Raising Carolina

In case you missed it, and I am sure most of you did, Carolina's basketball team started their 6 game road trip this weekend in Las Vegas where they won the Las Vegas Invitational by taking down Old Dominion followed by BYU in back-to-back nights. I missed the Old Dominion game on behalf of the game being broadcast on ESPN-U but I stayed up last night to watch the BYU game. Unfortunately for every pet and female in our house, I had forgotten how involved I get when watching games, especially when things aren't going well. Nonetheless, here are my top 3 and bottom three observations on the game last night:

Top 3
1. Alex Stepheson. In 16 minutes, Stepheson played great D, collected a team high 9 boards, 3 points, a pair of dimes, and a blocked shot. Not too shabby for a guy coming off the bench and a guy that most people probably haven't heard of.

2. Danny Green. He can be unnerving at times with his recklessness, especially shooting the ball awfully quick, but Danny is always busting his butt on the court and more often than not comes up with solid numbers (14 points, 3 steals, 2 boards, a block, and a dime in 21 minutes).

3. Ellington. Natalie loves the guys good lucks, Vitale loves his form, and I love that he keeps on coming through in the clutch with great outside shooting. Maybe missing that shot against G-town last year will end up being a blessing in that it has helped the maturation process of Wayne as basketball player. 15 points to go along his 6 boards is solid.

Bottom 3
1. Deon Thompson. Replacing Wright wasn't going to be easy, but in the two games I have watched Deon has not been good. He started the game well with a steal and some solid D, but it was all downhill from there. He ended up with 7 points, zero boards, 4 personal fouls in 20 minutes and was overpowered on D and looked lost at times. Maybe losing all that weight is leading to Deon getting pushed around. I just hope his sweet turnaround shot comes back and his D shapes up before the new years wraps around.

2. PG play. I'm probably nitpicking but Bobby played 29 minutes and ended up with 1 dime and Q, who I thought played well, ended up with no dimes in 11 minutes. Now, part of this was that BYU prevented the team from running for most of the game, but Roy seemed frustrated with the guards inability to drive for a good chunk of the game. Lawson is the main guy here, but it sure would be nice to get some depth here to give him a breather during tough games.

3. D is for no defense. Some more nitpicking, but it sure felt that when the team came out of the locker rooms in the 2nd half the defensive intensity was just not there. The BYU big man Plaisted ended up with 24 points and a ridiculous 17 boards and overpowered the Heels inside for a good chunk of the game. It is a good thing the team ran out of gas in the end or this could have been ugly.

In the end, I am thrilled the team pulled out a win against a solid team even though Lawson sat just about the entire game. I would also expect the Heels to have strong 2nd halves for most of the year. We saw this last year with teams that lack the depth to keep up with a very deep Heels team. However, to make a solid run in March Deon, Bobby, and Q are going to have to pitch in a little more and the D is going to have to maintain their intensity throughout the games. That said the season is young and the improved outside shooting, especially from Ellington, on top of the ability of the team to win close games is a great sign for things to come.

Next up: at Ohio St. (3-1) Wednesday November 28th at 9:00 Eastern.

Iona dunk on you

At least that is part of what UNC and the gang did to Iona last night. If you want to see two examples check this Youtube clip. The only downside is that it looks like Tyler got away with a walk, but hey, you can't be too picky right? In the end this is the way you want to win these early season games, that is, getting everyone in the area biscuits (100+ points) and getting everyone on offense involved, including the crowd.

I was not lucky enough to watch the game as we don't have ESPNU and I was a little too caught up watching the Redskins-Cowboys game. Even so, following the score online and watching the highlights it looked like a nice early season game.

Next up: South Carolina State on Tuesday Nov. 20th at 7:30 pm at Chapell on the Hill.

And we are off...

In case you missed it, my Carolina Tar Heels started the 2007-2008 season with a somewhat shaky win against unranked Davidson College. While most people will be surprised to hear that the #1 ranked team in the country struggled against Davidson, it turns out that Davidson actually has a very solid team. They won 29 games last season, a team that lost to Maryland in the first round of the NCAAs, and returned all of their starters.

Needless to say, the Tar Heels didn't look particularly sharp in the season opener. Three good things and three not so good things about the game from my inexperienced point of view:

The Good
1. Wayne Ellington, Nat's favorite player and now sporting a new number (2 last season, 22 this season), looked sharp shooting from the outside and could be the clutch outside shooter that will prevent teams from collapsing on Tyler.

2. Tyler had a double-double (12 points, 12 boards) by the first half.

3. Hit shots in the clutch. Last season the team struggled to win close games. It was blowout or naught.

The Bad
1. Deon Thompson looked overmatched in replacing Brandan Wright. Wright was drafter in the first round of the NBA draft after a solid Freshman season and now Deon gets the starting spot next to Tyler. Unfortunately, Deon looked a little shaky and nothing like the guy with the sweet turnaround shot. Expect him to rebound from this though.

