I Just Don't Know
Ned Barnett's column in the Raleigh News and Observer (link will be dead about a week after I post this):
It could be that in expelling Doherty -- a favored player who couldn't fit as a coach -- Carolina basketball is returning to its historical path.
Or this may be just the first turn of many for a program that no longer knows its way.
I have no clue. It just hurts to see my alma mater in such disarray. And I have no idea whether Coach Doherty's situation could have been straightened out. Some commentators have said that the fact that Doherty is gone proves that there were unsolvable problems. Maybe, but how do you apportion the blame? What's Baddour's share? Doherty's? The players'? The media's? The boosters'? Is Doherty's departure the bed he made for himself, or is he a sacrificial lamb?
We won't know the answers to these questions for some time. And as much as I hoped Baddour or Moeser would slip during the press conference and reveal the smoking gun that would clarify exactly what was happening, they didn't. (Which was probably a good thing for Doherty, the players, and the University, when you get right down to it. Employee and student privacy laws likely mean that the University would have been in serious trouble if they answered all of the reporters' -- and my -- questions.)
It's the not-knowing that hurts. Not that I have a right to know, of course.
When I got home from work yesterday, as I expected, Shannon had taken down the UNC flag hanging at our door. I don't blame her.
This morning, she was talking about Will going to Appalachian State instead of Carolina.
OK, now that's scary.
Comments
Crap. First "Farscape," now this.
Paul and I were really excited by the three NIT games we attended and it seemed like Doherty's place was finally secure. After all, even the legend himself, Dean Smith, had a couple of bad seasons when he first got to UNC (due to NCAA restrictions placed on the team because of former coach Frank McGuire's misconduct). Hell, Dean Smith was hung in effigy at one point!
In my opinion, the wrong man resigned -- Baddour should be on the way out, not Doherty.
Posted by: Laura | April 2, 2003 12:13 PM
Doherty might well have been an absolute d*ck even by the standards of successful, competitive Division I men's basketball coaches. But if he was, he still deserved one more year to show that he could coach the talented players he had recruited while addressing his own issues of management style.
As it is, it looks like McCants and May's dad are running the UNC basketball program. They're gonna have to hire Larry Brown, because he has said he'd work for free. I don't think anyone else with a lick of sense would take it for any amount of money.
Posted by: Lex | April 2, 2003 4:33 PM