play appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Is Carolina good enough to beat Duke for a second time? Hubert Davis answered some questions Tuesday about the maturation of his basketball team over the last six weeks of the season. Why, exactly, are the Tar Heels playing so much better since the surprising home loss to Pitt, winning 10 of the last 11? […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: How The Heels Did It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Consider Hubert Davis the most successful first-year coach at UNC. The Tar Heels’ next-to-incredible run to the Final Four in Hubert’s first season in charge ranks as the greatest achievement of any Carolina basketball – or perhaps other – rookie coach. As soon as Davis’ Heels finished off Saint Peter’s to complete the 2022 field […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rookie Of The Year appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was a lot easier to watch than most regional finals. Maybe we should have expected a relaxing evening when oddsmakers installed the Tar Heels 8.5-point favorites and almost all the talking heads were picking them to win. But not until the score was 24-7 did we realize they were right and this would be […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Relief, To Say The Least appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Duke is one step closer to – nope, I’m not going to say it. The Tar Heels have to take care of business tonight against UCLA for a number of reasons. Most important is they will be one step away from the Final Four in what was once a very unlikely run in the NCAA […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Forget And Forge On appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis has tried a little of everything to help his team get better. From his first day as head coach, Davis was confident Carolina could be a very good team. When the Tar Heels lost three early games, some decidedly, Hubert continued to encourage his players because he is nothing if not positive. Even […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bearded Bomber appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
There is something special that sets Courtney Banghart apart. I have watched the UNC women’s coach from afar since she took the job in 2019. On the sideline during games, she had a cool, calming demeanor that seemed genuine. The more I watched her, the more I was convinced that is exactly who she is. […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Cool, Calming Coach appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
There’s lots of Carolina blue gloating going on over Walker Kessler. Another outcome that made the weekend all the sweeter to be a Tar Heel was Auburn going down to unranked Miami and Kessler playing his worst game for Bruce Pearl. Of course, it’s a much larger story beginning almost one year ago when Kessler’s […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Last Laughs? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Did you wake up with the sweats Saturday night? When Brady Manek made his last 3-pointer from the corner, barely looking at the basket before he let it go, I truly thought I was Arthur in Wonderland. Up 25 over Baylor in Texas! Then reality hit us in the worst visible way. To make a […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Near Nightmare appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina exorcised some long-term and short-term memories. For old-timers who remember the 1977 NCAA championship game, Marquette is still a dirty word. And the Tar Heels’ home loss to that school last season stuck in the collective craw of all UNC fans now reveling in the 95-63 NCAA Texas takedown. And while we’re talking about […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Texas Takedown appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It’s crunch time for Carolina media people, too. Most schools would like to have the problem of two basketball teams going to the NCAA tournaments in different parts of the country, playing one day or two after another, or maybe even on the same day. UNC is happy to have that again. This week, the […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Raring To Go appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Dawson Garcia with and without Marquette and Carolina. This is certainly not the first time a player has been on two teams that faced each other in the NCAA tournament. But it may be the most unusual situation of that nature ever. As a freshman, 4-star recruit Garcia averaged 13.3 points and 6.6 rebounds for […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Strange Journey appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I used to be a big Tom Brady fan, but now I just don’t know. While it may have been my New England heritage, I fell hard down the TB12 rabbit hole over the 20 years he was leading the Patriots to nine Super Bowls and six championships. Sure, he was the Yankees, old Celtics, […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Off Brady Bubble appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has split 14 NCAA tournament games in Texas. Between a devastating loss to Texas A&M in Denton in 1980 and a heartbreaker to Villanova in Houston 36 years later, the Tar Heels have gone 7-5 in post-season games in Texas. The 1980 game was a strange 17-point defeat in two overtimes to the Aggies […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Mixed History appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels gave us that old, familiar feeling at the ACC tournament. They came out with the true swagger we haven’t seen in a few years, and even though they didn’t shoot the ball that well the Heels took control of the game in the first half. A 17-2 run never let Virginia out […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Deja Blue appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The new ACC commissioner made the right, and gutsy, call. One of Dean Smith’s favorite expressions was, “How you start is how you finish.” It meant his players should develop good basketball and personal habits early so it would be easier to be consistent in the long run. Jim Phillips, the new ACC commissioner, got […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: On The Job appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Maybe Louisville and Virginia will beat each other up. There are two ways to look at Carolina’s first ACC Tournament game Thursday night at 9:30 p.m. One way is that it’s just too darn late to play basketball, which obviously the TV people don’t care about because the dreaded No. 3 seed has always been […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Easy Start appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Early voting hurt Armando’s chances for Player of the Year. I’ve always hated how the ACC handles its all-conference voting, especially Player of the Year. All the way back to 1969, when South Carolina’s John Roche beat Charlie Scott for Player of the Year, the votes were already in when Scott scored 40 points against […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bacot Fleeced appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Apparently, no one was prepared for Duke to lose. From the athletic administration at Duke to ESPN, all plans were proceeding for a big Blue Devils win in Mike Krzyzewski’s last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Except nobody told the Tar Heels they were supposed to lose. When they rallied from a 7-point deficit midway […]
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bad Planning appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
How will Hubert Davis get his team to have fun at Cameron?
Davis said his Tar Heels “are not part of the pageantry” surrounding Mike Krzyzewski’s last home game at Duke.
Not the Coach K-centric hype that has been a dominant portion of ESPN programming for more than 30 years.
Not the jet-engine roar his team will hear when taking the court and tries to do better than it did at the Smith Center.
Not the NBA-rich roster that will be trying to defend their home court and K’s legacy in his Ultimate Senior Game.
Although it will be three days shy of 30 years when Davis played his last regular-season college game on Senior Day for Christian Laettner, Brian Davis and the other graduating Dukies, Hubert might try to channel the fun he had on March 8, 1992.
The No. 1-ranked Blue Devils were the defending NCAA champions on their way to back-to-back titles for the first time since UCLA won seven in a row under John Wooden. But they had lost two straight to their archrival, the 1991 ACC tournament final in Charlotte and the famous “Montross blood game” a month earlier in Chapel Hill. So Duke was out for more blood.
It couldn’t have been a more inhospitable atmosphere than maybe this time, as Krzyzewski goes out at home and then ends his Hall of Fame career with the most major college coaching wins and maybe a sixth national championship.
Hubert might remind his team of how much fun HE had that day despite the eventual 12-point loss. Davis got off to a red hot start en route to a college high of 35 points, hitting 13 of 19 shots including 6-of-8 from 3-point range.
It may be the only time cantankerous Cameron Crazies actually cheered an opposing player, caught up in the joie de vivre of No. 40 in light blue, easily outscoring the great Laettner.
And if that doesn’t work, Hubert can emphasize how much his team has come together during tough times and won four straight on the road and is ready for such a challenge.
He can also look at the box score from the February 5 game at the Dean Dome. Each team hit 10 free throws and nine 3-pointers. The 87-67 difference came down to Duke making 10 more two-point baskets.
He might say, “Play loose, have fun and make more dadgum shots!”
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: March 8, 1992 appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What should Carolina have done about honoring Coach K?
That is a difficult question and it is aside from what all the other schools on Duke’s schedule have done during this swan song regular season that ends Saturday evening when the Tar Heels visit Cameron for another ESPN “Sonic Blockbuster.”
The greatest rivalry in college basketball has both its high and low sides. Because it exploded during the cable TV age, the hyphenated Duke-Carolina has become bigger than the brand of either school. That has helped both immeasurably.
All coaches and players who have participated proudly say it was among the thrills of their lifetime. Even fans, some of whom have never attended one of the games, feel the same way since they long ago staked out their shade of blue.
The truth is, there are so many layers to this rivalry – from the recruiting battles that began with Art Heyman and Larry Brown to the programs regularly exchanging ACC supremacy to the great stars and greater games over the last 60-plus years.
For UNC, there’s no right or wrong answer. Coach K gave Dean Smith a nice tribute before the 2015 game over there. Roy Williams gave Coach K a plaque for his 1,000 wins before the rematch here. Not everyone liked either of those gestures.
On the ACC tournament documentary series, Krzyzewski said that he and Smith were “intense competitors and later were intense friends.” Some UNC alumni and fans call “BS” on that since they could not remember the Duke coach ever saying he “loved” Smith while Smith could still speak for himself.
Before Carolina introduced Coach K with a photo on the big screens and extra words at the February 5 game, a few hundred students welcomed their last sight of Krzyzewski in the Dean Dome with a vulgar chant. That was wrong and would have angered Smith. But much worse was Dick Vitale unevenly bashing UNC to millions of social media followers, considering the Crazies’ rude behavior over the years.
𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭. 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭. 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞. pic.twitter.com/0X22x7blgN
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) February 5, 2022
It’s one thing to respect the achievements of a rival coach, but no need to shower him with praise like a member of the family. Because he is not.
Photo via Carolina Athletics.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: To or Not To appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The ACC tourney docuseries sent Dean Smith out the right way.
After watching the first two episodes of the 10-part documentary, I wondered how it would treat Smith’s last years on the bench after painting him as the coach who brought the ACC into the modern era.
I was pleasantly surprised that Smith remained the focal point of the 1980s and ’90s even though Duke had caught and, for a while, surpassed the Tar Heels on the court. That must mean a lot to Carolina fans.
Coach K’s breakthrough game in 1984 had to be over the top-ranked UNC, or else it wouldn’t have been a true advance.
In games Carolina did not win, or even reach the ACC finals, Smith’s Tar Heels had a role. After he led Maryland to the first win by a visiting team in the Smith Center, Len Bias and the Terps crushed injury-depleted UNC in the first round of the 1986 tournament.
Compared favorably to Michael Jordan, Bias had won his second straight ACC Player of the Year before his tragic death from cocaine overdose the following summer.
And, of course, Carolina’s brutally physical 1989 ACC title win over Duke in Atlanta led Smith into his final decade with a reboot of four more trips to the Final Four.
Through almost each storyline, Smith and UNC are in there — from Bobby Cremins’ first ACC championship over the Tar Heels to Shammond Williams’ tearful tribute to the coach who gave him a chance to become the tourney MVP.
Two years before Shammond led Smith’s last team over Wake Forest and All-American Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress’ record-breaking 1995 tournament gave the Deacons their first ACC title in 33 years by beating you know who in overtime.
When Smith retired, he left the 1998 championship team to Bill Guthridge with four starters back. And though Guthridge was the new head coach, it would be easy to share that title between the two Hall of Fame coaches.
Two more episodes remain of the documentary that will surely make it to ESPN and reap Emmy nominations, but without Smith’s presence can they measure up? By the time Ol’ Roy came home, the ACC tourney had turned into a different animal.
Photo via AP Photo/Bob Jordan.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Still The Storyline appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
So, is this team growing on you yet?
On Dean Smith’s 91st birthday, the Tar Heels engaged in a game so similar to those Smith used to coach when his teams took the opponents best punch, hung in there and still survived.
Syracuse out-shot Carolina in every category behind a career-high 36 points from senior Cole Swider on 14-of-21 shooting that included seven 3-pointers. The Orange led with 1:13 to play before Carolina came back to force overtime, where the Heels pulled away.
They displayed swift ball movement against the ‘Cuse zone that resulted in 21 assists on 29 made baskets. They did it by pounding the glass on both ends that while not pretty was plenty effective.
They won it by relying on Brady Manek on his UNC “Senior” night until Armando Bacot came to life and notched his 23rd double-double (17/18) to tie Brice Johnson for the UNC season record.
Manek was fabulous in his 43 minutes, making half of all his shots and breaking free for crucial dunks when it appeared the game might be slipping away. The Heels needed all his 22 points.
At the end, cold Caleb Love got red hot late to score 14 of his 21 points, with his dramatic long 3-ball giving UNC its last lead of the second half. His 8 in OT helped secure the 88-79 win that assures UNC won’t play until Thursday of the ACC tournament.
Hubert Davis called his team long on fight with a short 6-man rotation that played almost all the entire 225 minutes. No one got into foul trouble, which helped limit the Orange to eight 8 free throws (5 in regulation). “I’ve said it before, but I’m so proud of this team,” Hubert said.
The most courageous warrior was Leaky Black, playing what could be his last game at the Smith Center (fans chanted “One More Year!” during the pre-game senior ceremony, referring to Black’s option to return for a COVID-allowed fifth season).
Coming off a hyperextended right knee in the win over State on Saturday, Black’s availability would be in question. But he started and played the most minutes (44) on the team and logged the final line that read 8 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 blocks and a steal.
“One More Year!” I’ll vote for that. It’s taken Leaky four years to truly grow on us, and now he’s taking his team along for the blooming.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Blooming appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Come on time to honor Leaky Black.
Ceremonies for “seniors” Black, graduate transfer Brady Manek and walk-on Ryan McAdoo will start promptly at 6:40 before Monday night’s last home game against Syracuse, which is reeling after getting blown out at home by Duke Saturday.
Leaky is questionable after hyperextending his right knee late in the first half of the laugher at N.C. State and sat out the second half, hopefully, as a precaution. He is the sixth Tar Heel to surpass 500 points, 400 rebounds, 200 assists, 100 steals and 50 blocks in his career.
Besides properly honoring the underrated and oft-unappreciated Black, this may be the last time we see him on Roy Williams Court. There is the chance he comes back as a COVID super-senior next year, although Black has yet to make that decision.
His season is not over, but Hubert Davis wants him ready for Duke Saturday and the ACC tournament next week, where the Tar Heels’ NCAA fate may be determined.
UNC needs Black to get out on Buddy Boeheim and the other Orange shooters, but Puff Johnson’s emergence could help in this game. Cam’s kid brother had 16 points in 29 minutes, both career highs, at PNC including three “3 point plays” — two long balls and three free throws after being fouled on another attempt from the arc.
Puff is Leaky’s size at 6-8 and, while not having his defensive skills, plays hard on that end. And, offensively, he could find soft spots in the corners against the ‘Cuse zone with his left-handed jumpers.
With another win, the Heels will clinch one of the ACC’s top four seeds for a double bye into Thursday at the tournament in Brooklyn.
It would help if 12-6 Miami, which holds the tiebreaker over UNC, lost at either BC or Syracuse this week, so the Tar Heels could get the third seed and face Notre Dame in the semis Friday at the Barclays Center instead of Duke for the second time in six days.
Before that, they would likely have to face Wake Forest, Virginia Tech or Virginia in the Thursday quarter finals.
First things first, beat the Orange and then get another Quad 1 win somewhere to punch their ticket to the Dance. If not with Leaky, do it for him.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: With Him or For Him appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
N.C. State, with an 11-17 record, has only two things to play for.
The game against State in Raleigh is an absolute must win for the Tar Heels, who cannot lose to the ACC’s last-place team without sliding off the NCAA tourney bubble. And, still, it’s a dangerous foe.
The Wolfpack is tied with Georgia Tech for the worst record overall and dead last in the league at 4-13. There is always a chance that a team dressed in Carolina blue coming to their house will catch State’s best game of the season. That’s the nature of the rivalry.
On paper, the match-up isn’t close. UNC shoots better from the floor, arc and foul line; has a plus-6 rebounding margin and has more assists when that isn’t exactly a Tar Heel strength. In the KenPom ratings, which I don’t really understand, it is also no contest.
Besides the hated pale blue making State turn, well, red hot, the fate of coach Kevin Keatts is clearly on the line despite his team suffering serious injuries from literally opening night. And the fact that he is the only Wolfpack coach to defeat all three Big Four rivals in their first meeting since 1919 has been lost in the discontent.
Carolina blew out State by 20 points in their first meeting, as the Tar Heels reached the 100 mark for the only time this season. Fear the Pack’s athleticism and quickness would prove problematic went away by halftime when the home team ran up a 56-31 lead.
State does have some special players, no question about it, including two of the top eight scorers in the ACC. One of them is Dereon Seabron, who is also the second-best rebounder in the conference, almost four caroms per game behind Armando Bacot, and the fifth best shooter in the league. Terquavion Smith is also the ACC’s all-around 3-point leader.
So, why exactly has State lost 7 of its last 10 games and put Keatts in the cross hairs of its perpetually disgruntled fan base? Maybe because opponents are keying on Seabron and Smith and daring someone else to beat them. No one really has.
State has two legitimate upsets this season, winning at Virginia Tech and beating Virginia in Raleigh. Its margin of defeat has been narrow only once in the last eight losses, that one by a basket at Pitt.
The Tar Heels have won 7 of the last 8 at PNC Arena.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: On Paper, Not Close appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I was reminded why I resented Jim Valvano so much.
The ACC Tournament documentary is about half over, and the segment with the 1982 and ’83 seasons was almost a love and hate story for Carolina fans, including me. After coming home from six Final Fours without the national championship, Dean Smith finally won it all with one of the greatest teams ever assembled. Think about it.
Jordan. Worthy. Perkins.
The ’82 Tar Heels. Dean Smith’s first national title team @UNC_Basketball
The Tournament pic.twitter.com/feoy05wKu1
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 22, 2022
Junior James Worthy, sophomore Sam Perkins and freshman Michael Jordan, with excellent role players Jimmy Black and Matt Doherty. When they cut down the nets at the Superdome, it was like all Tar Heels fans had crossed the desert and the Red Sea had parted.
Meanwhile, N.C. State had replaced Stormin’ Norman Sloan, who might have never cracked a joke in his life, with stand-up comedian Jim Valvano. Coming from a tiny school in New York, he would introduce himself by saying “Jim Valvano, Iona College.” People would respond, “Son, you’re too young to own a college.”