2. Ty Lawson looked nothing like his old self until the end of the game. Lawson had no assists, which is bad coming from your PG, and didn't start using his explosive speed to drive to the basket until late in the game. Bobby Frasor replaced Lawson in the 1st half and did a wonderful job.

3. FG shooting in the 2nd half. The Heels shot 9-26 (34.6%) in the 2nd half and 4 of 13 from behind the arc. Tyler had 2 points in the 2nd half due in part to Davidson collapsing on him and in part due to him not getting the ball enough. This translated in shots further away from the basket that were just not falling.

Either way, the win was against a solid team and you have to just learn from your mistakes and move on.

Next up: Iona (0-2) Sunday November 18th at 6:00 pm Eastern in Chapel Hill.

Fall Colors

This one is a series of shots starting last weekend and up to this morning of a tree that is right off our yard.

Remember the Titans?

If you are David Carr, the answer is likely no. This past Sunday Nat and I enjoyed a beautiful fall Sunday by going to downtown Nashville to watch the Tennessee Titans play the Carolina Panthers at LP field. We were there thanks to Nat getting me the pair of tickets as our first anniversary gift. The sunny and cool Sunday afternoon was perfect for football watching even if we were seating in row JJ of the upper deck. One advantage of our seats was that we were among the closest to these guys before the game started:

The highlight of the game had to be the level of stink with which the Panthers played, in particular their QB David Carr. Carr was the first overall pick by the Houston Texans (love that Canadian site ref by the way) not to long ago and all the sacking he took there clearly has created a mush of a brain that prevents him from throwing the ball before getting clocked by the opposing defense. Just in case you missed it, we took a picture of Carr getting sacked. I can only hope one of you had the Titans defense in your fantasy team.

Yearning for simpler times

My dad's 3 week visit expired today. He came out here on my suggestion that it would do him good to get out of his apartment and spend some time out here in good ol' Nashville. I had warned him that on weekdays Nat and I would be busy at work during the day, but I figured we would be able to do enough stuff in the evenings and weekend for him not to be bored. In the end, I think he ended up being more on the bored side than anything.

I am sure that it was refreshing for him to get out of his apartment and visit our new house, but after a few days being landlocked here that feeling must have faded. On top of that, our first weekday after he landed Phoebe decided to be an escape artist and was running, with Stella, out in the neighborhood without dad noticing. If that wasn't bad enough, our psychotic neighbor called Nat, who was at a meeting at the time, twice and left voice messages saying that our dogs had been running wild for 2 hours. As we have no home phone line, I drove home preoccupied about our dogs getting hit by a car or getting lost. When I got home the girls were back inside with my dad, who was incredibly calm. Me being me, I vented that I had driven home worried sick and asked him how could he let such a thing happen? No better way to welcome dad to our house than to reprimand him on his third day here.

Fortunately the rest of the stay was very much low key, maybe too low. With him not being a big fan of the outdoors, partly due to him not being the quickest on his feet anymore, our weekend activities were somewhat limited to watching football on weekends, which was fun but nonetheless involved staying in the house, or venturing out to go grab something to eat or to run to the grocery store. On top of that we had a solid week of rain that limited the daily activities. In sum, his 3 week visit included a lot of the same activities that he has at home with the exception that he had us and the girls to spend time with.

Now that he is gone I am able to reflect, as often happens, on how I could have done things better. While the trip to the Korean restaurant was fun, the drastic change in his diet definitely did not do him much good. The Hibachi visit to a local restaurant would have been better if the place hadn't sucked so bad (stay away from Toyama in Nashville). He seemed to enjoy making a paella for the three of us last Wednesday and oddly enough one of my favorite times of the visit was this morning. While I was attempting to balance our checkbook we spent a solid 30 minutes talking about a multitude of things. Now that I think about it, my favorite part of the whole trip was the frequent chit-chats we had.

One huge downside to growing old is that your parents also do so. Sometimes they age and show signs of aging before you are emotionally and financially ready for that change to happen. I still feel that I did the most growing up when he had his stroke during graduate school and my sisters and I had to scramble to get him into a hospital, take care of him, and pay some of his medical bills. Thankfully my sisters werein a better spot to do so. The stroke debacle also brought to front and center the fact that my dad is not the perfect being I looked up to when I was little. The notion of your parents being all knowing and perfect evaporates with the passing
of time.

Nonetheless, as I waited for my dad to make it past security at the airport I couldn't help but feel nostalgia for those times when all it would take to make me happy was nothing more than a little chit chat with him about something as simple as the weather. Even if those times were early that morning.

Politiks

Here's a quick questionnaire to help you find your way through the early maze of candidates out there and get you warmed up for Indecision 2008. I also played at the end with the "sliders" that allow you to weigh the issues you value most.

Although I can't vote my top 3 were:
Biden
Hilary
Obama

If you haven't had enough election stuff, take a peak at Colbert's column in yesterday's edition of the NY Times.