The last five regular season games are against ACC competition. Winning is always in doubt in league play imo.

If he plays he is going to be healthy and there will be no need to put restraints on him. Yes, he'll have to work back into game speed but this is what these kids do. They play basketball and bang the hottest chicks on campus.

When you leave this type of decision up to a kid, he is most definitely going to opt to play.

From a professional view I think its stupid to let him play, but as a fan we need more support, and he could be a real boon for us in the dance.

The biggest thing odds are he won't be a 4 year player, I'd say 3 at most. So this really won't hurt him when it comes to years playing here.

He does a few things that really annoy me but besides that I think his gameday coaching is generally underrated. I despise the fact that he rarely calls timeouts to stop runs and I don't like his philosophy regarding the three point shot (i.e. a 3 from the opponent is a good shot for you). However, for the most part I think he subs very well, makes excellent half-time adjustments, and I think his development of players is VERY underrated. People always point out the fact that we are loaded in talent, but guys like Reyshawn Terry and David Noel were not really highly ranked (3 stars IIRC) and developed/improved a ton in college.

I don't understand this type of logic. It's really common among UNC fans to say that Zeller isn't a 4 year guy, but can someone explain to me why? He has a nice skill set but I just don't think it's a lock he's going to leave early or something. People seem to be looking past his weaknesses (3 rebounds in 45 minutes of action this year) and ignoring the fact that a lot of his game needs development.

Sometimes I under appreciate just how good of a team we really have, especially on offense. Look at our stats on ESPN. Not one major player outside of Ellington is shooting under 50% from the floor, extremely solid considering the amount of 3 pt shots Danny, Wayne, and Ty are putting up this year. Not one starter outside of Deon is shooting under 80% from the FT line, and our 3 main guards are lighting it up from outside. Ty at close to 50%, Danny at 45% and Wayne almost at 40% (real good considering his early slump). Danny and Ty shooting better than Reddick, the so called greatest shooter in NCAA history LOL ever shot in any season at duke, and Wayne neck and neck with him. Damn we're sick. Compare that to Uconn, Pitt, duke who is very weak in this same statistical comparison we are the best offensive team hands down. How the hell kenpom has Pitt as a better offensive rated team than us is crazy. We have better shooters, better 3 pt shooters, IMO better post scorers, although Dejaun Blair is one complete beast who I would love to have on our team.

He's a running, agile 7-footer who has soft hands and an offensive game. He will not be a 4 year player.

Also, I love Roy, but he ain't a great in-game coach. He's a system coach, which, when it works (2005) is great. When it doesn't (2008 v. Kansas), it's awful. That said, he's >>>>>>>>>>>any other coach besides maybe Howland at recruiting.

It wasn't his offensive of defensive system that got beat in that game, it was A) His stubborness going back to Dean's philosophy of not calling timeouts to save them for later. WTF was Roy waiting for in that game? 40-12 really Roy, when it got to be above a 15 point lead he should have called TO. B) Our players went through the motions for the entire game outside of our run to cut it back to 3 in the 2nd half. How the hell is that his fault? Our players admitted in the off season that they felt just happy to finally be there and kind of went into the game feeling fat and happy. C) KU was actually good, and had long bodied athletes we couldn't figure out until our guys were exhausted from coming from behind such a huge deficit that KU's players put us in. Tyler couldn't figure out how to counter Darrell Arthur and Cole Aldrich's length down low when he tried to score in the 1st half, nobody had any idea what the hell to do to stop Brandon Rush (WTF Ginyard?). I sure didn't see it coming as KU played the absolute weakest path to get to San Antonio and we had just went through every test possible from Arkansas in the 2nd round, who's athletes had everybody on IC bitching, then WSU who's slow down game was supposed to present a huge problem, and then Lville the best 3 seed in the tourney. If it was a different scenario and Roy had called some timeouts in the 1st half and got their attention as to WTF they were doing being a final 4 team getting their ass kicked so bad, and our guys had played more pumped it might have been different.

And all the knock on Roy as an in game coach crack me up. Give 95% of college basketball coaches this team and I guarantee you it's not the same. The man is the fastest to whatever his record is now for a reason, he can recruit and he can coach. For all the love Coach K gets as an in game coach, I thought Roy flat out schooled him in adjusting and coaching in the 2nd half of that game. We spaced better down low which let us get going, and we stopped all that stupid curling off screens for layups, and shut down Henderthug, so Roy did something right in game. People always want to point to his big losses like 97 vs Zona, well for god sakes they won the title and beat us too, they were good and had the quickness all over the court to expose KU's bigs, plus Jarod Haase had a broken wrist, and Jacque Vaughn was way less than 100% in that game IIRC. And 03 vs the cuse. Again for Christ sake, Mcnamera set a record or something for most 3's in a championship game in the 1st half even though a hand was in his face on most of them, and some were just rediculous, and couple that with the fact that nobody on KU could hit anything until the 2nd half when like us last year had to dig themselves out of too big of a hole.

Perfect assessment on Zeller btw. Was exactly what I was gonna post just couldn't figure out how to word it. He's gone by JR year

Using timeouts is a big part of in-game coaching. We never ever try to control momentum swings, which bugs the **** out of me. I know it's a Dean Smith holdover, but it needs to go, along with the attitude that 3's are really hard to make.