He knew he couldn’t beat Dean Smith, so he said, “I don’t plan to outcoach him, I plan to outlive him.” Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be a joke. But the year after Smith’s first title, Valvano won his first and only, and the way he did Carolina fans weren’t laughing.
Sure, Worthy was gone, but Perkins was still there, and Jordan had elevated his game to win National Player of the Year. Savvy point guard Black had graduated, but there was still enough firepower to at least win a third straight ACC tournament championship.
The Tar Heels played Valvano’s Wolfpack in the semifinals in Atlanta and led most of the way before State rallied to force overtime. They led by six points, when Jimmy V started fouling Carolina for a chance to shoot experimentally short 3-pointers on the other end. Brad Daugherty, Curtis Hunter and Jimmy Braddock missed three straight one-and-ones, and the Pack pulled off the shocker.
If State hadn’t won the ACC tournament it wouldn’t have even made the Big Dance. But Valvano’s Cinderella team took home the NCAA championship with six more improbable wins, and somehow that seemed to cheapen Smith’s long quest for his NCAA banner.
That’s why I didn’t like it then and still don’t like it now.
1983 ACC Champions
1983 National ChampionsJimmy V spoke it into existence @PackMensBball pic.twitter.com/6xUWTQ0JFq
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 22, 2022
Photo via WRAL TV.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good, Bad Memories appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
NIL and the transfer portal are entwining demons of college athletics.
They happened about the same time, but athletes being paid for their Name-Image-Likeness while allowed to transfer and not sit out a year have taken the corruption in college sports to a new level.
UNC football coach Mack Brown said so in his pre-spring Zoom conference Tuesday.
“Somebody on a national committee said there’s so much cheating within NIL,” Brown said. “And there’s so much tampering. Having it tied into the transfer portal even makes it worse because you can leave tomorrow for a deal. That’s just not the way this thing was supposed to be.”
The confusing and ungoverned practice of having third parties paying athletes NIL money, on its own, is a veritable playground for payoffs. The NCAA has washed its hands of it so, generally, universities are left to police how and what is being done.
Athletes making thousands of dollars on NIL sponsorships are part of the recruiting pitch to prep stars as is raiding other schools for their best players who might be tempted to transfer.
“We can’t promise anybody any money for play,” Brown said, “but just about every transfer I talked to was being offered money. So it was a little ridiculous. We’ve got to find an answer here, to put some guidelines on this, or we’ll never see college sports again the way we’ve seen it.”
North Carolina coach Mack Brown watches a replay on Friday, Nov. 26, 2021, in Raleigh, N.C. Brown shared his thoughts on Tuesday on how the combination of name, image and likeness compensation and the transfer portal are reshaping college football’s recruiting landscape. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)
The urgency in Brown’s voice indicated the problem has become whether any, if not all, of the toothpaste can be put back in the tube.
“Everybody’s looking at it, and the problem is how do you fix it and how do you fix it quickly?” Brown went on.
It is worse in football, where managing 100-player rosters from the season to spring practice to summer training camp has become nearly impossible. Coaches can’t decide how many kids to sign in their next recruiting class, or transfers to pursue, because they don’t know how many who are in the program will leave, suddenly.
“I’ve been told the only thing we can explain to a recruit or his parents is what opportunities our players are currently getting, and how that works,” Brown said.
The stories may differ from one school to the next.
Some are enlisting big corporations to provide millions of dollars in NIL money to spread around to athletes and recruits. Brown said UNC is not among them, using a strictly donor-based program called Heels4Life.
“Recruiting people off your team and trying to pay them money is not best for the sport, not best for the kids,” Brown said. “It’s not what we all grew up in this business for.”
Photo via Photo by Rick Kimball/Irish Sports Daily.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Out Of Control’ appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was more than a touch of the old days at the Smith Center.
Before a boisterous and highly appreciative crowd, Carolina advanced what could become a late-season surge into the NCAA tournament with another hard-fought and hard-earned victory over rugged Louisville.
The Tar Heels weren’t great for most of the game, but they made enough big-time plays on both ends of the court and, with the outcome on the line, produced some of their best basketball of late.
They kept the big and athletic Cardinals out of the paint, where Louisville was eating their lunch earlier. Over the last three-plus minutes, Carolina shut them out and sealed its 20th win of an erratic season and held on to 3rd place in the ACC.
Just as in Blacksburg Saturday afternoon, the Heels toughed it out this time over an opponent that kept the game virtually statistically even except for having 23 points off the bench compared to 2 for UNC. That should have resulted in fatigue for the home team, which fought it off for the 70-63 win.
Hubert Davis is down to basically a five-man rotation, stealing minutes from the starters with short subs Puff Johnson, Dontrez Styles and Kerwin Walton. The “iron five” again did it behind Armando Bacot’s 21st double-double of the season, Brady Manek’s timely shooting, and all-around wings Leaky Black and R.J. Davis defending their buns off and adding big buckets.
With his increasing maturity apparent over 40 grueling minutes, Caleb Love stopped turning the ball over and scored Carolina’s last four points while the ’Ville was stuck on 63. Besides the 7 turnovers, Love also had 5 assists, 2 steals and a blocked shot to go with his 16 points.
Black’s driving dunk and corner 3-ball on consecutive possessions gave the Tar Heels some early life in the second half. From there, they never trailed by more than two points and took the lead for good on an old-fashioned three-point play by Love and stretched it behind the passing and scoring of Manek, whom Coach Davis later declared an official “dude.”
With four starters in double figures in a better-played game than at Virginia Tech, Davis can rest his pooped troops until they visit N.C. State Saturday and Black’s Senior Night against Syracuse the following Monday.
Both of those games are still must-wins to avoid big drama on Selection Sunday, no matter what happens at Duke on March 5. With three games plus the ACC tournament left, Carolina has already bettered the records of Ol’ Roy’s last two teams. Not too bad for a rookie head coach.
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a complete photo gallery of the game, click here.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pooped Troops appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Wasn’t it Al Davis of the old Oakland Raiders who coined, “Just win, baby!”
That’s exactly what our schizoid Tar Heels did in Blacksburg, using a formula that can only be described as “gumption and gifts.”
Gumption because the Heels bounced back from what looked like a disastrous home loss to lowly Pitt with their best win of the season, allowing them to cling to the NCAA tournament bubble.
The gift was Virginia Tech’s inexplicable shooting. The home Hokies threw every psychological doodad at Carolina – calling it their Senior Day when they still have one home date left and making it their “black-out” game with students and most fans wearing the dreaded dark.
It turned into a metaphor for shooting with their eyes closed.
Virginia Tech came into the game making 42 percent from the 3-point line, best in the ACC and second-best in the dad-gum nation. The Hokies hit just 2 of 12 threes (17 percent) in the first half to let 52 percent-shooting Carolina take control of the game. They finished with a season-low 19.2 percent, canning only 5 of the 26 treys upchucked. The 65-57 loss also marked their fewest points at the usually cantankerous Cassell Coliseum in 2021-22.
Carolina’s fast-closing first half and continued command of the backboards, combined with some near-flawless free throw shooting, allowed the Tar Heels to escape with their 19th victory of the season and reach 11 ACC wins (11-5) for the 36th time in their glorious history.
While Caleb Love will get the most hosannas for his finest all-around college game (21 points, 7 assists, 3 important bombs and 6-for-6 sealing free throws), the Heels led 38-30 at the break after what may have been the best first half ever by a player who failed to score.
Armando Bacot missed his only shot in the first 20 minutes but had 6 rebounds, 3 blocks and played determined defense in the paint. AB then scored 4 of his 10 points to open the second, when Carolina built its lead to 14 before the Heels’ own frigid shooting might have done them in. Bacot finished with his 20th double-double of the season, fourth-most in UNC annals.
So as the NCAA NET rankings change with nearly every game played everywhere, UNC might have actually notched its second Quad 1er, if Michigan keeps winning enough in the strong Big Ten to make the Wolverines’ December 1 defeat at the Smith Center more valuable than it has been so far.
Complicated for sure, but way more important is Carolina keeping Mr. Hyde in the closet, starting with the game against angry and improving Louisville tonight at 7 in the Dome of Dean.
Photo via Scott P. Yates/The Roanoke Times.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Gumption And Gifts appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina at Virginia Tech is basically an NCAA tournament play-in game.
The Tar Heels’ visit to boisterous, 10,000-seat Cassell Coliseum Saturday afternoon was already a huge game for them. Now, it is even bigger for several reasons, the most important of which is they have to win to stay on the NCAA bubble.
It also has become a Quad 1 game since the Hokies rallied from a 2-7 start in the ACC with six straight wins and now sit at No. 36 in the NCAA NET Rankings that will determine the 68-team field on Sunday, March 13. After the disastrous loss to 11-16 Pitt in the Smith Center, Carolina plunged eight spots in the NET from 37 to 45.
With that Quad 4 loss, it is hard to imagine a reasonable path for the Tar Heels without winning in either Blacksburg or at Duke March 6, and they are solid underdogs in both games. There could still be a crucial win in the ACC tournament, which carries less weight on a neutral court.
Since the NCAA turned to the NET analytics systems a few years ago, no team without a Quad 1 win has made the field. Carolina seemed like a candidate to break that precedent before losing badly to the Panthers. And there are still three other games that could be dangerous for the team that was badly outshot and out-muscled by an underdog at home.
Louisville is 5-10 in the ACC and 11-14. Buoyed by what Pitt did, the equally rugged Cardinals come here Monday with a chip on their shoulder after the wild loss at the Yum! Center on a controversial technical foul call at the end of overtime. And they will have 6-10 center Malik Williams, who was suspended for the first game.
Going to N.C. State is never a picnic, even though the Wolfpack is in 14th place in the ACC at 4-12. UNC blew out its in-state rival in the first game at the Dean Dome. And Syracuse, the opponent for Leaky Black’s Senior Night on February 28, will test Carolina’s hot-and-cold outside shooters with its assorted 2-3 zones.
The positive trend just 48 hours ago has made a sharp turn the other way. The Hokies just beat archrival Virginia at home last Monday, and they treat Carolina with equal contempt. Coach Mike Young upset the Heels when he was at Wofford and beat UNC two years ago in double overtime in their last visit to The Cassell. This one is far bigger.
Win or lose, how Hubert Davis’ team responds to the Pitt loss will be an important theme of the 4 p.m. game on ESPN2.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Will Heels Respond? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina’s crushing loss to Pitt will be dissected from every angle.
Let’s start with the home crowd, one of the smallest of the season. The official attendance will reflect how many tickets were sold to the game, not how many people showed up. The upper deck is always the indicator, and above the loge seats was mostly empty.
That sparsity was surprising, especially with the publicity about UNC’s Media and Communications Center being deservedly dedicated to the late Woody Durham, legendary Voice of the Tar Heels. Deep into the second half, fans paying attention were hoping their team could get to the place where Woody instructed us to “Go where you go and do what you do.”
Although Carolina made what might be termed a gallant comeback, the truth is the Heels did not make enough plays from beginning to end to win. Such a loss so late in the season will be damaging to their NCAA tourney hopes, which were trending upward after winning 6 of the last 7.
Pitt was the better team in every aspect. The Panthers came in 10-16 and just trying to avoid finishing last in the ACC. Their NET ranking was 179, making this a Quad 4 game – and a very bad loss – for UNC (No. 37), which does not have a Quad 1 win and likely leaves its chances of getting an at-large NCAA invitation on winning at BOTH Virginia Tech and Duke.
Many alumni and fans will go back to Hubert Davis, whose reviews have been up and down all season. Roy Williams, who was standing and cheering from his corner seat until every bit of air was out of the balloon, would say after bad losses that the opponent “outplayed us and outcoached us.” That’s one luxury a Hall of Famer has with so much good credit.
After building a double-digit lead early in the first half, Pitt had taken the small crowd out of the game and was playing with house money, like scrimmaging loosely in an empty gym.
Davis said “the tougher team won” but critics will throw that back for not better preparing his guys for the Panthers’ very physical style. It HAS to be even more than that.
Pitt’s Jeff Capel may still be coaching for his job and has a brother and ex-Tar Heel (Jason) on his staff and connections at alma mater Duke to draw up a good game plan. It was Carolina’s job to know that, be ready for it and answer the Panthers’ aggressiveness and strategies. It never happened.
So where do the Tar Heels go from here? At Blacksburg Saturday and in Cameron on March 5, they will hear the opinion loud and clear: “NIT! NIT!”
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Very Bad Loss appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was a strange night for Duke coaches — past, present and future.
Before the tipoff between the Blue Devils and Wake Forest in a typically wild Cameron Indoor Stadium, excerpts from a new book hit the internet. It is written by long-time college basketball reporter Ian O’Connor and is titled “Coach K: The Rise and Reign of Mike Krzyzewski.”
The biggest headline was about the choice to be the next Duke coach after this, Krzyzewski’s 42nd season in Durham and his 47th as a head college basketball coach. As we all know, that is Jon Scheyer: the captain of Coach K’s 2010 national championship team and his assistant since 2014.
But, according to O’Connor, Duke President Vincent Price favored Tom Amaker, another former Blue Devils captain who has been the coach at Harvard for the last 15 years after stints at Seton Hall and Michigan. To heck with continuity in the program, Price wanted experience. But not Coach K.
Since Duke had blown out Wake on its home floor in January, the Deacons have been one of the best teams in the ACC. Still, it wasn’t surprising the Devils ran out to a 14-point lead as the Crazies went insane.
When Krzyzewski left the court at halftime with his normal police protection under his five NCAA championship banners, he was limping even more than usual on one or both of his artificial knee joints. He didn’t look great either but, hey, he had just turned 75 on Sunday.
During halftime, many fans were on their phones with some obviously reading about O’Connor’s book, which says Coach K had a “very difficult conversation” with Amaker, who was left “heartbroken” about the decision. It also claims he had clashed with another former Duke player and assistant Quin Snyder who had favored recruiting kids without traditional Duke backgrounds.
The book apparently covers the eventual recruitment of Zion Williamson, whose family has been implicated in illegal payments from the time the No. 1 NBA draft pick left school. Duke is usually bullet proof from such things.
A murmur grew in Cameron when Coach K did not come out with his team for the second half. Word spread that he “wasn’t feeling well” and would let Scheyer put away the Deacs, who soon fell behind by 17 points.
Duke associate head coach Jon Scheyer reacts during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Wake Forest in Durham, N.C., Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
The murmurs turned into a collective groan as Wake roared back and eventually tied the game with less than 18 seconds remaining. What would be the reaction if the protégé couldn’t finish what his mentor started?
After Duke center Mark Williams dunked the winning basket, the crowd went nuts. Coach K and his minions had avoided some serious second-guessing.
Photo via Walt Unks/The Winston-Salem Journal and The Associated Press.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rumors And Rallies appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
ACC Tournament, Episode 3, is all about Dean Smith’s maiden years.
The third and fourth installments of the ACC Tournament documentary aired this week on the ACC Network, and Carolina fans have to love the beginning of Smith’s 36-year career as head coach of the Tar Heels. It goes from some students hanging him in effigy in 1965 to Larry Miller and Charlie Scott capping three straight ACC championships Smith won in his 6th, 7th and 8th seasons, the first conference coach to do it.
UNC men’s basketball head coach Dean Smith and assistant coach Roy Williams (sitting, black suit) during the 1982 Final Four. (Photo via UNC Libraries.)
Miller was fantastic, the All-American boy who admitted he “played hard and partied hard.” He hasn’t returned to Chapel Hill much over the years, but his new book and this special will get lots of attention. “I never felt like that any other time in my life,” Miller said with emotion.
Scott’s recruitment as UNC’s first black scholarship athlete captures the heartache and heart throbs his presence created. Dick Grubar, the point guard on those three-in-a-row Tar Heels, shared some wonderful anecdotes, but more on his linchpin Class of 1969 is needed. “Coach Smith said after the first one, ‘Thank you for saving my job,’” Grubar revealed.
The segment ran all the way into the early battles with Maryland and Tom McMillen, who jilted Carolina for College Park at the last minute and was part of Lefty Driesell’s brazen claim to become UCLA of the East.
McMillen’s spot in the lineup for one year was filled by Bob McAdoo, the juco transfer who had grown up in Greensboro. He said he was taken aback by the whiteness of UNC until Smith told him, “I understand about your social situation,” and then added, “If you wanted to date my daughter, I would have no problem with that.”
Can you imagine a white basketball coach saying that to a Black recruit in 1970? McAdoo remembers those words to this day as the “most impressive thing I ever heard from a white man.”
Captain Clutch took over the 1967 @accmbb Tournament and delivered Dean Smith his first ACC title @UNC_Basketball
The Tournament pic.twitter.com/dKmZqq1xoh
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 15, 2022
The episode ties up those first 11 years – less than one third – of Smith’s career, with McAdoo leading Carolina over Maryland for the 1972 ACC championship and winning tourney MVP in his hometown. “UCLA of the East!” McAdoo said, smiling. “They weren’t even the North Carolina of the East.”
It includes a little Frank McGuire and South Carolina and ends by teasing the sequel with a picture of David Thompson, whose two-year rivalry with McMillen and Maryland would cover the entire part 4 of this don’t-miss doc.
Anybody who watches it closely understands how Dean Smith brought ACC basketball into the modern era.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Linchpin Years appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
By the chalk, Virginia Tech is the biggest remaining game for Carolina.
Six teams could still win or tie for first place in the tepid ACC, but going by the favorites, the Tar Heels have one game that means the most. Assuming they can take care of Pitt Wednesday night, their trip to Blacksburg Saturday is the one that could make their regular season hopes.
Duke and Notre Dame lead the current standings at 11-3.
