AJ: Heels Facing Reality Check

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BLOOMINGTON, IN – One of the more truly human moments one can have covering college basketball is walking into a team’s locker room 15 minutes after it was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA mandates losing teams’ locker rooms open to the media in that span, which isn’t much time for players’ emotions and raw reactions to their defeat to process and dissipate.

Sometimes, we get a somewhat similar moment in the regular season, like Wednesday night in Assembly Hall.

North Carolina lost to No. 10 Indiana, 77-65, dropping its third straight game. The Tar Heels have gone from prohibited national favorite and No. 1 in the nation to the largest one-week drop for a top-ranked team ever (to No. 18), to now owning a 5-3 record and facing the prospect of falling out of the polls altogether.

Truth be told, the rankings don’t mean squat, especially for a team that has played well for only a several halves through its first eight games. The Tar Heels have not performed anywhere near their standard offensively, notably their two lead guards, both of whom have All-America and NBA aspirations.

Preseason ACC Player of the Year Armando Bacot has not been anything close to what he was over the final couple of months last season, and now that he’s banged up with a bum ankle (again) and shoulder, who knows when he will find his groove from a year ago.

So, walking into the locker rook following their loss, the looks on Tar Heels’ faces were eerily reminiscent of March.

RJ Davis sat looking ahead with a blank stare on his face. Caleb Love was in the corner next to Will Shaver, face down, not yet showering because he was processing what has happened in this young season.

Leaky Black sat shirtless across the way, a pained look on his face, and not really interested in fielding questions. Is this what he came back for? No way.

There wasn’t any music playing. The only sounds were of a few showers running around a couple of corners, an occasional toilet flushing, and of the locker room door closing every couple of minutes.

It wasn’t somber like in March, though it was basically shock. Well, not entirely, as Love said.

“I wouldn’t say shocked,” said the junior guard. “I’d just say we’re going through a little adversity right now, and we’ve just got to overcome it… We’ve got to fix it. We can’t hang our heads, we’ve got to stay positive, and we’ve just got to change our approach to the game.”

Bacot spoke, because he always does. He was open about what ails the Heels, his injuries, and that the team simply must fix all that is wrong. He was fairly optimistic, but he was also honest.

“It’s obviously tough, and we’re all upset about it. We’re playing hard, but it’s the small details that are just not clicking for us right now. We’re not going to quit. It’s a long season, but it’s unfortunate, though.”

It is a long season, as the NCAA Tournament begins in 15 weeks, and perhaps the UNC team that takes the court somewhere that weekend will look back on this past week as a landmark in its season.

The Tar Heels are learning that last March and April are over. Teams don’t get to carry wins, stats, or mojo into the next season. It starts all over; everyone does, including the national runners-up.

Perhaps the locker room tonight signaled the final cutting of a giant cord to that remarkable run they made last season, as reality set in that this is a new year with new challenges, and unless this group gets on board with that, they will find themselves repeating last year’s wobbly regular season and not come close to getting any form of redemption on losing to Kansas in the national championship game.

Carolina’s locker room carried a different vibe than what is the November norm on Wednesday night, and maybe for that reason, and the realization draped over each player’s face, could serve as the true beginning of the new season.