Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Guest Column: The Doctor is In

Our very good friend, Dr. MZ has written a column he'd like to share with VSL Nation. He's a loyal Tar Heel fan who often mocks (in a loving way) the passion and zeal of Commodore fans (particularly those who read this blog). As it turns out, he thinks Carolina fans could learn something from us.

By Dr. MZ:

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe A.J. Ogilvy did make Ed Davis his son.

Maybe Jermaine Beal made it rain in Marcus Ginyard’s grill.

Maybe Kevin Stallings made Roy Williams look like a rec league chump.

Maybe you guys at Vanderbilt Sports Line were right after all…

Regardless of what actually happened in that “top-secret” pre-season scrimmage, it’s fair to say that I didn’t see this coming.

North Carolina’s basketball team is scraping the bottom of the barrel right now, and it’s painful to watch.

I’m not writing this to seek your sympathy. Lord knows that after two national championships in five years, Tar Heel fans don’t have much a right to complain about anything.

The thing is – it’s not the losing that’s painful.

I knew the Heels would drop some tough games this year, maybe even a lot of them.

I knew the young players would struggle, maybe even to the point where fans would prematurely finger them for busts.

But here’s what I didn’t see coming: Roy Williams publicly giving up on his players during the middle of the season.

At this point, the only positive thing I can say about Coach Roy is that he didn’t fake a medical condition to shield himself from the blame.

So the team hasn’t played up to his expectations – or my expectations – or the expectations of the legions of fans who write on blogs and message boards just like this one.

This kind of failure’s hard to swallow, but it’s forgivable – even when you lose to your arch-rival by 30 points on national television.

Turning your back on your players isn’t.

Larry Drew’s not Ty Lawson –won’t ever come close. But Drew won’t grow into the player he can be if his coach (who at one point compared his team’s play to the earthquake in Haiti) doesn’t stand by him.

As far as I'm concerned, the 2009-2010 season says more about his failures as a coach than it does about his players' abilities.
I poke fun at you guys most of the times I write on this blog.

The truth of the matter is that most of the time, I wish Carolina fans were more like the kids who write here every day.

You demand optimism from your fellow Commies, and from your coach – often to the point of lunacy.

People in Tar Heel country could learn a lot from VSL right now.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

4 comments:

Woody said...

I taught him (Doc) everything he knows.

Anonymous said...

Good article.

Is anyone else not pleasantly surprised by Vandy's situation in the SEC Tourney this weekend? I think we have a really good set-up (in my mind, one of the best imaginable) to make a deep run into the SEC Championship game. I think that having to face the winner of UGA/ARK is the best that any of the bye's have to face. And then AUB/FLA/MSST really isn't too shabby either. Basically, we get to avoid UK, TENN, and SCAR (all of which I'm most afraid) until the Final. Any thoughts?

VandyGold28 said...

I'm not optimistic about anything at this point. What is status on Brad? Is he done? What's this teams' issue? Will they play UGA/Arakansas like they did USC and drop the game immediately like other Vandy teams of the past or will the ship be corrected immediately?

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