The Blue Devils will be favored to win their remaining six games: home against Wake Forest, home against Florida State, at Virginia, at Syracuse, at Pitt and home against UNC. Sure, the Dukies lost at home to Virginia, but do you really see them not getting even in Charlottesville? While the Syracuse zone could give them problems at the Carrier Dome, the Orange have been up and down all season.
Notre Dame has the easiest schedule down the stretch – with the game at Wake Forest the only one where the Irish will be underdogs. So, let’s say they wind up 16-4.
Miami and UNC are a full game behind the league leaders with 10-4 records, and the Hurricanes could lose at home to Virginia and Virginia Tech and maybe even at Syracuse. They likely have to win at least three of their remaining games to finish in the top four.
The Tar Heels have two other games they should win besides Pitt: Louisville and at N.C. State. Playing Syracuse is always tough for them, and the only way they beat Duke is by shooting the lights out at Cameron like they figuratively and literally shot them out at home against FSU.
So, looking ahead to Saturday’s game is easy to do. Beating the Hokies up there could get them one of the four double byes in the ACC tournament and also lock up an NCAA spot since it would be a Quad 1 win. In the latest NET rankings, UNC is No. 38, second best in the ACC. Va Tech is next at 39.
To make a long story short, Carolina probably has to go 5-1 in its last six games to make the top four in the ACC and get into the Big Dance early, which would be a major accomplishment considering how the season has gone on and off the court with inconsistency and personnel losses.
Of course, the tournament in Brooklyn could also resurrect or kill some of the borderline teams’ chances. The ACC champion gets an automatic NCAA bid, but unexpected wins or losses in the earlier rounds could shake things up even more.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Tar Heels Climbing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For the second straight year, Florida State is THE game for Carolina.
Last February, the unranked Tar Heels started their late-season push for an NCAA tournament bid by upsetting the 11th-ranked Seminoles at the Smith Center, which opened its doors to about 3,000 fans in the pandemic.
Carolina trailed 41-29 at the break before outscoring FSU by 20 points in the second half to claim the 78-70 win. It was important to the NCAA selection committee, which eventually gave the Heels a No. 8 seed after they barely lost to the Noles in the ACC tourney semifinals.
Florida State was 14-4 coming into the game and UNC 15-8, and the afternoon is best remembered for freshman Walker Kessler’s breakout performance with 20 points and 8 rebounds, sparking his former team’s second-half surge. Kessler now plays for top-ranked Auburn and is a projected NBA first-round draft pick.
The victory plus their second consequential win in the ACC tournament, beating No. 22 Virginia Tech, made them an NCAA lock. The Tar Heels defeated unranked Duke twice but had no victories over ranked teams until beating Florida State. That put them on the track they need to get back on this season.
The circumstances are slightly different for Saturday’s meeting at what should be a pretty packed Dean Dome. It is again a must-win for Carolina, which basically “must win” every game except an expected loss at Duke on March 6 to get an at-large bid. Right now, UNC is among the “last four in” grouping on the ESPN projections.
With the current ACC so mediocre, the 17-7 Heels cannot afford any more “bad losses,” and this would be one if the injury-wracked Seminoles won sans three of their top players, all out with season-ending surgeries.
FSU has lost five straight and is down to 6-7 in the ACC, 13-10 overall, and has been falling out of NCAA tourney contention since beating Duke on January 18 in Tallahassee for its biggest win of the season.
So, while Carolina is the favorite this time, the 2 pm game is nevertheless just as important as a year ago because of post-season ramifications. The Seminoles are currently 96th in the NET Rankings, which means winning on the road would drag UNC (No. 41) way down.
As much as a “must win,” it is just as much a “can’t lose” affair for the Tar Heels. . . as close to a do-or-die game as it gets.
Photo via ACC Media.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Do or Die Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What the heck has happened to the proud legacy of ACC basketball?
It is ironic that ESPN has spent years producing the docu-series on the history of the ACC tournament and picked this season to debut it Monday night right after Duke took another loss at home to Virginia.
Are you ready?
"The Tournament" premieres TONIGHT at 9 PM ET on ACCN. pic.twitter.com/De1sHWDJlp
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) February 8, 2022
If you haven’t noticed, the league has its lowest ranking in perhaps history, seventh behind the Big 12, SEC, Big 10, Big East, Mountain West and Pac 12. Jay Bilas says it is a matter of personnel, which is only up to par at Duke, the one conference team ranked in another historic footnote.
The ACC is splitting badly between the “Have Some” teams and the “Have Nots.” Five are currently vying for the top four seeds in the ACC tournament and double byes into the Thursday quarterfinals at the Barclays Center. If home crowds around the ACC are any indication, that will be an easy ticket in Brooklyn.
Wednesday night was a typical night of trends. Three teams with something still to play for all took care of business, starting with Notre Dame, which vaulted into first place by beating a lousy Louisville squad in South Bend. Wake Forest kept pace in the first four battle by dispatching State in Raleigh, where Kevin Keatts’ job is suddenly in jeopardy. And Georgia Tech fell at Miami to become the fifth team with at least nine league losses.
The question is what happened to Florida State, which dropped its fifth straight game to a Pitt team that might have saved Jeff Capel’s job. The Seminoles are now the eighth ACC team with a losing conference record and are reeling coming to the Smith Center Saturday afternoon. They looked like they were playing to their home crowd, which was embarrassingly small.
The 9-4 Tar Heels have some work to do to get that double-bye and don’t have tiebreakers against Notre Dame, Wake Forest and Miami by virtue of losing to each in their only meetings of the season. UNC will also lose that to Duke unless it pulls a massive upset in Coach K’s Senior Game.
With three weeks left in the regular season, the ACC is stuck with only one assured entry into the NCAA tournament. As many as five could make it, but right now it looks like three, with Notre Dame and Wake having the best resumes after the still top-10 Blue Devils.
The problem is that the ACC is so bad that unless you beat Duke you can’t make up any ground. It is certainly not the ACC we all know and love.
If you long for the good old days, watch the documentary.
Photo via Ethan Hyman/News & Observer.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Not The Good Old Days appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Caleb Love sure is hard not to like.
After another infuriating performance of forced shots and unforced turnovers, Love lived up to his name in the last minute of Carolina’s ugly and eventually beautiful win at Clemson.
Down by one point and unable to penetrate the clawing Clemson defense, Love launched a had-to-have-it long ball from the left side. It turned around his rough night by going in smoothly.
Thirty-three seconds later, with the score tied in the waning moments of regulation, Love turned the corner at the top of the key and headed downhill to the basket. Instead of putting up a contested layup or settling for one of his floaters, he looked over his left shoulder and found Brady Manek coming down the lane for the winning layup.
Just before that, Love had ended an important possession by stepping out of bounds on the sideline, his fifth turnover of the game. He shot 4-for-12, but his two 3-pointers in the second half gave the Tar Heels the lead each time in a see-saw battle that wasn’t pretty but had the intensity of an elimination game.
For Carolina, it was critical to post another Quad 2 road win to stay alive for an NCAA tournament bid; for Clemson, 12-11 and 4-8 in the ACC, it will be hard to finish with a winning record and salvage a spot in the NIT with Duke, Notre Dame, Florida State and Wake Forest still to play.
The Tar Heels fell behind by 11 points early but held the Tigers scoreless for four minutes to take the lead by halftime. Despite shooting 61 percent in the second half, including 5 of 12 from the arc, their five starters in double figures including Armando Bacot’s 18th double-double of the season had trouble containing Clemson’s timely shooters and keeping them off the foul line where they finished 19-of-21.
Hubert Davis played basically six guys, with R.J. Davis and Leaky Black combining for 71 minutes without either committing a turnover. Kerwin Walton got 14 minutes and scored 7 important points. But the team looked fatigued from the disheartening loss to Duke 72 hours earlier. Manek, for example, may have played his worst game at UNC following one of his best but was there at the end for what may turn out to be a very significant basket.
Fortunately, the Heels have three full days before hosting Florida State Saturday at 2 in another must-win on the road to the Road to the Final Four.
Photo via Jim Hawkins/247Sports.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Gutting It Out appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Truth is, Hubert Davis inherited a program in decline.
Recently, I watched a replay of the 2017 Duke-Carolina game from the Smith Center, a battle between teams with pros and great college players.
Duke had Jayson Tatum, Luke Kennard, Grayson Allen and Frank Jackson, who all got guaranteed NBA contracts after the season. UNC had first-rounders Justin Jackson and Tony Bradley and ensuing free agents Luke Maye, Joel Berry, Kennedy Meeks, Isaiah Hicks and Theo Pinson. It was a classic blueblood battle.
The Tar Heels won and went on to a second straight (and fifth) Final Four under Roy Williams, winning his third national championship in 13 years during which Duke reached two Final Fours and won two NCAA titles.
The next four years, neither team got to the final weekend of the season, although the Blue Devils went to last possessions of the Elite Eight twice before COVID canceled the Big Dance in 2020 and Duke was not invited in ’21.
If you remember, UNC also trended downward those four years. Bradley turned pro as a freshman and the undersized 2018 Heels lost an NCAA 2nd-round game to Texas A&M at their de facto home court in Charlotte. The next year, with Coby White, they got blown out by Auburn in the Sweet 16. Back in the tourney a year ago, Roy’s last team lost badly in the first-round.
Obviously, Carolina wasn’t great in 2021 despite sweeping Duke. And losing three of its top four big men left gaping holes for Hubert to fill. Brady Manek has been the key to opening the floor. Dawson Garcia has terrific potential if and when he returns. Caleb Love and R.J. Davis are good, not great, and the team’s depth has dwindled with average subs and unready freshmen.
So, it’s always about the players — who comes, who develops, who stays and who leaves. Successor Jon Scheyer has signed the No. 1 recruiting class, and obviously Mike Krzyzewski’s fingerprints are all over those incoming five-stars. Coach K will retire, but Duke’s one-and-done story will go on.
Clearly, the Tar Heels need more good players than they’ve had the last few years, and whether they get them will write Hubert’s story more than any record they achieve on the court. Their best incoming freshman is pure point guard Seth Trimble, the half-brother of J.P. Tokoto and considered near the top prospect at his position. We’ll see what the rest of the class does, and it will decide the immediate future of Carolina basketball, good or not so.
Photo via AP Photo/Jessica Hill.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Downward Trend appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Tar Heel Nation, get a dad gum grip! The better team won.
It wasn’t the first time Carolina was blown out by a stronger opponent playing better. Remember Roy Williams’ last game, his first-ever loss in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, when he got torched by Wisconsin.
As discussed last week, Duke was a bad match-up at every position. Not only five first-round draft picks versus none for UNC, but each of its starters outplayed every one of ours. The Blue Devils made their first three shots and 8 of their first 9; the Heels opened 1-for-7, some of them good looks and, despite a late first-half run, the deficit eventually ballooned to 28.
That perfect storm for Duke turned into a tsunami when unranked Carolina couldn’t contain its eighth-ranked rival, which shot 58 percent. The one match-up the home team was depending on lasted less than four minutes as Armando Bacot picked up two quick fouls, one when he was pump-faked into the air by Duke 7-footer Mark Williams and the second when AB pushed Paolo Banchero after being badly beaten on the baseline. Both wasted fouls.
The Tar Heels needed two of Leaky Black, who shut down Banchero for most of the first half, while fellow frosh A.J. Griffin went off for 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting before personally authoring Duke’s 10-0 run to start the second half.
Dawson Garcia might have helped out Black and spelled the gallant-but-gassed Brady Manek, and Anthony Harris could have taken some pressure off Caleb Love and R.J. Davis, who shot 7-for-21 from the floor. The athletic Devils switched on almost all screens, making it even harder for Carolina to score.
Duke is among the eight teams most likely to win the national championship. Perhaps so sure of delivering UNC’s first loss at home, Mickie Krzyzewski made a rare appearance in Chapel Hill to be there for Coach K’s last visit. Would she have come if her husband had any doubt?
This wasn’t the worst loss Carolina took from Duke at home in Krzyzewski’s 42 years of the rivalry. That came in the disastrous 2002 season when UNC lost by 29 points and Coach K called off the dogs midway through the second half. He had to admonish his players for laughing at just how bad those 8-20 Tar Heels were, as Duke fans crowed with glee.
Two years later, Roy Williams had the program back on track and before Saturday night the rivalry was tied 50-50 over the last 100 meetings.
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a photo gallery of the game, click here.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Way Better, Period. appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Based on NBA mock draft boards, Carolina doesn’t have a chance vs. Duke.
Of course, your response to these projections will be, “That’s why they play the game!” I totally agree, but you can’t help being intimidated by what the latest mock draft boards say about the Blue Devils. Remember, players are drafted for their pro potential even more than college stats.
There are a half-dozen or so mock drafts out there – ESPN, NBADraftNet and Yahoo, among them. And if you dare to check them out, Duke has players listed all over every one – in ESPN, for example, five Dukies are slated to go in the first round of the 2022 NBA draft, which has 30 picks.
Paola Banchero is a lock from No. 1 to No. 4 on every board. The highly skilled, 6-10 power forward who can play all over the court will be a nightmare match-up for the Tar Heels, whoever they choose to guard him.
Next comes his fellow freshman A.J. Griffin, who missed early season games with an injury but has since shown pro scouts all they have to know about the 6-6, 220-pound wing. Then 6-4 Trevor Keels, the other freshman guard, followed by sophomore 7-0 center Mark Williams and 6-5 junior swing man Wendell Moore.
All you can say about that is if those five go, Jon Scheyer’s first recruiting class (currently rated at No. 1) will have a lot of playing time!
If you are interested in where Carolina shows up on the boards, it is scarce. Caleb Love is the No. 36 pick (early second round) on one board, and Brady Manek’s outstanding play of late has vaulted him into the last second-round pick (No. 60) by NBADraftNet.
One surprising take-away is that Armando Bacot, the ACC’s leading rebounder and among its most-accurate shooters and top scorers, is not listed on any mock draft board as of this week. Bacot, who has become a double-double machine, is an easy All-ACC first teamer and in the running for Player of the Year down the stretch, but maybe not an NBA pro.
One other notable name is Carolina transfer Walker Kessler, who starts for Auburn and is having an outstanding season for the top-ranked Tigers, averaging 11.5 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. The NBA has him listed at No. 19, ESPN as the last pick in the first round.
Photo via AP Photo/Robert Franklin.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Draft Kings appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
No rocking chair for Coach K this weekend.
Fans have wondered how UNC will recognize Mike Krzyzewski’s last visit to the Smith Center as Duke’s head coach when the teams meet Saturday at 6 pm on ESPN. Apparently, the answer is “hardly,” as Coach K continues his farewell tour in his swan song season.
According to Steve Kirschner, UNC’s associate athletic director for communications, the only thing different from a normal visit by any opposing team is that, during the announcement of starting lineups, something will be “mentioned” when Krzyzewski’s name is called out.
Regardless of what other schools have done (like a baseball bat at Louisville!), UNC won’t give him the golden rocking chair that some 75-year-old retirees receive. Will that mention include that Coach K has most wins in the history of Division I basketball (okay with me) or that he has a 49-46 lifetime record against the Tar Heels (not okay with me) or that his head-to-head numbers against Roy Williams are 22-18 (definitely not okay?)
After all, Ol’ Roy who was feted at halftime of Saturday’s blowout win over State actually had the best record in the country over his 18 seasons at Carolina, including 3 national championships, 5 Final Fours and consecutive NCAA title game appearances, plus 9 ACC regular-season crowns.
Kirschner reminded the media last week that UNC was the only school to give Krzyzewski a plaque for reaching 1000 wins when Duke played here in 2015, as part of the sellout crowd booed the announcement.
There is even a backstory to that truism.
Dean Smith had died a few weeks before Carolina’s visit to Cameron, where Duke offered a pre-game ceremony for the departed Hall of Fame coach. The teams and coaches formed an interlocking circle at midcourt before tip-off and bowed their heads for a very touching moment of silence.
So when the Blue Devils came over for the regular-season finale, UNC presented a plaque to Coach K before the game. The fans who booed were quickly drowned out by the more decent people on hand.
No rocking chair or plaque this Saturday, a few extra words for Coach K’s last official trip to Chapel Hill, and hopefully politically correct ones.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: No Rock-A-Bye Bye appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It was a great win that would have been a far worse loss.
The game at Louisville had everything college basketball can offer and a few things you never want to see. The Tar Heels literally battled to their fourth straight victory to climb within a half-game of first place in the ACC.
Until midway through the second half, Carolina was the superior team in talent, effort and execution. Then the Heels lost their composure and very nearly lost the game in regulation before winning in overtime.
In some ways, these Heels are considerably better than the team that stumbled through much of November, December and January. But on the first day of February, a thinner squad due to personnel losses played an inspired game in a hostile arena until a certain victory almost slipped away.
Leading by 10 points midway through the second half, Carolina went scoreless for more than four minutes as the Cardinals caught up and went ahead by four. This was mostly a self-inflicted meltdown of what Hubert Davis called “turnovers and shot selection” as the game turned frantic while his team needed to keep its cool and catch its breath.
Missing seven shots, mostly hurried outside heaves, forced driving layups and one dunk, the Heels also became careless with the ball when they should have been taking their sweet time to keep the crowd out of it and take the pressure off their starters who played all but 21 of the 225 minutes.
That they got the game into overtime after almost giving it away was a testament to their once-questioned toughness and dramatic shots from each of the first five who all scored in double figures. Brady Manek’s baskets after offensive rebounds, R.J. Davis’ clutch jumpers and Leaky Black’s third 3-pointer on a night when the defensive specialist made every shot he took were all key.