Dunno, in general, I think Roy is the best recruiting coach there is, a great motivational coach, a very good strategy/game prep coach, and a meh in-game coach. Not horrible, but there are definitely times we get outcoached, the BC loss being an example.

Obv Zeller was comin back. He's also almost certainly ready. Roy isn't the type of coach to give an 18 year old the option to play unless he's been completely cleared by every doctor and trainer and Roy is positive he's ready to go.

Unstoppable now imo. Lookin forward to next year, this one's a wrap!

i agree completely with this statement. it only became really noticeable after the kansas game, but despite all his strengths he's not great at game time coaching.

also i'm surprised there are this many carolina fans on this forum. great to see that this thread has this many posts though =)

Anybody else ever remember NC State being a threat, being any good to where every time we played them it was "OMG I hate this game, gonna be tough, gonna suck if we lose?" Seriously I'm 24 and been a fan since forever, and can't ever remember a single year or single game I ever feared facing NC State. How the hell are they still our 2nd biggest rivalry? Shouldn't Wake who's actually been relevant in the last 15 years be 2nd for us? I guess it remains a rivalry to them. I can't count the number of losses over 15 years on one hand to them off of the top of my head. Oh yeah on crackpride they're hoping Tyler Zeller breaks his wrist and ends his career tomorrow. They think Roy forced him back out of fears of handling McCauley and Costner. LOL

Wake, Maryland and Clemson are all better rivals at this point. It's just proximity and tradition.

The Alex Stepheson gay-bashing episode on Pack Pride was it for me--they're such a bunch of redneck clowns.

Zeller may play tonight. Good sign.

Pretty simple, Pitt scores more points per possession. It's a very small difference, but Pitt turns it over a little less, and has the greatest offensive rebounder in the game. When you frequently get two tries at a bucket, one from 1 foot away, you're going to have a pretty awesome offensive efficiency rating. If Blair didn't suck so hard at FT's the difference would be more substantial. Offensive rebounding is really underrated in general, defensive rebounding is a dime a dozen.

State fans are the most delusional whacked out fanbase in the entire country IMO. People who aren't from the Triangle area really don't understand it since you never really hear about State outside of NC, but their fans are maniacs. I know many people who've gone to numerous ACC road venues and site NC State as the one place they never would go back to. Honestly, I rarely meet a Duke fan I don't get along with but I've met numerous NC State fans who are bat **** insane.

For that reason alone, I love dropping those fools by 20 in every sport we play.

Last I can remember was when they had Tom Gugliotta in the early '90s. They actually beat us two days in a row when I was at UNC (the start of the Gulf War caused the first game to be canceled and they rescheduled the game so that we played them on back-to-back days).

FWIW, for games played in Chapel Hill in the series we've won 75% of those games (and we've won 77% of the games played in the Dean Dome).

They are actually playing better ball since moving Gonzalez to PG. Their big deficiency is defense (last in ACC in FG% defense and they don't cause many TOs - 3rd in the league).

They will get their points tonight I believe and I think with 5 minutes left in the game the lead will be 7 points or less (not saying UNC will be leading). UNC is banged up right now (TH, WE, TL all ailing) and very well will be working a new player (TZ) into the rotation. I'm not taking this game for granted.

All this being said, you really can't have a rivalry when one team is pwning the other year after year. As far as I know, though, the fight song still ends this way:

"Wake is fake, dook is puke, but the one I hate is N.C. State."

Pretty sure its: dook is puke, wake is fake, but the one I hate the most is NC State

duke is puke wake is fake the team i hate is nc state


also, watching around the horn (sigh) they all agreed that pitt was far and away the best team in the country and that no pg was close to levance fields. WTFFFFff

DG ... take a chill pill.

I remember days of fearing state some when they had Googs, also in the Fire and Ice days(Monroe and Corchiani aka the biggest d-bag I ever met).

Maybe even a few times when Fuller was there.

The big thing is Jim Valvano in the 80s was a magician, he could get teams to play way better than they should.

Complete degen losers like Chris Washburn, Charles Shackleford, Vinny Del Negro, Sidney Lowe, and Derek Whittenburg. All were seemingly decent players under Valvano.

A great book to read for basketball junkies is Personal Fouls it talks about the lunacy of the players in the Valvano days and his relentless attempts to keep them straight and on the court.

There were days where we feared playing State they are just long gone.

Starting to open a big lead although the D #s looks pretty awful tonight, the O #s look sick. It's basically our big 4 tonight and nobody else. 77 points and 8 from non-big 4. Atleast Fells hasn't owned us tonight. Although Gonzalez is 7/8.

One 2nd half TO for the Heels.

Do they not still say "Go to hell Duke" at the end of the fight song (no matter who we're playing)?

Also, I didn't get to see the game, how did Zeller look?

um this i haven't heard "the team i hate is nc state" the whole time i've been here. went to the game tonight, state played as well as they could have hoped but we're just leaps and bounds ahead of them although our defense did seem to kind of regress this game (guard the 3 point line anyone?).

Roy dropped an F bomb in the press conference re: our defense.