Tar Heeled

You have to pleased with the effort shown by the Cats Saturday afternoon. While obviously it would have been nice to pull out a victory, a nine point loss is nothing to be ashamed of, considering all the circumstances. The number one team in the country came into a Rocking Rupp and only pulled out a nice point victory. Does that mean that Gardner-Webb could beat UNC by seven points?

The Cats continued its three year streak of keeping "the best college basketball player" Tyler Hansbrough in check. If the refs didn't blow the whistle every time he touched the ball he would have been severely ineffective. However I do give the kid credit for seemingly always being in the right place at the right time. I do have a growing suspicion that our own Patrick Patterson will become just as good, and probably a lot better than Mr. Hansbrough. Again I was thoroughly impressed with our freshman extraordinare.

I was proud of the crowd on Saturday except for a few instances. The chanting of "Alex Leigon" was classless; as well as booing Michael Porter when he came in for Alex. Now I know the Cat fans weren't actually booing Mr. Porter, but more or less the substitution in general. I was sitting next to several annoying Michael Jorda...I mean UNC fans and they were pretty amazed at the crowd for the booing. The only thing I could counter with was, well you fired Matt Doherty after he recruited the greatest class of all time. While it was great to have a raucous crowd, we need to think before we act. But at least it was all in unison. Nothing is quite like a big time opponent in Rupp. Probably the only thing that rivals the atmosphere is beating Louisville and LSU in football :)

It was an overall respectable effort on the side of the Cats. There is a bright future ahead. We need to stay patient and supportive, these kids are only going to get better. We could have very easily folded once they were up by twenty. They didn't and fought back to make it a single digit defeat. Billy Clyde was pleased with the effort and I can see why. While they did make a lot of careless mistakes, they never gave up. This team may have some fight in it yet. Onward to Hoosierland and the Indiana Cell Phones. I hope somebody gets that.

photo courtesy of ukathletics.com