Carolina played three subs sparingly and all went scoreless compared to Louisville’s 44 points off the bench. Taking away Caleb Love’s 3-for-18, the team shot 28-of-53 from the floor and 11-of-20 from the 3-point line. But it was Love’s only long ball that got overtime started and Black’s trey that provided the team’s last lead before all hell broke loose under the basket.
Armando Bacot fought relentlessly for his 22 rebounds while playing most of the second half in deep foul trouble and sealing the win with a free throw. With Duke up next at home, it avoided the worst possible prelude.
Photo via AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: More Than A Win appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Leaky Black just may be Carolina’s most valuable player.
It certainly is a wonder how the senior from Concord was not elected a captain of the Tar Heels, which generally goes to one of the longest-tenured players and most valuable. Black qualifies on both counts.
He is the only senior on scholarship, and the analytics show the Tar Heels have a much better chance to win with Leaky in the lineup. The last three games, all important wins at home, tell the story.
Black’s plus-minus for the hard-fought victories over Virginia Tech and Boston College and the blowout of N.C. State are +53, meaning the Tar Heels have outscored their opponents by 53 points with Leaky on the floor.
His season total is +212, best on the team with Armando Bacot next with +208. Black has had only four minus-games of the 20 he has started and played, all losses, with a total in those games of -48. Bacot has five minus-games, also all defeats, and his total is minus-79.
With Black on the floor, Carolina has allowed 91 points per 100 possessions. With Black on the bench, the number balloons to 116. Led by that defensive impact, UNC is outscoring opponents by 24 points per 100 in Black’s minutes while outscored by almost 12 points per 100 when he rests.
Black has played the fourth-most minutes (averaging 26) behind Caleb Love, R.J. Davis and Bacot. He is only fifth on the team in steals but is generally assigned to the opponent’s best perimeter player and much more of a lock-down defender than ball hawk. He is tied for second with 12 blocked shots, which speaks for his athletic and leaping abilities.
Leaky’s assist-turnover ratio is easily the best on the team, but he doesn’t qualify for the official ACC statistics that requires a minimum of three assists per game. His best floor game in the last three was against Boston College with 5 assists, 0 turnovers and 3 blocks.
Black’s versatility will be very important in who to guard against Duke on Saturday, since the Blue Devils have at least 4 guys who handle the ball in their basic 4 around 1 offense. He is likely to see time checking freshmen A.J. Griffin, Trevor Keels and even Paolo Banchero along with Wendell Moore.
That will be his, and the team’s, biggest ACC challenge of the season.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Defender appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
NC State caught Carolina’s answer to a shooting slump right between its Wolfpack eyes.
On a day honoring the coach who liked to say, “It looks a lot better when the ball goes in,” and on a day celebrating the team and player who hit perhaps the biggest shot in UNC history, the Tar Heels literally couldn’t miss when it counted.
Down to two big men with the “indefinite” leave of absence for Dawson Garcia and little behind (on this day) splendid sophomore guards Caleb Love and R.J. Davis, the Tar Heels ran the smaller and woebegone Wolfpack out of the gym on the way to their most impressive both-ends game of the season to stay unbeaten (12-0) in the Dean Dome and alive for a spot in the NCAA tournament.
State, crippled since opening night with the loss of center Manny Bates and clearly playing only for an NIT bid, still appeared dangerous with its athleticism and string of close conference losses. This was not one of them, evidenced from Carolina making its first four 3-pointers, 8 of its first 10 and 10 of 15 in the first half to lead by 25 and, thanks to some stifling defense, an early “game over.”
It was another wacky day in the ACC with losers beating winners and the middle of the league bound together to barely hold its postseason head above water. For example, Virginia Tech (3-7) won at Florida State (6-4) and Syracuse (4-6) crushed Wake Forest (7-4) in the Carrier Dome.
After Chapel Hill avoided another snowstorm, the Smith Center was packed to salute its most recent Hall of Fame coach, Roy Williams, and hail the 40-year anniversary of the 1982 Tar Heels, who won Dean Smith’s first national championship, including the then-freshman whose left-wing jumper beat Georgetown and launched him toward GOAT status.
With a team that often longed for someone like Michael Jordan, James Worthy or Sam Perkins, the current Tar Heels did very well on their own, thank you, scoring a season-high 100 points in pounding the Pack from the opening tip with howitzers from behind the arc and open-floor fluidity they haven’t always shown during this up-and-down campaign.
Armando Bacot got his 34th career double-double (plus 6 blocks) but not an offensive rebound until early in the second half when he retrieved his own missed bunny at the basket. That’s how well all the Heels were shooting after four frigid games averaging under 35 percent from the floor.
At 15-6 and 7-3 in the ACC, they try to win their fourth straight for a second time this season Tuesday night at languishing Louisville, hoping to keep their ticket to the Big Dance open for punching.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Open-Floor Fluidity appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
To make the Quad Squad, Carolina can’t lose to anyone but Duke.
Ironically, the Tar Heels may not have to beat the Blue Devils at home or away to sneak into the backdoor of the NCAA tournament. Right now, they are on the bubble with not a very secure grip.
The old RPI has turned into the complicated NET Rankings, which measures every college basketball team’s record, who they beat, who they lost to and where those games were played. For example, to earn a valuable Quad 1 win, a team has to defeat a Quad 1 opponent at home, or on a neutral court or on the road for the most value.
Carolina’s NET Ranking is 46, but the record is more telling.
Last year, not a single team lacking a Quad 1 win was invited to the Big Dance. Only two teams that beat one or two Quad 1s or 2s made it. UNC has only a Quad 2 win at home over Michigan and missed Quad 1 chances against Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky on neutral courts; the blowouts at Miami and Wake Forest obviously didn’t help.
Right now, the unusually weak ACC is cannibalizing itself since most conference wins lack value. Clemson was a bounce away from a huge Quad 1 win at Duke Tuesday but wasn’t hurt by a “close loss.”
So, Carolina has two cracks at the top ten Blue Devils and winning either (or both) would likely guarantee an NCAA bid. Only the home game against FSU on February 12 and the visit to Virginia Tech a week later loom as Quad 1 or 2 opportunities that could boost the Tar Heels’ chances.
In the past, when up to eight ACC teams were headed for the postseason, conference games meant much more.
While the Heels can still play their way off the bubble by racking up wins, losing any other conference game like the one Saturday against N.C. State and Tuesday night at Louisville could prove deadly. At 14-6, they have to win at least eight more games and pick up at least a Quad 1 win.
Of course, there is still the ACC tournament, which awards its champion an automatic NCAA bid. As it stands, most of the members will be looking to put on that Cinderella slipper, and if Duke were to get knocked off early the other 14 teams would all have a chance to live that dream.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Trapped In NET? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina almost needed a wing and a prayer to beat BC.
After turning to the Bible to calm and encourage his team coming off a bad two-game losing streak, Hubert Davis might have pulled out a verse about perseverance as his Tar Heels survived a different Boston College team than they had seen almost a month ago in Chestnut Hill in a 26-point romp up there.
The Eagles took the floor at the Smith Center in gray and white uniforms that said simply “The Heights” on their front jerseys, a nickname for their neighborhood back home but also where they hoped to play most of this game. Winning the rebounding and in-the-paint battles were the only heights BC reached, slightly.
It was truly a game between two gangs that couldn’t shoot straight. Carolina’s field goal percentage (29.1) was the lowest for a win over its 112-year history, and the lowest in any game it has played in the last 25 seasons, also the first victory in the last 22 games in which UNC scored fewer than 60 points.
BC was even worse where it hurt the most, missing 15 of 16 three-point bricks and going 0-for-11 from the floor to end a game that had been close most of the way. The Tar Heels shot about their average from the arc, going 6-of-17 for a 15-point advantage plus making 14 more free throws that essentially covered the final 58-47 spread.
The small-but-loud crowd at the Dean Dome stayed anxiously engaged most of the way because both teams played hard but were equally inept, as coaches say, at “scoring the ball.”
Armando Bacot got double-figure rebounds for the 11th consecutive game and would have kept his double-double streak alive had he made just two more shots in his 1-for-10 night, the second straight game he failed to finish around the rim. AB led the ACC in field-goal percentage just two weeks ago but has fallen to second in the league (at .578) behind Wake Forest’s Jake LaRavia.
The Heels, still without Dawson Garcia, used their starters for all but 21 minutes, the bench producing 8 points that included Kerwin Walton’s first three free throws of the season and Puff Johnson’s second basket in five games.
Leaky Black was their best all-around player, as the senior wing that Hubert needed made his first and only 3-point attempt, scored 8 points, had 5 assists, blocked 3 shots with no turnovers. Whereas all five starters were in double figures in the win over Virginia Tech, only Caleb Love (16) and RJ Davis (13) got there this time.
Carolina ends the three-game homestand Saturday afternoon against N.C. State, which lost a close game at Notre Dame and fell to 3-7 in the ACC (10-11), but comes to Chapel Hill with better athletes than either the Hokies or the Eagles. So Hubert and the Heels will have to pray the lid comes off the basket against the Wolfpack.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Wing and A Prayer appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
All the reasons why last weekend may have been the greatest in NFL history.
I hope you were among the sports fans who at least looked in on the divisional weekend of the pro football playoffs. For me, I was lucky to be clear-headed without a dog in the fight and plenty of time on my hands.
What became of the four games that would determine the Super Bowl semi finalists was literally all for the books. It began with classic matchups and just the hint of a possible upset or two and ended with heart-stopping excitement, no matter who came out the victors.
There were two sub-themes of the weekend. Iconic Hall of Fame quarterbacks trying to win one more Super Bowl and young guns who personified where the position is going along with three game managers trying to, well, manage their teams packed with stars on both sides of the ball.
The weekend opened Saturday afternoon with top-seeded Tennessee, which had earned the first-round bye in the American Conference, against Cincinnati and one of those stars of the future, Joe Burrow. The game ended with the Bengals kicking a winning field goal as time ran out on the Titans and workman QB Ryan Tannehill.
That had to be the one walk-off field goal of the weekend. We hadn’t seen anything yet. That night, on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, the Packers lost in exactly the same way, as Aaron Rodgers completed a disastrous month where his popularity tanked over his vaccine controversy and some political misspeak. The 49ers prevailed as the clock hit zero, and Jimmy Garoppolo was the surviving QB.
San Francisco 49ers’ Robbie Gould celebrates after making the game-winning field goal during the second half of an NFC divisional playoff NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022, in Green Bay, Wis. The 49ers won 13-10 to advance to the NFC Chasmpionship game. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Sunday couldn’t match those two games. And it looked that way when the LA Rams led defending champ Tampa Bay 27-3 and 44-year-old Tom Brady not going on to win his eighth Super Bowl ring. But Brady mounted one of his patented rallies to tie the game in the final minute. He wound up furious at the Bucs defense that allowed Matthew Stafford to throw two long completions and put the Rams in position to win with a 49-yard field goal at the gun. Impossible.
The fourth game could not have ended the same way, for sure. And, for sure, it was even better. The clear future of the NFL, the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen displayed their passing and running brilliance that could last another 10 years, at least.
By the last two minutes, someone must have called you to scream, “TURN ON THE TV!” Three touchdowns and a field goal at the end of regulation sent the game into overtime, where Mahomes sliced up a pooped Buffalo defense to win what I concluded was the greatest football game I’ve ever seen.
Photo via AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Best Weekend Ever appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Home Sweet Home got the Heels over the hump.
It was more gritty than pretty, but Carolina got the win it desperately needed to put its season back on track.
Coming off a week of two road losses by 50 points, the Heels righted their ship by staying unbeaten at home (10-0) with a 10-point win over rugged Virginia Tech, thanks to some toughness and tenacity of their own.
Hubert Davis welcomed the rescheduled short turnaround, wanting to get right back on the floor despite three games this week. The dual wipeout at Miami and Wake Forest was perhaps harder on the fan base, which has known the Tar Heels as the best road team since the ACC was formed in 1953.
Down yet another player after Dawson Garcia had to tend to family matters, the short-handed Heels bonded for their best team performance with all five starters in double figures for the first time this season.
Armando Bacot got things started with 12 points in the first 6 minutes and eventually fouled out with about three minutes left in the contest and his tenth consecutive double-double (14 and 20) in the book. In between, everybody contributed to a renewed defensive effort that faced the best 3-point shooting team in the ACC and held the Hokies to 2-for-8 in the crucial second half.
Offensively, the Heels were hot and cold. They had an early 1-for-13 shooting stretch that cost them an 11-point lead and went almost eight minutes without a basket in the second half but still managed to stay ahead and eventually seal the deal on some great playmaking and scoring by Caleb Love, who had 22 points for the sixth time this season.
Leaky Black’s season-high 10 points included two long balls and his normal, fine defense. The most unsung hero was grad transfer Brady Manek who had 12 of his 15 points in the second half, finishing with four 3-pointers, 8 rebounds and 3 assists. Manek’s best play of the night might have been his last assist, a cross-court pass to R.J. Davis, who drained a 3-pointer from the corner to give UNC a 12-point lead, and that was that for a 5-3 ACC record and 13-6 overall.
Despite 12 more games to play in the regular season, it appeared like a must-win for all involved. Not only did the players show better defense and fought through a frustrating shooting night around the basket, the bench and all the assistant coaches were more active than ever.
Now comes Boston College Wednesday night before a Saturday matinee against NC State, which is less known but perhaps more athletic than Carolina. The Heels now have a chance for their second four-game winning streak, which would include their third ACC road win at very average Louisville next Tuesday.
After that are three days of preparation for Duke’s visit on February 5.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Must-Win Had appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Blowouts are rare but they have happened before to Carolina.
There is a famous story from the annals of UNC basketball, this one 45 years ago after the fourth-ranked Tar Heels suffered their third defeat in four games and dropped to No. 13 in the polls.
Following a 93-73 loss at Clemson not even that close, Dean Smith told his players to take the next two days off, come back ready to practice and he’d tell them how they were going to win the national championship.
Despite losing senior center Tom LaGarde to a season-ending knee injury two weeks later, Carolina won 15 straight games before the truly heartbreaking 1977 NCAA championship loss to Marquette in Atlanta. Of course, Smith was on his way to the Hall of Fame and two national titles, and those Tar Heels still had Phil Ford, Walter Davis, Mike O’Koren and John Kuester. The story didn’t come out until years later, because Smith wanted it kept between him and the team.
At this point, there is little comparison between the ’77 Heels and Hubert Davis’ first team that has now been blown out by 20-plus points in consecutive games for the first time since 2002, the infamous 8-20 season.
Along with the poor shooting and worse defending that has plagued the 2022 edition, there is growing criticism of Davis for his coaching, yes — but also for his penchant to oversell his players’ abilities right now when that is turning out to be hyperbole at the highest order.
He has called one big man on his team (not Armando Bacot) potentially dominating on both ends of the court. He has heaped praise on a guard who has lost his shot and minutes. He has predicted Tar Heel stardom for two young players who weren’t in the top ten of the rotation.
And now, knowledgeable fans are noticing after the overselling and under-delivery of UNC football head coach Mack Brown last fall. Davis has “. . . a troubling tendency to wildly overstate his views on the team and its players. . . his positive outlook is way overboard . . . his team was a ‘national contender’ and now wasn’t as good as Wake Forest.”
This could be more damaging than even a season with an underachieving team, for example, with the families of the players and recruits. Hubert is a very popular rookie head coach at a cultured college athletic program. Surely, someone there can help him.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Overselling appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
How big is the game at Wake Forest? Relatively speaking, really big.
Actually, this crucial game has come out of nowhere to remind me of the good old days of Carolina’s once-bitter rivalry with the Demon Deacons.
You remember when their coaches were Carl Tacy and Dave Odom and Skip Prosser. And among their players were Charlie Davis, Skip Brown and Rod Griffin; Rodney Rogers, Randolph Childress and Tim Duncan; Josh Howard and Chris Paul.
And what battles they were! The famous “scoreboard game” in the ACC tournament, the No. 10 Deacs’ upset of fourth-ranked UNC in Carmichael on Jerry Schellenberg’s late free throws; Childress’ spectacular 1995 ACC championship performance; Carolina returning the favor by dethroning two-time champ and ACC Player of the Year Duncan on the way to the 1997 Final Four.
In Roy Williams’ first year back, his Tar Heels went three overtimes with Wake Forest before Paul and the fourth-ranked Deacons pulled out the 119-114 barn burner in an absolutely wild Smith Center.
Fast forward to this season and the 8 p.m. game at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem. Neither team is ranked, with one not quite living up to expectations and the other far exceeding them. Carolina is suffering from severe inconsistency, with dominating performances against lesser opponents and struggling to find the offense and defense to stay with stronger foes.
The Heels have frustrated their fan base that debates whether the players’ effort and toughness or executing suspect game plans are doing them in.
North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis calls out to Caleb Love during UNC’s game against Tennessee, Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. Davis’ Tar Heels are coming off a 85-57 defeat to Miami on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Rookie head coach Hubert Davis, who missed by a few years in college but later tried to guard 5-foot-3 Wake legend “Muggsy” Bogues in the NBA, squares off against second-year coach Steve Forbes who will be available after missing Wednesday night’s win at Georgia Tech with an illness.
His Deacs were picked 13th in the ACC but currently have the most overall wins (15) in the conference and are 5-3 in the standings compared to Carolina’s 4-2. If you think Miami had some guys you never heard of, watch Wake’s 6-5 guard Alondes Williams, who leads the league in scoring and assists in his fifth college season after playing Division II and being Brady Manek’s teammate for one year at Oklahoma. Williams is contending for ACC Player of the Year honors.
