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AJ: A Job Well Done

Carolina's season is over, and it's fair to say Roy Williams got everything he could from this team.
Carolina's season is over, and it's fair to say Roy Williams got everything he could from this team. (USA Today)

CHARLOTTE – North Carolina ran out of gas Sunday. The Tar Heels simply had nothing left.

Say what you will about missed shots and all that jazz, but as the book closes on this season, the reality is Roy Williams squeezed every drop from this group.

Carolina was eliminated by Texas A&M in most unbecoming fashion in the second round of the NCAA Tournament by the score of 86-65, but it seemed like so much worse than that. UNC led 20-13 and looked pretty good over the first seven minutes, but it was as if its last drop of what has fueled this team and program was simply drained from them.

They were bone dry.

UNC’s spunk disappeared, its defense, which never was very good this season, was nonexistent, and it even stopped rebounding.

Oh, and Carolina couldn’t throw it in the ocean. The Tar Heels made 6 of 31 attempts from beyond the arc on the day, but four makes came well after A&M’s first 20-point lead.

So Carolina lost. It happens, and sometimes it happens in an ugly manner, such as this. But why did it transpire this way?

Texas A&M is a good team that played great. Second, Carolina is a good team that played as poorly as it possibly could.

But maybe Carolina’s GPS was programed to this point.

Look at its roster. Look at the depth. Look at what UNC lacked. This was a nice team that probably maxed out on its potential. Go back six months and imagine this group winning 26 games, beating Duke twice, owning more Quad 1 wins than any other team in the nation and getting a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The guess here is most of Carolina fans would have grabbed it, stuffed it in their back pockets and run for the hills skipping while hollering a few hallelujahs.

The Tar Heels surpassed most logical expectations because Roy Williams got everything out of this team. Every. Last. Drop.

This was a flawed squad from the get go, but Williams taught it, led it and massaged it into the national title contender conversation.

The Hall of Fame coach may have turned in the best coaching job of his career. The 2006 UNC club is right there, but this was a better job. Given the roster, how much better the ACC is now than it was then, and the fact that this team achieved all it did is quite remarkable.

So the Tar Heels aren’t defending their national championship and streak of consecutive national title game appearances anymore.

But in the end, it just wasn’t meant to be, and there’s no shame in that.

North Carolina is North Carolina. Ol’ Roy’s program will be back again next fall embarking on another fascinating trek through the ACC and into the postseason. And you can rest assure those Heels will take from this year’s edition just like these guys learned from past clubs.

No doubt the blowout loss will stick with them for quite a while, but in time the charm of this season is how these Heels will be remembered.

That’s the best and fairest way to look at it.

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