Pitstop at Perfection on the Road to 65
Monday, November 10, 2008 18:43
The NCAA college basketball regular season, otherwise known this year as the North Carolina Tar Heels’ Pursuit of Perfection, officially begins tonight. Just over a week ago, North Carolina was voted the first ever unanimous #1 in the AP preseason basketball poll. Pressure, anyone?
Of course, the Tar Heels would never claim to be entertaining the concept of going undefeated. Coach Roy Williams has stated, ““I have no dream of going undefeated. Not a blip. I could care less about it.” He may very well be telling the truth. But even if he isn’t thinking about the possibility, it’s hard to believe his team hasn’t considered it. And even if his players are so well-coached that the idea has never occurred to them, the Tar Heels fans–and college basketball fans everywhere–have definitely conceived of it.
Can the Tar Heels do it? They have the best player in the country in Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough (one the most intense player I’ve ever seen play the game) and all five starters returning from last year’s team. But perfection? The only major sport in which occurs with any frequency is college football, where the combination of a short season (in terms of number of games) and the discrepancy between the haves and have-nots makes it almost a necessity to win a national title. Change one of those factors and perfection is a near impossibility; for example, the NFL season is only slightly longer than the college football season, but already the built-in parity of the pro-game leaves us with one perfect team (the ‘72 Dolphins) and one regular-season perfect team (the ‘07 Patriots).
Jumping back to college basketball, only nine teams in history have gone undefeated, the most recent being Indiana in 1975-1976. And perfection in college basketball is infinitely more difficult than it is in football for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the season is close to three times longer–that many more opportunities to lose. Secondly, there are only five players on the floor at a time and a fraction of that of football on the entire squad. This reduced number of players manifests itself two ways. One, there are vastly more teams performing at the highest level of the game since there are simply more players to go around. Two, one player being injured has a much greater effect than it does in a sport where more players are involved. If the wrong player goes down at the wrong time, sayonara! It should be noted that Hansbrough has spent the last two weeks away from practice with an injury that has also caused him to miss his first ever game as a Tar Heel. Considering the cupcake opponents of early season non-conference play, not a big deal for North Carolina, but should the same happen later in the season, it could end both their perfect season and national title hopes in one fell swoop?
Finally, March Madness itself makes perfection a challenge. The tournament structure means only one team a year could attain that lofty goal and, by its very nature, lends itself to the very upsets which have made the road to the Final Four such a huge success.
Personally, although the national championship is well within their grasp, I don’t think the Tar Heels will be able to pull off perfection. One off day shooting, coupled with foul trouble, perhaps even a minor injury, and the pursuit would be all over. Each year the challenge becomes more difficult than the last. Good luck trying.
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