None of the players on both teams are the ilk of the UNC-Wake glory days, but their teams are fighting for relevance in an ACC that right now projects only four entries in the NCAA tournament. So, in 2022 at least, this is a very big game.
Photo via AP Photo/Erin Edgerton
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Rivalry Renewed appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The eight best teams are left in the NFL playoffs.
It doesn’t always happen this way, where the divisional rounds feature only teams that deserve to be there based on their play over the regular season. And what great games they are.
The Cincinnati Bengals, those lovable losers from Ohio, eliminated the best of the pretenders when they held the Raiders from scoring the winning touchdown inside the 10-yard-line. Mack Brown knows that when you have first and goal to win the game, you should score.
The Bengals and way-underrated quarterback Joe Burrow have a legit chance against the top-seeded Titans who have the AFC bye and will be trying to decide how to break Derrick Henry (back from an injury) into the lineup without being a detriment to the game plan.
The 49ers go to also-idle Green Bay to face the NFC’s top-seeded Packers, whose golden boy quarterback Aaron Rodgers spent the bye week immersed in more controversy over vaccinations. San Fran sent the Cowboys to yet another disappointing end to the season for the one-time America’s team, which last went to the Super Bowl in 1995, if you can believe that!
The talented Niners on both sides of the ball and under-the radar quarterback Jimmy Garappolo have a chance on the frozen tundra to send Rodgers Packing into an early decision about his future.
On Sunday, I love the LA Rams’ chances to oust the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers and Tom Brady, who is playing with depleted weapons due to injuries. The Rams defense, led by Aaron Donald, will pose the biggest threat to TB12’s pocket even with the game in Tampa, where the Bucs easily dispatched the woeful Eagles last weekend.
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford walks off the field after the Rams defeated the Arizona Cardinals in an NFL wild-card playoff football game in Inglewood, Calif., Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
At 44, Brady has had another MVP season, but something tells me this is the end of the line for him after seven Super Bowl titles. And with the Antonio Brown antics and coach Bruce Arians whacking players on the helmet, the Bucs have lost their Cinderella luster.
The fourth quarterfinal Sunday night features the long-suffering Buffalo Bills with a serious chance at Kansas City to deny the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes a third straight trip to the Super Bowl. The Bills’ Josh Allen, almost perfect against the over-matched Patriots last week, has the game and supporting cast to upset the Chiefs and after playing in zero degrees in Buffalo, KC will feel like Indian summer for the Bills.
I like the Titans and Bills and Rams and Packers to advance to the NFL Final 4 next weekend.
Photo via AP Photo/Joshua Bessex.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pretenders All Gone appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Ten days of hell just became two weeks, maybe more.
It’s one thing to lose at Miami, which entered the game in first place in the ACC, but it’s another to come out of it like you were 30 points worse than the underrated and athletic Hurricanes.
Despite a center with seven straight double-doubles (who made it eight after the outcome was decided,) the Tar Heels’ first five shots were 3-pointers, four of them missing. From there it was an avalanche.
Now, facing a brutal rescheduled stretch of five games in 10 days, Hubert Davis will send his troops back to boot camp to somehow get ready for sneaky-good Wake Forest in Winston-Salem Saturday. If Carolina can’t win three straight home dates against Virginia Tech, Boston College and N.C. State next week, it faces four far tougher games the following two weeks.
By getting embarrassed and out-foxed in Coral Gables, the Heels have shown they cannot beat anyone in the league besides two of the worst teams (BC and Georgia Tech), and way-below-par Virginia.
That’s how disheartening the blowout by The U looked, from the first coach on the bench to the last player who was in at the end of the 85-57 rout that pretty much left the ACC race to Miami and Duke, which lost in overtime at Florida State. Two wins for the unvaxxed Sunshine State!
UNC’s game plan was pretty simple, but its execution was awful. Work to get the ball to Armando Bacot and stay in front of Miami’s dribble-drives. Instead, the Heels settled for the three-ball and when Brady Manek’s first went in to give them a short-lived lead, it seemed that it would be easy.
Not soon after, Leaky Black, R.J. Davis, Caleb Love and Manek missed the next four, and Miami tied the game on a 3-pointer from unheralded center Sam Waardenburg, who went on to score 17 points in the first half and finish with 5-of-6 threes and a career-high of 21 points.
Meanwhile, the Heels attempted 30 long balls and hit only 6 (20 percent) and made 16 of their 35 shorter shots for a decent 46 percent. The U shot the same stat from in close but drained 13 from the arc.
That 21-point differential turned what should have been the close game we expected into the second-worst loss of the season behind Kentucky.
Photo via AP Photo/Lynne Sladky.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Outfoxing appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels still have to prove they can do it on the road.
After blowing out Georgia Tech for the second time this season, UNC faces two games – both away from home – that could go a long way toward making or breaking the season.
The ACC schedule so far has clearly been in first-year head coach Hubert Davis’ favor. The Heels have won four games they should have and lost the one road game that was likely a toss-up going in.
Up next is Miami, which is getting votes but remains unranked, tonight in Coral Gables, where The U has not always been easy no matter who the Hurricanes put on the floor. Then on Saturday, UNC visits a Wake Forest team that has the most overall wins (14) in the ACC along with Duke. More on the Deacons later in the week.
Davis used the uneven performance at Notre Dame on January 5 to spur a mini turnaround with two of UNC’s best games – even without Dawson Garcia, Kerwin Walton, Justin McKoy and Anthony Harris, who all missed time with various illnesses or protocols. But Armando Bacot’s double-double binge has him as the new favorite for ACC Player of the Year.
AB will be critical against the Hurricanes who lack quality size, with no player among the ACC’s top 20 in rebounding, but have quick athletes who can handle the ball, pass, drive and score. Miami leads the ACC (5-1) but is only a half-game ahead of Carolina and Duke, who are both 4-1.
The ‘Canes (13-4) surprise win at Duke was a product of their ability to beat the Blue Devils off the dribble and create multiple backdoor baskets against an over-playing defense, plus come up with 15 steals against the then No. 2 team in the country. Their forward Kameron McGusty and guard Isaiah Wong are the fifth- and eighth-highest scorers in the ACC.
Surprisingly, they are playing host to the team with the greatest offensive reversal in the history of the program. Bacot has turned in seven straight double-doubles, as the highest-percentage shooter in the ACC and leading rebounder. The rest of the Tar Heels have upped their accuracy to also lead in 3-point shooting, and, get this, free throw percentage.
If you remember, in 2021, they were 13th and 14th in the ACC in both categories. Davis’ maiden club has made huge strides with the ball but remains in the lower half of the conference team statistics in most defensive categories. And despite all the offense, it is still tough to win on the road with No D.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: On The Road Again appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Has Mack Brown set up the future of Carolina football?
When Brown was tabbed to return as the Tar Heels’ head coach before the 2019 season, alumni and fan bases were ecstatic, as the program had fallen from euphoria in 2015 to disappointment in ‘16 to anger in ‘17 and apathy in 2018 before Larry Fedora was fired.
The most exuberant followers also had a question. Did UNC and Bubba Cunningham have a succession plan since Brown was 67 and had signed a 5-year contract? How long would Mack stay and then what’s next?
When rumored, and then confirmed, that Gene Chizik would be returning as Carolina’s new defensive coordinator, social media began buzzing over the hire and whether Brown had also picked his successor.
Chizik had been here before, taking Fedora’s defense from dismal to respectable over two seasons. In 2014, the last time the Tar Heels finished 6-7 after losing a bowl game, their defense had allowed just under 500 yards a game for a minus-68 from total offense.
Chizik had been pushed out at Auburn after leading the Tigers and Cam Newton to 2010 BCS national championship. “I’ve got to get Larry some help on defense,” Cunningham said before hiring Chizik.
A known defensive specialist, Chizik provided the help needed. In 2015, UNC dropped to allowing 436 yards per game, which together with rolling up 486 on offense combined to win the ACC Coastal Division and finish 11-3 after which Fedora was granted a rich contract extension and lofty buyout that UNC is just about done paying off.
Gene Chizik speaks at a press conference during his first stint with the UNC football program. Carolina held a re-introductory press conference Thursday for Chizik, who teams up once again with Mack Brown. (Photo via Ross Martin / 247Sports.)
Chizik had worked for Brown at Texas and helped the Longhorns win the 2005 BCS title. They both left football and wound up with ESPN. Chizik said he had to take care of some family business, and Brown had worn out his welcome after 16 Hall of Fame seasons in Austin.
Now, they’re back together. Chizik takes over for the deposed Jay Bateman, whose defense had gone from allowing 373 yards per game to 418 over three seasons, all riddled with too many mistakes.
At his introductory presser Thursday, Chizik was asked about the elephant in the room by CL Brown of the News & Observer. Had there been any discussion with his boss about the so-called head coach in waiting.
“Zero discussion about that,” Chizik, 60, said. “I have one mindset, coming back to Carolina and putting a great defense on the field.”
Photo via ACC Media.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Future Is Now appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Let’s compare the retirement tours of Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams.
One Hall of Fame coach is in his last of 42 seasons at Duke. His HOF rival, and supposedly good friend, has already stepped away from the game after 33 years as a head coach at Kansas and UNC.
Coach K’s decision to go one more season and anoint 33-year-old Jon Scheyer as his successor (despite all the quasi consideration given to other candidates) is certainly one way to do it.
When he decided to leave the game he has loved since his freshman year in high school, Williams couldn’t get out soon enough so his hand-picked heir Hubert Davis would get a jump on his new job.
Of course, COVID interfered with both departures, postponing games on the farewell schedule of one soon-to-be 75-year-old coach and leaving a mask on the still-boyish face of wherever the 71-year-old other goes.
Both also have knee problems that are visible signs it was time to turn the reins over to young coaches. Scheyer is the same age as when Krzyzewski came out of nowhere (Army basketball) to take over the once-dynastic Blue Devils. The then pencil-thin Coach K carries additional weight as he clearly limps on and off the court on two artificial knee joints.
Hubert is 20 years younger than Williams, who vowed to attend every UNC game he could this season, missing only a couple so far to get his second knee done by the same Charlotte surgeon who replaced his first almost six years ago.
Coach K will go out with the same fire he brought to Duke, taking on Dean Smith in his fourth season when he leveled the infamous double-standard charge against the Carolina legend and his program. It wasn’t long before Duke was getting “all the calls” and fawning from the national media.
Williams doesn’t need to coach one more game against all the schools he beat like a drum on the way to nine ACC regular season championships since leaving Lawrence for Chapel Hill. He was welcomed back wildly Tuesday night as he and Wanda took their seats at Allen Field House.
The Roy video and standing O. pic.twitter.com/dpdgGjih47
— CJ Moore (@CJMooreHoops) January 12, 2022
Will Ol’ Roy be behind the bench at Cameron on March 6, when Coach K has his own Senior Game? Williams lost their head-to-head battle, but his most fervent supporters love to point out that when they met 9 times with first place in the ACC at stake, the record is and remains 9-0 in Roy’s favor.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Farewell Tours appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina’s ACC schedule is suddenly a lot more challenging.
Hubert Davis will think he’s back in the NBA with five games in 10 days of the revamped slate to accommodate COVID postponements. Whatever happened to teams that can’t play games forfeiting them?
The ACC office must be like a circus with associate commissioners spending all day juggling multi-colored basketballs. Because of how the original schedule was laid out, UNC gets the worst of the adjustments made.
After the Georgia Tech rematch this Saturday, the Tar Heels go to first-place Miami, which still couldn’t crack the top 25 rankings but did garner votes to end the ACC’s embarrassing landmark last week of having only one team (Duke) receive votes for the first time in 40 years.
After that comes the wicked 10-day stretch, thanks to the ACC revision, starting with a visit to Wake Forest (undefeated at home) on Saturday, January 22, then the rescheduled home game against Virginia Tech (0-3 in the conference but way better than that) on Monday night.
Two days later is the home rematch with Boston College, which was coming off a three-week pause and got blown out in Chestnut Hill, then three days later N.C. State at home. The Pack has been struggling, but you know how good they are when they show up at the Smith Center.
The ACC gave the Heels a break by moving the game at Louisville from Monday, January 31 to the next night, which is the 10th day of hell. Oh, yes, then comes the Blue Devils at home Saturday, February 5, followed by a trip to Clemson on Tuesday and home games against Florida State and Pittsburgh, which are must-wins considering what Carolina will have been through.
So, most of those teams will be ranked beneath the Heels, who present their best chances to post a Quad-1 win if they hope to squeeze into NCAA tournament consideration.
Let’s be objective for the next 11 games. Wins over Georgia Tech, at Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, BC, State, Florida State and Pitt, and losses at Miami and Louisville, Duke and at Clemson would make UNC 10-5.
The last five games of the schedule (as of now, which is no guarantee) are at Virginia Tech, Louisville, at NC State, Syracuse and at Duke. Would you take three wins to give Carolina a 13-7 ACC record and 21-10 overall going into the ACC tournament with a top four seed?
I would and dare the NCAA selection committee to leave the Heels out.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: 10 Days Of Hell appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The tale of a good and bad weekend.
If you are a Tar Heel fan, Saturday was your kind of day. Basketball gave you that rare chance for a doubleheader, a big win over Virginia and one of those rare, surprise losses by Duke.
It begs the age-old question of which gives you more glee?
After a disappointing night at Notre Dame Wednesday, Hubert Davis’ team had its best showing of the season by finally beating Virginia, which UNC hadn’t done since Roy Williams’ last national championship year and hadn’t scored 70 points in beating the Wahoos since 2016.
In this day of social media, the players had to be reading the bad digital posts they were getting. The most outlandish were already calling for Hubert’s job 15 games into his first season as head coach and with an 11-4 record. Let’s get a grip, people.
Carolina picked apart the Cavaliers like a two low-post offense could not do the last four years, since Brady Manek and Caleb Love can shoot the ball from outside and drive the open lanes that proper spacing can provide. Dawson Garcia may get his starting position back when he recovers from a concussion, but plus-minus analytics clearly show that the Manek-Bacot-Love-Davis-Black five is the most effective offensive lineup for the Heels
Later, I tuned into the Miami-Duke game just to see the ACC-undefeated Hurricanes. They are very good, with a ball-handling and shooting efficiency that makes up for a lack of size and rebounding. The U won in the last minute to stun the Cameron Crazies and looks to make Carolina’s trip to Miami next Tuesday more daunting than first thought.
So flush off that win-lose double dip that went my way, I awaited Sunday’s NFL games with great anticipation. Turns out my two favorite football teams had the same awful endings to their regular seasons.
The Tar Heels had already lost three of their last four to finish 6-7 and trigger a partial house cleaning of defensive coaches. The Patriots, once in position for the top seed in the AFC East, also lost the third of their last four and face a short return to the playoffs by having to go to Buffalo.
The playoff brackets hung in the balance until the Raiders overcame incredible odds to get in by beating the Chargers in overtime. If that kick had missed, the Pats would have been “on to Cincinnati” with a better chance of advancing than in freezing temps where Bills fans absolutely hate their guts.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Glee And Guts appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
ACC Basketball ain’t dead yet.
Saturday might have been the turning point of the season for several teams and the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has been panned as the weakest in years and maybe in ACC history.
The day before, Joe Lunardi came out with his latest projections for the 2022 NCAA tournament. A bit ridiculous for the second week in January, but I guess that’s what ESPN hired Joey Brackets for.
In his latest, Lunardi had eight teams each from the Big Ten and Big East and seven from the SEC, which looks like the best league to me, and Big 12. Down below that was five from the ACC, long considered best in hoops.
By day’s end, Joey was going brackets. Seven top 20 teams lost including first seeds Kansas and Duke. Carolina, a No. 9 seed in his Midwest region, slapped a second-half blowout on Virginia, which wasn’t included at all. Not up to its usual standard, UVa no longer has UNC in a headlock after seven straight wins over the Tar Heels dating back to 2017.
Caleb Love looks to dribble past a defender as UNC hosted Virginia on January 8. The Tar Heels beat the Cavaliers 74-58, snapping a seven-game losing streak to UVA. (Photo via Todd Melet.)
Their sudden reversion to passing the basketball and playing defense like they had only done sporadically this season gave them an 11-4 record and an upward arrow in trends. The next three ACC schools listed in JB’s field were Wake Forest (11), Louisville (11) and Virginia Tech (12).
By about 10 pm Saturday, Duke dropped its first ACC game and second of the season to surprisingly spectacular Miami, which notched its eighth straight win and will surely be on Lunardi’s board this week. Before tipoff, an average ACC fan maybe couldn’t have named a single player in the U’s lineup revamped by the transfer portal and the extra COVID season.
If this trend continues, the ACC’s “balance” could work out to its advantage rather than its detriment. Miami is now 5-0 and leads the standings, followed by one-loss Louisville, Carolina, Notre Dame and Duke.
As for the Tar Heels’ impressive 40 minutes of teamwork on both ends of the floor, it wasn’t just the Mondo Burger man, whose career highs double doubled his way into the UNC record book. The Heels stretched the floor, making it hard for the ‘Hoos to guard Brady Manek and Caleb Love.
You don’t beat any Virginia team without both sharing and protecting the ball. That they did in perhaps the fastest ACC game (1 hour, 45 minutes) of recent memory.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Resurrection Day appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Armando Bacot will have to play a different role against Virginia.
The Tar Heels have a major home game Saturday against the Cavaliers, who are a half-game ahead of them in the ACC standings at 3-1 and 9-5 overall compared to Carolina’s 10-4 record.
