Carolina Basketball In The ACC

By Guest Blogger Brad Pate:

Winning in the ACC isn’t the easy.  For anybody.  Carolina had high hopes coming into this basketball season, with a pre-season ranking of 9, and Harrison Barnes was predicted to be an All-American. He is the only freshman in history to do this.  Those are some lofty expectations for a Carolina team who barely made 20 wins and only had 5 in the ACC last year.

This season began and Carolina was in Puerto Rico. Carolina had a pretty disappointing showing losing 2 out of 3 games.  Their two loses came at the hands of Vanderbilt and Minnesota.  Those are two good teams, but teams that Carolina should have beaten.  Carolina ended up losing two more in the non-conference schedule.

Carolina entered ACC play on a solid winning streak.  The first loss in conference was the most embarrassing loss I have witnessed in awhile.  It was tough to watch for any die-hard fan, but every team has their hard times.  After that loss, Roy Williams got the team ready and focused.

Carolina then went on a winning streak and was playing some of their best basketball and entered the top 25.  It was great to watch.  Carolina finally looked liked the top-10 team they were predicted to be.  Then came a game at Duke.  Leading by 14 at halftime, I thought Carolina was going to pull this one out.  But I forgot that I was watching college basketball and that anything can happen.  Duke ended up coming back and winning.  It was very heart breaking and just horrible to watch.

But since that loss, Carolina has been winning game after game. Their last win was against Boston College.  It was disappointing and frustrating at the same time.  Carolina couldn’t score and kept turning the ball over. They won 48-46, an ugly score for an ugly game.

In their next game against arch-rival NC State tonight, I’m hoping that Carolina should win if it’s like the previous meeting, it should be by 20. Carolina should do no worse than 12-4 in the ACC and be second place going into the tournament. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and to the NCAA tournament.

Do you think Carolina can win convincingly tonight?

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