Coach Tony Bennett is one of the most disciplined mentors in the game with a special emphasis on his pack-line defense which is designed to keep the ball away from the basket as much as possible while also defending the 3-point line effectively.
So far this season, UVa is not up to Bennett’s standards before, during and since his 2019 national championship. The Wahoos have three players in low double figures and don’t shoot the ball that well. They also have a negative rebounding margin for the season.
So you think that means another double-double heyday for Carolina’s AB? Actually not because Bacot will be the primary focus of the Virginia defense, which will double-team or trap him every time he gets the ball.
The pack-line stations three players on the perimeter and they and the UNC wings will try to read each other’s every move. Bacot may have a slight size advantage but will find it difficult to make his patented pivots toward the basket or be forced into taking tough shots.
Bacot will need to be even more mobile in order to get the ball at the low block with a chance to score. Or he will have to reverse it back outside. He is a good passer, and Hubert Davis should have his guards positioned to catch and shoot or look for Bacot for a re-entry pass maybe somewhere above the rim for a lob.
This Tar Heel team is tougher to defend than recent seasons because it has so many weapons. AB leads in points and rebounds, and Caleb Love becomes a scoring force if his shot is going in early. RJ Davis, Brady Manek and Dawson Garcia, if he plays, also bring double digits to the game.
To beat the ‘Hoos in any season, opponents have to match their discipline. So if Bacot can’t catch the ball with a clear path to the basket, the perimeter guys will have to break open for an outlet pass and work to get the best shot from there.
How good THEY are Saturday will determine who wins.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bacot’s Challenge appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels did not deserve to win – but they almost did anyway.
Playing with a thin roster, Carolina’s poor defense and inability to match Notre Dame’s early 3-point shooting dug what looked like an insurmountable hole.
After falling behind by 13 points in the second half, Hubert Davis called timeout and returned with a small lineup that forced the Fighting Irish out of their (comfort) zone.
Caleb Love, cold and frustrated by his two-point first half, led runs of 8-0 and 9-2 as the Heels roared back to take the lead on a post move by Armando Bacot, who had his fifth straight double-double long before.
While on the verge of completing a dramatic comeback, they had shots roll off the rim, committed the last of their 14 turnovers and let the Irish get open for two more 3-pointers that sealed their 78-73 win to match UNC’s conference record of 2-1.
It looked like missed long shots (1-9) in the first half mattered more than missing Dawson Garcia (concussion), Justin McKoy and Kerwin Walton (COVID protocol), and at the end of what became a close game that trio might have made a play on either end that got the Heels over the hump.
Davis preaches effort, energy and toughness. It wasn’t there for much of the first 26 minutes but sure was the last 14. When it might have been quitting time, his guys didn’t. And he can show them exactly where they need to improve to keep it from happening again.
Foremost, Carolina has to help Bacot when he is having a dominating game (21 and 17) in the paint, where the Heels wound up outscoring the Irish 32-8. Garcia probably could have done that on this night.
On the perimeter, they have to fight through screens harder or switch better and close out on 3-point shooters faster while showing ball movement that leads to more than 10 assists on 29 made baskets.
It wasn’t a terrible loss to a good team on the road and showed that toughness to fight off a bad start with a short bench in a hostile arena. Certainly, a fourth straight road victory was preferable, and how they came back to nearly pull it out made the result one that should not affect their NCAA tournament resume too negatively.
The rally did not end gallantly, but it was definitely something to build on. Like against Virginia Saturday at home, a game that now looms as a must-win, hopefully with a longer lineup.
Photo via AP Photo/Robert Franklin.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Good Loss? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
What will all the transfers mean for Carolina football?
The Tar Heels have lost more than ten players by transfer or early entries into the NFL draft. It would be an alarming number if, as Mack Brown likes to say, the transfer portal wasn’t so “crazy.”
While hundreds and hundreds of players from all levels of college football is unusual, it’s still puzzling to know why some of Brown’s heralded recruits from 2019 and 2020 are leaving with eligibility left. Transfers can move to another school, and the first time they do so can play right away.
Some of the UNC names in the transfer portal are familiar to us.
Khafre Brown, Dyami’s younger brother and the fastest player on the team last season; Emery Simmons, who was expected to improve on his freshman numbers of 30 catches and 3 touchdowns the next two years; Eugene Asante, a top-300 recruit in the class of 2019, got the first crack at replacing Chazz Surratt and had 58 career tackles, including 23 this fall. Asante picked the Tar Heels over Florida State, Virginia Tech and UCLA.
Other “regulars” in the portal are multi-skilled defensive back Trey Morrison; wide receiver Beau Corrales, injured for most of the recent season, and running back Josh Henderson, who started the Orange Bowl.
All this begs the question is the depth Brown has been building the last three years still on pace to contribute, or will these departures widen the gap that existed between the older players recruited by Larry Fedora and those from the last two recruiting classes who may still not be quite ready?
Brown’s staff has been slow to engage with players who have entered the portal. UNC’s one transfer this season, ex-Tennessee running back Ty Chandler, had a great year and joined the stable of 1,000-yard rushers at Carolina. So far, two incoming transfers have been signed, including 6-foot-4, 300-pound tackle Corey Gaynor from Miami, who missed most of this past season but is seen to be a help shoring up an inconsistent, if veteran, offensive line.
When you look at how successful, say, NC State has been with the portal, picking up kids who helped the Wolfpack overcome some serious injuries early in the season, you have to imagine the Tar Heels will join that fray. There may not be a lot of unexpected holes to fill but likely a few important ones.
Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Goings And Comings appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Carolina has the schedule in its favor and needs to take advantage.
Yes, the Tar Heels are off to a 2-0 start in the ACC, both wins on the road and have the chance for a third straight at Notre Dame Wednesday night. Considering how UNC whipped BC and the Eagles beat the Fighting Irish, Carolina should win in another blow out. But that’s why they play!
Having squandered three chances to get Quad 1 wins in November and December, Hubert’s team is in grind mode from here on. The ACC is so weak this season that any loss (except to Duke) could be more damaging than any victory helpful.
But Carolina caught a great break by having the ACC home opener against Virginia Tech postponed, if not canceled. The Hokies were by far the biggest challenge the Tar Heels will face before going to Louisville on the last day of January and hosting Duke on February 5. Coach Mike Young’s team can score from all over and, more importantly, is very tough physically.
Rescheduling will be difficult to fit into the rest of the season, without making it a third game in a week for either of the teams. For example, UNC does not play between January 8-15 and three other times between Monday and Saturday. But Virginia Tech has midweek games at all four of those points in its schedule.
So, by taking them one at a time and replicating the kind of aggressive defense and ball-movement offense on Sunday, the Tar Heels can climb back into the rankings by going on an ACC run in January with Virginia and Georgia Tech at home, followed by trips to Miami and Wake Forest and then home dates with BC and N.C. State, all teams rated lower than the Heels.
They can’t make the game in Chestnut Hill a misnomer because the Eagles had been off for nearly three weeks and were pretty bad in their return to action. Carolina had double-digit runs three times in the game, holding BC to a woeful shooting first half and, with the benefit of a near-empty gym, shot the ball like they do in practice.
Whatever the point differential portends, Notre Dame won’t be easy. The Irish are well-coached under Mike Brey and play very hard. So, with whoever is available to play, Carolina has to take the opening punch and respond.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Good Fortune appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Noah Ruggles’ story is better than just being a football hero.
The kicker who won the Rose Bowl for Ohio State on a short field goal used to play for the Tar Heels. The journey of Noah Ruggles is one for the books, the story books. He always wanted to go to Ohio State since much of his family hails from Steubenville but was never offered a scholarship by the Buckeyes.
The late convert from soccer to football his junior year at Steinbrenner High School in Odessa, Florida, Ruggles wound up rated the No. 9 prep kicker in the country, signed with North Carolina and red-shirted as a freshman in Larry Fedora’s last season at UNC.
In Mack Brown’s first year back, Ruggles earned the kicking job and went on to be the team’s leading scorer with 109 points, fifth best in the ACC. But despite making all 45 of his PATs, his field goal stats were modest, missing 8 of his 27 attempts, including a wide shot that would have won the multi-overtime defeat at Virginia Tech.
When beaten out in 2020 by Furman transfer Grayson Atkins, Ruggles said he became more introspective to try to figure out his future. A friend video-taped him kicking two 60-yard field goals and Ruggles tweeted it out, getting hundreds of reactions. Apparently, the coaches at Ohio State saw it.
Offered a scholarship, he would be competing against a returning kicker who had been injured the year before and a red-shirt freshman. Tabbed to start the opening game at Minnesota, Ruggles was flawless on field goals, extra points and kick-offs. The job was then his to lose.
Ruggles missed on only one field goal all season, was perfect on PATs and became the only Buckeye to earn first-team All-American honors from ESPN. He was also nominated for the Lou Groza Award as the best college kicker in the country.
He might have found his kicking zone, but Ruggles remained the same happy kid, enjoying the much-bigger Columbus social scene and dreaming of the surfing he used to do in Florida and on the North Carolina coast.
After he made the Rose Bowl winner, he waved good-bye to the spot from where he lifted his last college kick. With one season left, he was also the No. 5 kicker on the NFL draft board. He has rediscovered his game. Why risk losing it again?
Photo via ElevenWarriors.com.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Happy Ending appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels have even more at stake than we thought.
After wondering whether someone, or some thing, would turn today’s scheduled game into the “Hold the Mayo Bowl,” the battle of the Carolinas will apparently go on as planned at 11:30 a.m. in Bank of America Stadium.
And the border battle in the border city of Charlotte has an interesting match-up with different goals for the one-time bitter rivals. The Gamecocks, under rookie head coach Shane Beamer, are 6-6 and going for a winning record that would be a mighty accomplishment considering:
They used so many quarterbacks this season, including a graduate student coach pressed into action, that everyone stopped counting.
And they’re on the uptick under a 44-year-old coach whose arrival coincides with the end of Clemson’s ACC and in-state dominance.
Conversely, all the pressure is on the Tar Heels to finish 7-6, which would be a third straight winning record that Mack Brown can spin into a “great season.” His third UNC entry, part 2, must win the game or the Heels would have to rebuild preseason momentum for 2022 almost from the ground up.
And North Carolina could post one of the few bowl wins for the ACC, which went 0-6 last year and, going into Clemson’s win against overmatched Iowa State in the Cheez-It Bowl, was still looking for its first W among the ten schools that received invitations.
Of course, the conference netted out only six participants with four of its bowl games being canceled by COVID protocols – sidelining N.C. State, Virginia, BC and Miami. If the Gator Bowl happens, Wake Forest has a win in the bag over 5-7 Rutgers, the last-minute sub for way-tougher Texas A&M.
Pitt will play No. 10 Michigan State at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta – isn’t it strange how Big Six bowls somehow escape COVID? – without All-ACC QB Kenny Pickett, and the 12th-ranked Panthers will be hard pressed to win.
So before Clemson’s narrow victory, we had Louisville’s close loss to Air Force and Virginia Tech’s embarrassing blowout to former ACC member Maryland.
When you sift through the rubble of another post-season for the ACC, a big win for the Tar Heels over their Southeastern Conference neighbor will still go down as a win over the SEC. At this point, we’ll take anything.
Photo via ACC Media.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: A Win, Please! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
I finally found something about NC State that made me feel sorry.
You know I’ve never been a Wolfpack fan, not once since I stepped on the UNC campus decades ago. To quote a famous Tar Heel sports scribe, the rivalry was total “Culture versus Agriculture.”
And since I had a pen and a bully pulpit, State fans never liked me much, especially before they rebuilt Carter-Finley Stadium into a nice football facility and I referred to it as the “concrete carcass in the fairgrounds.”
I didn’t feel sorry about their NCAA troubles with David Thompson back in the 1970s and through what was obviously and eventually going to happen with Dennis Smith Jr., the worst-kept recruiting secret ever, after ruthless State fans took to the dark web about Carolina’s own scandal. And guess who is responsible for coining the “UNC-Chapel Hill” crap?
I wrote what everyone who cared knew and wanted to talk about how former hoops coach Mark Gottfried got the school to turn down a better deal from Nike because the Smith family was being bought by Adidas. The long-gone Pack athletic administration demanded a retraction, and I said “forget about it. You’ve shown us how the truth hurts.”
But after State got two of the worst breaks in college sports history in the same year, I actually feel empathy and compassion toward the school. The Pack baseball team making a great run to and through the College World Series only to be sent home by a positive test, that was tough.
And Tuesday, some five hours before kickoff in San Diego, the team and fans who had traveled across the country to watch the Pack play UCLA at the Holiday Bowl . . . well, I can’t blame State coach Dave Doeren and Athletic Director Boo Corrigan for feeling blind-sided and saying so.
They thought the Bruins had left all of their suspected COVID carriers back in L.A. Then, BOOM, they are all stuck on the west coast while UCLA just boarded the bus and rode 90 minutes back home.
If you have ever traveled far away to watch one of your teams play a big game, and then lost, you felt like your own bed was another continent away. I am not sure how it feels to go and never even play the game.
Photo via AP Photo/Chris Seward.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Empathy For State appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It is hard to know who’s going to play due to the latest COVID variant.
Three bowl games with ACC teams were canceled, and three basketball games scheduled for Wednesday have been postponed. Virginia Tech’s proximity to omicron infections scrubbed its trip to Chapel Hill, Duke cannot go to Clemson and FSU won’t be traveling to BC for the same reason.
It is likely that after the Tar Heels will not be hosting Virginia Tech, they also won’t be going to Boston College on Saturday, New Year’s Day. There may not be enough distance between positive tests and the next game.
Frankly, it still worries me about the Duke’s Mayo Bowl Thursday since both the UNC and South Carolina teams reconvened in Charlotte after they went home for the Christmas holidays. What are the chances that one or two of the 85 players on each squad did not heed their coach’s warning?
“We’ve had one guy in two years who missed a game because of COVID,” Mack Brown said before Christmas. “Our guys have handled it so well. So, we told them, when at home, be smart around your friends, wear your mask, take care of yourself. You don’t want to bring it back to the team because it spreads so fast. You could obviously have a game canceled.”
Head coach Mack Brown and the rest of UNC Football are hoping they don’t see their upcoming matchup against South Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl get canceled because of COVID-19 cases and exposures. (Photo via the Associated Press.)
Assuming every player was tested in private upon arriving in Charlotte, and we haven’t heard anything by now, there was no mass outbreak on either team. Since Carolina has been good about announcing injuries before games, we should learn if any players tested positive and were sent home.
Brown said, in preparation, his team has done some “cross training” so players might be ready to step in at other than their regular positions. And, according to the head coach, every assistant as well as the head man has a back-up who will take over the duties of any unavailable coach.
The UNC medical staff has done a commendable job in keeping the athletes healthy, so they could play a second season without an outbreak that has so shortened other rosters that their games could not be played.
College basketball protocols say that if a team has seven healthy players and one coach, it has to go on with the game whether that might be the first seven or the last seven. Imagine a coach forced to play an important conference game without two or three of his top guys – or himself!
Photo via Joshua S. Kelly/USA TODAY Sports.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: COVID Wars appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Mack Brown loves his bowl match-up but doesn’t know the half of it.
Let’s talk about the North Carolina-South Carolina rivalry that Brown came to in the late 1980s; he should have seen it in the ‘60s and ‘70s in both football and basketball, when the schools were ACC arch enemies.
“It’s a border rivalry and that matters,” Brown said. “We both call each other ‘Carolina’ and we both laugh at it.”
Brown began his career at the “real” Carolina against the Gamecocks in 1988 when the depleted Tar Heels he inherited lost in Columbia, 31-10, which was the first of what would be 10 losses against 1 win.
“I called down there to talk to Coach (Joe) Morrison,” Brown recalled, “and the woman answered the phone ‘Carolina Football.’ I said that was wrong, WE are Carolina Football and we got into an argument about that.”
Thirty years later, Brown returned to Chapel Hill and his first game was against South Carolina where the Mayo Bowl is Thursday, at the Panthers’ Stadium in Charlotte. The Heels won dramatically, 24-20, in Sam Howell’s first college game. The bowl will likely be Howell’s last.
But so much had changed with the rivalry.
(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
South Carolina bolted the ACC after the 1970-71 school year, which is another incredible story involving their Athletic Director and football coach Paul Dietzel and basketball coach Frank McGuire, the man who had brought Dean Smith to UNC. So, hoops were in the middle of that storm.
Dietzel had won the 1958 national championship at LSU behind eventual Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon and coached at Army against Roger Staubach and Navy; he was as big time as it gets.
There were some great ACC games between the two Carolinas, especially in 1970, when South Carolina roared back from a big deficit to deal Don McCauley and the Tar Heels a stunning defeat at Kenan Stadium.
After the ‘Cocks left the ACC, the teams still played occasionally over the years when we had Dooley, Crum, Brown, Torbush, Davis, Fedora and Brown again. They have had 10 head coaches since, including Steve Spurrier.
While winning at Duke, Spurrier sarcastically called the talkative Brown “Mr. Football.” Well, Mr. Football is still ticking with 265 college wins to the retired “Ol’ Ball Coach” with 228.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ‘Mr. Football’ Still At It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The ACC schedule is good news, bad news for Carolina.
During the Tar Heels’ ragged win over App State, the ACC Network announcers brought up some premature projections of their chances in the 2022 NCAA tournament. A little too early to talk about that for a 9-3 team, but they did.
They unveiled a current ranking of ACC teams where Duke was No. 1, and the Tar Heels were second at No. 49. Only three or four other conference clubs were listed in the top 100. Then they put up Joe Lunardi’s brackets de jour, where the Blue Devils were a No. 1 seed and Carolina was next best at a 7 seed.
All that does not say much about the ACC so far this season, and you know where I’m going.
Hubert Davis’ first team had three and half chances to post high-quality wins in November and December. The three represent Purdue, Tennessee and Kentucky, which Carolina lost by increasing margins. The one-half was Michigan at home, where the unranked Heels pulled a mild upset over the then No. 24 Wolverines.
Now comes 19 consecutive ACC games, beginning with Virginia Tech at the Smith Center next Wednesday. The question is: how many quality wins are there in a conference that is rated sixth overall and right now earns only four spots in Joey Brackets’ field of 68?
Carolina’s next five ACC games are all winnable but based on its still-inconsistent play are all losable. After the Hokies comes a trip to Boston College, which is 7-4 with a home win over Notre Dame in the early conference opener that every ACC team plays with a 20-game schedule, then a visit to South Bend where the Irish upset Kentucky last week.
After that are home games against unusually average Virginia and Georgia Tech, which the Heels have already beaten in Atlanta, followed by road dates at Miami and Wake Forest – both toss-ups right now.
So, the point is, where does Carolina get quality wins with everyone in the ACC besides Duke ranked considerably lower? Sure, there are those two games against the top-line Blue Devils, whom the rest of the league will also be targeting for gold stars on their resumes.
UNC’s best hope is to start 6-0 in the ACC to reach 14-3, which should get some notice.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: ACC Not Helping appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Don’t let the unvaccinated bring us all down.
So far, we don’t know how bad the Omicron variant of COVID is. Yes, it is spreading to more than 70 percent of the new infections. No, we don’t know how dangerous it is as a virus. But we do know one thing.
The unvaccinated people are the majority of those going to the hospitals, and the great majority of those dying are still those who refuse to get their shots and their boosters. Some may have good reason, but too many listen to talking heads and politicians who are harming the rest of us.
More than 40 National Hockey League games have been postponed, and play has been paused until after Christmas. The NBA is also being hit, and the league is changing rules to allow players to sign 10-day contracts to keep the rosters full enough to play.
College sports are the most vulnerable because universities must protect their students and athletes. But keep the games going since the survival of amateur athletics as we know it is at stake. Imagine, bowl games or the College Football Playoffs being canceled before we have all the data.
The conference basketball seasons are getting ready to start, and the rivalry games that draw the most fans and interest will be coming week after week until the post season tournaments. The players must stay safe enough to keep going, even if fans choose not to attend in person.
This was going to be the year of personal preference, anyway. Everything could have been opened with no restrictions, but some people weren’t going to feel safe enough to be in large crowds or full restaurants. That’s okay, do what is necessary to feel safe.
Even with half-empty arenas, the games must be played while we find out how bad this latest variant is. The nation’s mental and financial health cannot take another shutdown. Don’t let this virus rise up and beat us. If unvaccinated, shots are available. For extra protection, get a booster.
Wherever COVID came from, bad luck or a sinister lab, everyone needs to get on the same page and fight this thing. Mask up in public even if you’re vaccinated. Go to games if you feel safe, stay home and cheer if you don’t. But don’t let it beat us again. We have the tools, use them and live your life.
Photo via Smiley N. Pool / The Dallas Morning News.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Fight It This Time appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Don’t blame Nike for the black uniforms. It’s part of the deal.
Among the reactions to Carolina’s dismal showing against Kentucky in Las Vegas was dislike for the black unis with the light blue names and numerals. Although Roy Williams pledged to never don them again if his team lost, the once-a-year outfit is all on Nike.
One reason the players don’t mind going away from blue and white is they are of the latest generation. So, Nike makes its schools wear black for one game during the season in order to sell that color jersey if there is a demand for them. After Saturday, the local demand will likely be low.
Let’s remember Nike’s relationships with dozens of schools. At UNC, it began in the early 1990s, when the company started offering coaches cash to put their players in free shoes. Dean Smith had been a Converse guy for years because that was the most prominent hoops brand.
Smith had two conditions to switch to Nike. First, his team had to like the basketball kicks, so Smith had several pairs shipped in for each player to try over the summer and compare them to Converse. Second, if he changed it would have to be an athletic department deal, meaning shoes and apparel went to every coach and program, saving thousands of dollars by not having to purchase them.
Anson Dorrance, who now uses Nike, was the only coach who demurred because he had a similar deal with adidas. Now, Nike provides products and cash into the millions to the university, which divvies up the money among head coaches to supplement their income packages.
The schools and coaches that have the best deals from Nike usually agree to wear a custom-made uniform for one game. The Tar Heels wore them at the CBS Sports Classic in Brooklyn a few years ago and, if I remember correctly, at least for one game in the Smith Center.
And, of course, Michael Jordan has extended his Jumpman brand to football, which wears that logo along with the Swoosh on its game and practice gear. And most UNC teams have also adopted Alex Julian’s argyle accents, which originated when Smith asked the Chapel Hill native and famous clothier to redesign his uniforms. Heading into his senior season, Hubert Davis modeled the new togs at a press conference.
Photo via AP Photo/Joe Buglewicz.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: All On Nike appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
As the sun came up, three options were on the table for the Tar Heels.
Don’t you just love the way our country gets on the same page in times of crisis? Any wonder why we’re so divided over everything, thanks to a media ecosystem that is basically an echo chamber.
First the coronavirus was just a form of the flu. Then more than a half-million people died in record time. The Delta variant was no big deal, and now Omicron is so mild that ERs are filling up in various states.
It’s returned to the sports that pulled us out of the doldrums, as the NFL and NBA are having major breakouts. College games are back to being canceled. Sure, folks, it’s just a form of the flu.
Maybe when the death toll reaches 1 million, people will believe that this is very dangerous. Meanwhile, will the games go on or not?
Hubert Davis’ team is supposed to board a plane today for Las Vegas, where the CBS Sports Classic has been split apart by COVID. Whether UCLA will play Carolina in Saturday’s opener is unknown; the second game has fallen apart due to Ohio State health protocols.
The Heels might face the Bruins (with or without their coach, Mick Cronin) if they are cleared. Or maybe it will be UNC-Kentucky paired impromptu for the second straight year. Or maybe the Wildcats find another opponent, and the Carolina-UCLA game is postponed.
Just when we thought the other side was in view, the virus that opposing sides can’t agree on is pulling a major second-half comeback. In some states, the resurgence has not arrived. But if people are ignoring health and safety measures, it is bound to reach them eventually.
Hubert said, “Every day we talk about putting yourself in the position where you can stay healthy. . . healthy to play but also healthy in general, making smart choices when you leave the court.
“Last year, we had two games canceled when we had already gone through the scouting report. We can’t control that. What we can control is how we practice, how we prepare and how we play.”
Whether they do Saturday is still up in the air — with the flu.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Up In The Air appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
There has got to be something else about North Carolina football.
Mack Brown has been back for three seasons and has improved recruiting classes every year. Obviously, he got started late after taking over in December of 2018, but had time to flip Sam Howell from FSU.
Brown and his coaching staff announced the signing of what will be a top 10 class Wednesday, following the top 15 class last year. Among the 17 signees so far are highly rated kids from Alabama and Pennsylvania, who could have played for the Crimson Tide and Penn State. But they came to UNC.
It must be the brand, since North Carolina football has been up and down for the last 50 years. The Tar Heels didn’t do much on the gridiron in the 21 seasons Brown was away. Eleven bowl games and one ACC Coastal title. There were also five head coaches and an NCAA scandal.
So, why do four- and five-star recruits who weren’t even born during Brown’s first stint want to come here when they could have gone almost anywhere? Sure, Brown is a renowned salesman and his staff is familiar with the Carolinas-Virginia footprint they use as their prime recruiting territory.
But their parents and relatives must know the UNC brand – maybe from the Dean Smith basketball days, the Jordan Jumpman extending to football and the national news coming out of the university. Even when bad, it gave coaches a chance to explain what went wrong and more what goes right.
UNC has a pretty campus for sure and a persuasive coaching staff. But other schools have that, too, especially those that contend for a College Football Playoff spot every season. And the Tar Heels play in a 50,000-seat stadium, half the size of those in Tuscaloosa, Athens and University Park.
Brown’s latest class has great prospects, all captains of their high school teams, sparkling academic records and love of community fitting the profile that UNC wants in all of its students.
But there are also those who never took another recruiting visit, have parents who were college athletes and can sniff out coach-speak and even one who saw a UNC cap at nine years old and said “that’s my school!”
So, for sure, it’s also the brand, which is harder to establish and endures even longer than most winning traditions.
Photo via Jim Dedmon/USA TODAY Sports.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Brand Recognition appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The Tar Heels didn’t let a skilled Furman team get their goat.
In years past, this was a game that Carolina could have lost after blowing out to an early lead and then settling for a halftime tie, giving up ten 3-pointers to the hot-shooting Paladins.
Clearly, the Heels’ key to taking back the game was continuing to pound the ball inside and controlling the offensive glass where they won the second-chance points battle, 19-0. And they had to close out better on Furman’s excellent long-range shooters, who missed 16 of their 18 second-half 3-balls as Carolina grabbed the momentum and ran the lead up to 22 points before securing a fifth-straight win on the way to Las Vegas for a Saturday headliner against fourth-ranked UCLA.
Once again, Hubert Davis played a short bench, using sophomore Anthony Harris as his sixth man over last year’s starter Kerwin Walton, from whom Hubert obviously needs more than shooting.
Harris and Leaky Black are becoming the stoppers when the match-ups dictate that. Black also drained his first 3-pointer of the season and earned high praise from his coach.
“I asked in the preseason, what do you have to do to get on the floor and what do you have to do to stay there?” Davis said. “The answers to those questions are a huge determining factor on your own personal career. Leaky has done that the best. He’s been able to play his role perfectly.”
Davis also praised his dynamic backcourt duo of Caleb Love and RJ Davis for more than scoring, noting that they combined for 11 assists and 3 turnovers after going 1 and 7 in the so-so win over Elon. And also the big brigade of Dawson Garcia, who scored UNC’s first nine points and finished with his first double-double as a Tar Heel; Armando Bacot who had his sixth of the season and Brady Manek who had 13 and 6 in only 19 minutes.
Whereas it looked like the 8-2 Tar Heels weren’t ready for the Bruins in their last outing, they changed that narrative; when the going got tough this time, they were made of tougher stuff.
They have now held five straight opponents to under 64 points and an average of less than 40 percent shooting.
Go get that bear.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Go Get The Bear appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Some points of interest and irritation from Mack Brown.
South Carolina coach Shane Beamer is the son of retired Virginia Tech legend Frank Beamer, a close friend of the UNC head coach for years.
“It’s old home week,” Brown said of the Border Battle at the Mayo Bowl on December 30 in Charlotte. Frank Beamer and Brown entered the National Football Hall of Fame together in 2018, and their families have been friends for decades.
“We shared family Christmas cards for years,” Brown said. “But Shane is no longer the little kid in the card. He’s become a great young coach. They beat Florida and Auburn, and I’m excited about competing against him.”
Brown says he has been asked repeatedly by the media and fans why his team committed costly, high-profile penalties this season. Two stand out in many fans’ minds because of their similarities, one in a win over Wake Forest in Chapel Hill and the other at N.C. State in the regular-season finale.
“Your team runs on the field against Wake Forest when you get ahead and gets a penalty, so that’s a lack of discipline,” Brown said. “So why do you run on the field against N.C. State and get the same penalty?
“The good news is they knew how important the game was, they were really excited and thought they had a chance to win. The bad news was we weren’t very disciplined. I’d rather them be so excited that they run on the field and I’m going to have to teach them not to, instead of them being so flat it didn’t matter. We all have to grow up.”
That was the first of three critical mistakes the Tar Heels made in handing the game to the Wolfpack. The others were letting the State tight end get wide open behind two defenders to catch a 64-yard touchdown. And the third was not covering the onside kick when it looked like a couple of players weren’t sure they could jump on the ball when it came toward them and seemed to freeze.
Brown admits some of that is coaching and that he has since the season ended had “brutal” meetings with both coordinators and every position coach. He says his staff remains intact for the Mayo Bowl.
He did not say that wouldn’t change after the game against Beamer and South Carolina.
Photo via 247Sports/Jim Hawkins.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Of People And Penalties appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Are Elon and Furman enough to get ready for UCLA?
Let’s excuse the lousy exhibition Saturday night in the 17-point win over Elon because the Tar Heels had a week of exams and not the usual practice time.
So, they again followed up a hot second half against Georgia Tech with a cold first half against the Phoenix, hitting 29 percent in a lackluster 20 minutes. They did respond by shooting 52 percent in the second half and holding off 2-7 Elon to go 7-2 on their record.
The question is can Carolina get enough of its mojo back Tuesday night against 7-3 Furman, which has a win over Louisville, to help against No. 4 UCLA at the CBS Sports Classic Saturday in Las Vegas on national television that could thrust UNC back into the rankings with what would be the best quality win to date.
Early season basketball is a slippery slope for the Power 5 schools that have a couple of tough games but mostly cupcakes to build their win totals. How much do those sure wins help them get ready for the tougher opponents?
Purdue, for example, climbed to No. 1 in the polls by winning the Hall of Fame Tip-off tournament with victories over Carolina and Villanova, combined with Duke’s upset of Gonzaga. Then the Boilers lost at Big Ten spoiler Rutgers on a half-court buzzer beater.
The Tar Heels will beat the Paladins but will they do it in a manner that truly gets them ready for the Bruins in Vegas. They need to do that by intensifying their defense and sharing the ball like they did in Atlanta where they recorded 21 assists on 31 baskets.
That should have continued Saturday night at the Dome against an overmatched opponent, but did not. The numbers wound up good with a huge rebounding advantage, 23 points off turnovers and 19 fast-break points. But, bottom line, this game needed to be a blowout.
While UCLA reached the Final Four last year, it might have proved overrated when the Zags blew out the Bruins at the same T-Mobile Arena. I’ll talk more about them later this week, after we see if Carolina got anything from beating Furman.
These games are important in the win column, but need to be better used than vs. Elon. This one has to be a victory that truly benefits the Heels three days later.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Worthwhile Wins appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Hubert Davis is different in his own special way.
Thursday was Hubert’s first “sponsor luncheon,” and I didn’t expect much because he was doing so many interviews and speaking engagements, he must be tired of them. I was wrong, dead wrong.
Hubert didn’t do it, in fact, doesn’t do it like other coaches because he is so darn human. He tells you exactly what’s on his mind and in his heart, and some leaders wouldn’t dare do that.
But Carolina’s new basketball coach has a positive mind and a pure heart. You can tell it. For confirmation read Tim Crothers’ profile on Davis in the September-October issue of the Carolina Alumni Review. You won’t finish without wiping your eyes at least once.
Growing up, Hubert got encouragement from only his mother and father. Everyone else pretty much scoffed at his dream to go to Carolina and play basketball. After all he has accomplished on the court, he will never discourage any of his players. They might get a little tough love from him, but mostly encouragement. Davis thinks encouraging kids is even more important in today’s world.
He mandates every player to come by the office each week and talk to him or one of his assistants about anything BUT basketball. He says he can’t coach them well if they don’t get to know each other.
The recent turnaround of the Tar Heels may hit some bumps, but it is obvious now that they are playing better because they know their new head coach, are listening to him and trust him.
“Play hard, play smart, play together, it’s written all over our locker room,” he said of UNC’s mantra. “Not one time have I ever heard a player say he didn’t like what happened by doing that.”
When he visited Chapel Hill after his old coach Dean Smith retired and found his office in the basement of the Smith Center, Hubert said, “His name is on the building, what is he doing in the basement?” He said he wasn’t moving into Roy Williams’ big office until Roy had his own office in the basketball suite, nowhere else.
Hubert says he’s a visual learner. On the first day of practice, every player opened his locker to find a picture of the Superdome in New Orleans, where the 2022 Final Four will be played. Smith did that in 1992, and the vision worked for him six months later.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Verbal Visionary appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It’s still not official whether Sam Howell will be back next season.
Mack Brown thinks UNC’s all-time passing and total offense quarterback is turning pro, and will be a first-round pick in the next NFL draft, but acknowledged Wednesday that Howell has not told him one way or the other.
The 2022 Tar Heels will be good without Howell, but with him they would be the preseason favorite to win the ACC Coastal Division for the second straight year.
That they fell short in 2021 may be a reason Howell has not made his plans public yet. “He doesn’t want the talk to be about him,” Brown said. “He wants to finish the season the right way after we had a chance to win eight games and a ninth in a bowl.”
Howell could be ending his college career the way it began – against South Carolina at the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, where the gunslinger from nearby Indian Trail led UNC to a stunning 24-20 upset of the favored Gamecocks in 2019.
Brown will be happy for Howell if he does go pro because “our program wouldn’t be where it is without him.” And No. 7 has shown no sign of looking ahead, playing courageously against N.C. State in the regular-season finale with a sore left shoulder that might have kept some other players out and focusing on their future.
“He’s a warrior,” Brown said, “and not only did he play against State, he told us, ‘Run me, man.’” Howell had total offense of 222 yards against the Wolfpack, including rushing for two touchdowns. He was the best quarterback on the field until State’s Devin Leary threw for his third and fourth touchdowns in the fateful last two minutes.
The ACC Preseason Player of the Year, Howell by necessity became a dual-threat quarterback and did not make any of the three All-ACC teams behind other record-breaking QBs Kenny Pickett of Pitt, Wake Forest’s Sam Hartman and Virginia’s Brennan Armstrong, garnering instead Honorable Mention recognition.
“His family is getting all the information from us and others,” Brown said, “In my estimation, Sam is a first-round pick. Our job is to give him all the information we can, but we stay out of that decision.”
Brown and UNC will definitely have him for one more game, and Howell hopes to go out where and how he came in as a Tar Heel.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: The Warrior appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Five and dive is the catchphrase for a popular coaching philosophy.
At UNC, alumni and fans may not be familiar with coaches leaving after they have achieved a certain level of success. Dean Smith was here for 36 years as head coach, Roy Williams 18 seasons after 15 at Kansas, Mack Brown spent 10 years here and is back a second time.
But two of the biggest coaching changes have undermined that popular philosophy in the last few weeks.
Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley left Norman after five years as head coach, four Big 12 titles and a trip to the College Football Playoffs. Riley, who is now 38 after going to Oklahoma from East Carolina, signed a $100 million contract with USC: $10 million a year for 10 years.
And Mario Cristobal, who could have made as much money as Riley at Nike- and Phil Knight-funded Oregon, has returned to his alma mater for an $80 million the day after Miami fired Manny Diaz, who went 21-15 in three seasons as the head Hurricane.
Miami new football coach, Mario Cristobal, holds up a jersey after being introduced at a news conference Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021, in Coral Gables, Fla. Cristobal is returning to his alma mater, where he won two championships as a player. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
Riley might have taken the Sooners as far as they can go without winning a national championship. But 12-win seasons and big bowls aren’t good enough for Oklahoma fans, and Southern Cal is a true sleeping giant that was wide awake in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Remember Bill Foster at Duke? He lived by the five-and-dive mantra. Three last-place seasons with the Blue Devils were followed by a Final Four and two more top ten teams. He quit to coach SEC bottom-feeder South Carolina, where his chances of replicating what he did at Duke were slim. He left Columbia for Northwestern.
Rick Pitino began as one of the biggest five-and-divers, coaching at Providence for two years, two short stints in the NBA and then at Kentucky and Louisville for 23 total years and an NCAA title at each before leaving both amidst controversy and now is surprising everyone with the fast start at Iona, where at 69 he pledges to stay until retirement.
More coaches stay too long than never wear out their welcome. Mark Turgeon jumped around early before having 11 successful years at Maryland, where he went 226-116 but was booed leaving the court after a home loss to Virginia Tech and then suddenly resigned.
In the past, pressure of expectations drove coaches from one school to another. Now, obscene incomes are speeding those moves.
Photo via AP Photo/Ashley Landis.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Reasons To Leave appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
For Carolina Football, it turned out to be addition by subtraction.
The Duke’s Mayo Bowl is the big winner by matching two 6-6 teams with fan bases an easy drive to Bank of America Stadium. Who figured the two Carolinas would wind up in such a game?
When the Tar Heels lost to N.C. State, most people thought they would be shipped to some outpost bowl after finishing the regular season sadly. But Charlotte wanted Sam Howell and a team that still had other star power left despite its disappointing ending.
South Carolina was more of a surprise under first-year head coach Shane Beamer, son of Virginia Tech legend Frank Beamer. So, the Gamecocks will be a solid underdog on the morning of December 30, but a border battle is a border battle.
While the Mayo Bowl might not sell out, it is likely to draw a bigger crowd than the recent ACC championship game between far-away Pitt and Wake Forest with relatively few fans.
Meanwhile, no other ACC team is playing in a bowl anywhere near its campus. Louisville and Miami are in Texas; Clemson and Wake in Florida; Pitt in Atlanta; Virginia Tech in New York and Virginia in Boston; BC in Annapolis and NC State in San Diego.
With states still having confusing COVID regulations, travel remains a hazard for some people. The Mayo Bowl comes out smelling like a rose despite two teams that might be considered stinkers.
If Howell or his people had any thoughts about sitting out what might be considered a meaningless game, the future NFL draft pick will play because he’s a warrior with more to prove and can end his college career with a win a few miles from his family and friends.
For Mack Brown, it is another game where dozens of recruits just might show up because he is still all about “winning the state” even though his team lost that chance in the last two minutes in Raleigh. And Brown gets those two weeks of extra practice in preparation for the 2022 season.
So by losing, Carolina won a chance to chase something meaningful after all. When the two Carolinas meet, the one-time ACC rivals get to play for the pride of their respective states. And the Mayo (once the tire, muffler and Belk) Bowl is the guaranteed winner.
Photo via ACC Media.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Bonus Bowl appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
ESPN, Tar Heel Nation forgives you. Well, maybe.
The cable network screwed up big-time when UNC’s ACC opener at Georgia Tech, scheduled on ESPN2 at 3 p.m., kept showing unbearably boring interviews from Formula 1 racing in Saudi Arabia. Whaaat!
The bulletin at the bottom of the screen said the game was streaming on the ESPN App, but that didn’t happen right away. So, most of us tuned into the great call by Jones Angell and Eric Montross on the Tar Heel Sports Network, as Carolina survived Tech making five straight 3-pointers and overcame a nine-point deficit to force a 31-31 halftime tie.
Thank the Lord we got to see the second half, because it was one for the ages. The transformed Tar Heels, who were playing selfish offense and virtually no defense in November, again proved Hubert Davis’ eternal optimism should be taken seriously.
Coming off a great second half against Michigan, Carolina doubled-down against the Jackets on their challenging home court before a charged-up crowd. After halftime, the Heels went 19 of 29, including a mind-boggling 7 of 9 from the 3-point arc to win going away, 79-62.
But it wasn’t just the ball going through the hoop, which all teams have those kinds of days. It was the sharing of the ball with 21 assists on 31 made baskets and team defense that took Tech’s leading scored and most accurate outside shooter in the nation, Michael DeVoe, completely out of the game (13 points and 1-5 on long balls).
Usually, teams don’t practice what coaches preach so quickly, but this one is finding it contagious and fun to play together on both ends of the floor. Davis relied on his big three – Armando Bacot, RJ Davis and Caleb Love – to combine for 55 points, 24 rebounds and 14 assists, all giving up good shots for better ones. And he played the hot hand of Brady Manek (15 and 5) as the co-big to Bacot after Dawson Garcia got into early foul trouble.
Defensively, Davis went with Anthony Harris to join Leaky Black to lock down DeVoe, who had averaged more than 30 points the last three games. “This was validation week,” Davis said, “to prove Michigan was not a one-game thing. It was all about toughness and grit.”
Sure glad we saw it.
Photo via AP Photo/Hakim Wright Sr.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Glad We Saw It appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
And, by the way, the Carolina women are 7-0 and killing it.
Courtney Banghart knew what she was getting into when she accepted the head coaching job of the Lady Tar Heels. In her third season, she fully understands that men’s basketball is the 900-pound gorilla in the room and will always be.
But she also knew she was joining one of the best athletic departments in the country with a great history in basketball for both the women and the men.
“I’m so grateful to everyone who has made Carolina what it is,” she said after deciding to leave Princeton for Chapel Hill in 2019. “The women who have worn the Carolina blue, Coach Hatchell who hung a banner, the men’s program that brought us the Jumpman, the outstanding coaches who have been a model of consistent excellence, and the alumni who have loved this place with all their hearts.
“I’m honored to be your coach, and you will get my very best.”
Entering this season her career record was 283-128, including the 2015 season when she led the Princeton Tigers to a 30-0 record and was named National Coach of the Year.
That total victory number has jumped to 290 with a 7-0 start this season, which began with winning the first four games by an average of 49 points, obviously a warm-up for the tougher part of the schedule. That has included wins over VCU and Washington for the Goombay Splash championship in Bimini and a gritty win at Minnesota in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
UNC has picked up five of those Ws away from home, with two neutral-site wins and three true road games, including Wednesday night’s back-and-forth battle in Minneapolis. “When we had five of our first seven on the road, with three against Power 5 teams, I didn’t know where we’d be,” Banghart said. “I like where we are.”
Against VCU, Banghart went with an “all small” lineup after falling behind in the second half and outscored the Rams 34-20 to win 72-59. In the championship game, the Heels equaled a school record by holding Washington to 37 points.
Banghart would be the first to say she has pretty good players, and they would happily return the compliment about their coach.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Pretty Good Coach appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
It felt like Carolina Basketball was back after a long absence.
With the largest home crowd of the season against the biggest opponent, the Tar Heels played a spectacular second half to run away from No. 24 Michigan and boost their resume with a quality 72-51 win.
The near-full Smith Center, which had at least five UNC former ACC Players of the Year on hand, was rocking like its pre-COVID days. The effort was there to start the game, if full execution wasn’t. Leading by two at the break on Caleb Love’s second of four long balls, Carolina fired on all pistons in the second half.
The Heels made 18 of 31 shots, and by the time the outcome was decided Love was playing his own game of HORSE, moving back to try to make his fifth 3-pointer from 30 feet. The crowd roared with delight when the ball almost went in. Kind of fun at the Dean Dome.
Maybe the team needs 8 days between games more often, even though it will only happen one other time on the schedule ahead. Hubert Davis conducted rugged workouts, paying attention to fundamentals, and led some team-building off-court activities.
The defense was sharper from the opening tip, but the offense continued to struggle getting into cohesive sets and finding good shots. For example, the Tar Heels began the game with three fast breaks that should have been three layups but all came up empty.
By contrast, they never had three straight empty possessions in the second half and answered every Michigan score to build the game into a blowout, leading by 25 on Love’s last basket after Leaky Black’s 3rd assist and Brady Manek’s 5th rebound in only 21 minutes.
Then Davis went to his bench that he had kept short playing basically seven guys, as Armando Bacot could celebrate his fourth double-double of the season and his personally neutering Michigan star center Hunter Dickinson with his third and fourth fouls early in the second half while Bacot scored five straight points.
The Wolverines tried switching defenses but proved themselves scoring challenged, which is likely to keep them from repeating as Big Ten regular-season champions. Love led three Heels in double figures with 22 points and two had 9 while looking their balanced best so far.
Welcome home, guys!
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Home Cooking! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Who out there went to bed at halftime of the Duke game?
The good news is the top-ranked Blue Devils are not invincible. They played a putrid second half at Ohio State and lost a double-digit lead, shooting 22 percent in the last 20 minutes. Duke didn’t look physical at the end, supposedly its difference-maker this season.
Before the Michigan game, Hubert Davis was asked about toughness. He said his definition is a willingness to go through the process of improving at practice in preparation for the next game. He says there are different ways to be tough.
And he hopes the last eight days spent on team-building pays off against the 24th-ranked Wolverines who are pretty statistically even with the Tar Heels. Both have two losses to ranked teams, both have a big man in the middle who can be dominating and both teams shoot about the same percentage overall and rebound equally well.
They also have former NBA players who were assistant coaches before taking the reins at their alma maters, where they missed playing against each other in their only common season of college ball, 1992, when Juwan Howard was one of the infamous Fab Five that lost to Dean Smith’s Tar Heels in the national championship game the next season, and Davis won all-ACC honors as the best 3-point shooter in UNC history.
Howard played in the NBA for 18 seasons and was an assistant coach for seven more years before being hired by Michigan. Hubert spent 12-plus seasons in the NBA and then five with ESPN before joining Roy Williams staff for nine years. So, both had about the same period of preparation in basketball on the way to head coaching.
This is Howard’s third season leading Michigan, which won the Big Ten regular season in 2021. His best player is Hunter Dickerson, a 7-foot-1 brute who averages 15 points and 8 rebounds. His starting point guard is also their leading scorer, senior Eli Brooks, who scores almost 16 points a game and averages 2.5 assists. They’re the only Wolverines scoring in double figures compared to the Tar Heels who have five, led by their big man Armando Bacot and point guard Caleb Love.
The big statistical contrast is 3-point shooting, where UNC is making 41 percent and Michigan under 30 percent. With a capacity crowd cheering them on, let’s hope the Tar Heels prove tougher there and notch what would be their best victory of the young season.
Photo via Todd Melet.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: What Is Toughness? appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
The football coaching carousel has local ties and/or interests.
Lincoln Riley, the former East Carolina coach, left Oklahoma for Southern Cal, and the money involved is astronomical. USC President Carol Folt had to approve the school’s board of directors paying Riley’s buyout of $4.5 million and a salary that must be close to $10 million. With an endowment of $6 billion, that is chump change for the Trojans.
The big raise is obviously due to the cost of living between Norman and Los Angeles, and the private school has been known to give head football coaches homes and cars and country club memberships to supplement their packages to try to restore USC’s huge tradition in football.
Riley might have been scared of Oklahoma eventually joining the SEC, where several of the best teams in the country will probably be shut out of an expanded College Football Playoff. And he is taking about a dozen players and recruits with him from OU.
Next shocker was Brian Kelly, who is from New England, going to LSU in Baton Rouge, where the biggest “don’t tell me what you did yesterday” attitude resides in football. Kelly may have been frustrated with Notre Dame’s independent status hurting it making the CFP. But in the SEC West, Kelly must face Alabama and Nick Saban annually.
In the ACC, the only change so far is David Cutcliffe’s long-anticipated departure from Duke, where he rebuilt a loser into a bowl contender before letting it slip the last two years to the Coastal cellar.
Duke head coach David Cutcliffe looks on during the first half of an NCAA college football game against North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. On Sunday, Duke and Cutcliffe announced they are parting ways after 14 seasons. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
Rumors began with Billy Napier from Louisiana-Lafayette, who was soon hired by Florida. And now Duke is looking at a list of high-profile coordinators from Power 5 schools, all of whom have to be considered questionable fits for a job more like the Ivy League.
This will be the first major hire for new Athletic Director Nina King. If she called me for advice, which is a laughable impossibility, I would tell her to make Cutcliffe her chief advisor on the selection.
After all, who knows more about Duke football than the highly-respected coach? It is clearly a unique job, requiring the support of boosters and alumni who all fawn over Blue Devils basketball.
In one interview, Cutcliffe could give King the thumbs down on any of the candidates. So she would be left with only good choices.
Photo via AP Photo/Ashley Landis.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Life Of Riley appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
Unfriendly foes are singing a swoon song for UNC Athletics.
Carolina has arguably one of the best athletic programs in all of collegiate sports, a regular high-finisher in the annual Learfield Directors Cup.
The Tar Heels have long been representative in football and a powerhouse in basketball. But their highest regard comes mostly from dominating Olympic sports with more ACC and national championships than any other ACC school. Not even close.
But these things tend to go in cycles and right now critics are claiming UNC is on a downward trend.
For example, field hockey won three straight NCAA titles, and that couldn’t possibly go on forever. It didn’t as those Tar Heels won another ACC tournament but dropped their first NCAA game.
While women and men’s soccer continue to be national contenders, both also had ignominious ousters from the 2021 NCAA tournaments, the women losing at home to unranked South Carolina and the men dropping their second-round game at New Hampshire.
Football did not come close to meeting its preseason expectations and ended the regular season with a shocking loss at NC State after apparently having the game won.
Men’s basketball is coached by a non-Hall of Famer for only the second time since 1952. The team is not necessarily in a rebuilding mode, but is still trying to blend a new roster together after six games.
This, of course, is only the fall and early winter sports report.
Lesser marquee teams like cross-country, fencing, swimming and volleyball (which capped its regular season with a five-set win at Duke) are doing well. And the conclusion of the winter sport seasons (incuding a 6-0 start for women’s basketball) and the spring, with perennial powers in lacrosse, may turn the tide back in UNC’s usual direction.
Carolina has had head coaches well into their senior years, three currently who are Hall of Famers with national championships. Someday they will all be succeeded by younger coaches with steep climbs to match the results of their legendary predecessors.
Time will tell if this is merely a temporary swoon or a more accurate indication of what lies ahead.
Photo via ACC Media.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Song Of Success appeared first on Chapelboro.com.
If the Tar Heels win the first half, they will win the game.
The pattern is pretty clear for the seven ACC games Carolina has played so far this season. Second quarter has been the Achilles Heel for the team, even in two games they won.
Overall, the Heels have been outscored 97-53 in the second quarter of ACC games, 7-0 by Virginia Tech and 13-0 by Georgia Tech in losses; 21-3 by Virginia and 21-10 by Wake Forest in games they eventually won.
In two of the defeats, UNC won the first quarter – 7-0 against Georgia Tech and 10-0 against Florida State – and lost the rest of the game. So just getting off to a fast start against NC State Friday night isn’t enough, that lead must be added to by halftime.
The Wolfpack has been a good second-half team for most of its 8-3 record to date, and playing at home will give the Pack an even bigger advantage with a lead after halftime. So Phil Longo and Jay Bateman need good schemes and the players must execute them.
State has been more vulnerable against the pass than the run, giving up 18 touchdowns through the air. Whether Sam Howell goes right to work will depend on the Wolfpack’s interior line; if it is stacked to stop the run, Howell will start throwing right away to loosen up that box and allow Ty Chandler and Howell, himself, to gain some yards on the ground.
Offensively, State is in the second half of the ACC in total yards and is next-to-last in rushing the football. So getting the lead is essential for Carolina to make the Wolfpack more predictable and one dimensional. You don’t want to be playing from behind against them and their capacity crowd because their defensive efficiency is the best in the ACC with 14 interceptions, three more than any other team.
And, of course, after the Tar Heels score, Jonathan Kim has to kick it through the end zone or hit a sky kick that will not let State’s Zonovan Knight run his third kickoff back for a touchdown.
Mack Brown has been searching for the complete game, both halves and on both sides of the ball and cleaner of penalties than the Tar Heels have been. To beat State for a third straight time, they have to deliver in the eighth ACC game like they haven’t in the first seven.
Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
The post Chansky’s Notebook: Don’t Fall Behind! appeared first on Chapelboro.com.