So Larry Drew made news over the weekend, expressing his annoyance with fans like me:

"To those people, [arguing for UNC to turn down an NIT bid] honestly, to those people, I would say that they can't have their way all the time. Some people are just so spoiled, man. Especially Carolina fans, just because, you know, the whole tradition. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way it is. But to those fans: Yes, we haven't been performing up to the standards of the usual North Carolina basketball team, but we can't be perfect all the time, and we're human, too."

The comments, since retracted, didn't bother me. I'm actually intrigued by the argument that Carolina fans are spoiled –although I disagree with it – and plan to revisit it in the offseason. But as one of those people who wasn't looking forward to the NIT, I'd thought I'd explain why.

It's not because the NIT is beneath North Carolina, or that the team will be embarrassed in the NIT, or that these players don't deserve a postseason after this year's trip through the ACC. Those are all arguments I've seen made, and they're all complete bunk. I wrote what I wrote about the NIT for one simple reason. I'm tired of watching this team lose.

And that's this team, in particular. I've suffered through the 8-20 2003 team, and more than a few struggling football teams. I've seen my share of losses. But those teams were playing to their talent level, and improving as the season went on. This team proved early on that they had the talent to do well – not as well as the preseason expectations, but pretty well – and they just never improved. They'd show signs of it, for a game or so, and then regress back with a horrible. It was painful to watch, and I couldn't not watch. I'm a fan; even without this blog, this is what I do. And it's incredibly depressing to see. I desperately want this behind me.

A few days removed from the Georgia Tech game, I'm a little more sanguine about the postseason. Some of it's an eternal optimism I've never been able to shake. But mostly it's this:

That's Carmichael Auditorium, site of the first NIT game, and my own personal basketball church. UNC will be playing there as they've already begun maintenance work on the Smith Center. And this excites me more than anything else. I always loved stumbling from Woolen over to Carmichael, seeing it quiet as a cathedral with the lights off. I caught a couple of games there as a kid and the place rocked in a way I've seen few other places match. I would love to be back there for this game. If there's anything that has motivated this team this season, it's been the weight of history. The State game during the reunion weekend and the 2000th win in the last home game were two of the only ACC games where the Heels outperformed expectations. And now, there's a new home court and one last chance to redeem the season. I'm getting optimistic again, much to my dismay.

I don't think I'm the only either. I've had this conversation with multiple season ticket-holding friends:

"You going to the NIT game?"
"No way."
"They're playing in Carmichael."
"Really? I have to make a couple of calls."

I think the fans will show. I think they'll make it the Carmichael of old. I just hope the team can respond to it.

More photos » Scott K. Brown - AP

William & Mary's JohnMark Ludwick, left, takes a shot over teammate Matt Rum, center, and Old Dominion's Keyon Carter, right, during an NCAA college basketball game in the finals of the Colonial Athletic Association men's tournament in Richmond, Va., Monday, March 8, 2010.

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Never say the NIT doesn't have a sense of drama. Not only does UNC's first round opponent already have two wins against ACC teams, they also have two UNC alumni on the coaching staff. Johnthan Holmes, an assistant, was on the Heels' bench from 1999 to 2003, but it's the head coach you really want to be concerned about. Tony Shaver was a walk-on from 1972 to 1976 at UNC, where he just missed overlapping with Roy Williams, who graduated in '72 and returned as an assistant coach in '78. Shaver coached high school for ten years after graduation before taken the reins at Hampton-Sydney. There he became a force in D-III ball, winning eight conference tournaments and making 11 NCAA appearances in 17 seasons.

In 2003, he took the job at William & Mary, a school whose basketball history can best be described as hapless. The Tribe are one of five original D-1 teams to never make the NCAA tournament; they've made the NIT once, in 1983. Since Shaver took the job, William & Mary has twice made the Colonial Athletic Association championship game and had their first winning seasons since 1998. So how have they done it?

By slowing the tempo way down. The Tribe averaged 69.7 possessions per 40 minutes in Shaver's first season; in the last three that number has been 62.3, 62.2, and 61.2, respectively. This season there are only 13 teams playing slower. Shaver's tenure has been based around improving the defense, but this is the first season he's been able to pair it with a decent offense. They're a small team, but they shoot very well, especially from behind the arc, where almost 40% of their points come from. And the guys doing the bulk of the shooting are David Schneider and Quinn McDowell.

Schneider, a 6'3" senior guard, is the team's primary shooter, most of the time from three-point range. He takes twice as many threes as twos and makes a respectable 33.6% of them. He's also a strong rebounder on an undersized team. McDowell, a 6'5" small forward, is an even better shooter both from outside and driving in the lane. And neither of these players or senior forward Danny Sumner rattle easy. They're all among the Top 100 in fewest turnovers per possession. The Tribe is incredibly careful with the ball, and Carolina can't expect much in the way of fast break points.

UNC's best weapon is their size. The Heels will need to dominate the boards, which shouldn't be too difficult, as the Tribe only play two players 6'9" or taller. Their zone defense will tempt the Heels to try shoot over it, but they'll probably have more luck pounding it inside to the bigs. UNC has been burned by hot-shooting teams a lot this season, but they've all done it a fast clip, early on to crush Carolina's spirit. I don't think the the Tribe will move nearly that fast, but Carolina will have to get out on their perimeter shooters, while still leaving their frontcourt at home to defend against the backdoor cuts. If UNC can do this, they can continue to play in the postseason. If they don't, well, it will look something like this.

Word on the Twitters is that UNC will not be receiving an NIT bid, but that's not going to stop me from typing along with the talking heads anyway. Let's see how this goes.

9:01 pm Gah. Even the selection show is low-rent, and hosted by what appears to be a fifteen year-old.

9:03 pm UNC doesn't even get a highlight package for "teams we're looking at for the NIT." That does not bode well.

9:06 pm First batch of also-rans. Illinois has to go on the road (scheduling conflicts) while Cincy played well in the Big East Tournament. And folks kept telling me Dayton was good – they beat Georgia Tech in Puerto Rico – so here's their chance to prove it.

9:11 pm The second batch. Herb Sendek has a top seed, and really only Memphis and the two Big East teams to worry about. I'm really curious if State makes the field now. No ACC teams listed as of yet, and there's six to choose from.

9:16 pm Third group in, and it looks like a hockey tournament. I wasn't even aware Quinnipiac had a basketball team, but I'm pretty sure everyone in this bracket but Witchita St. and Nevada looks forward to the Frozen Four. UConn vs. VT might be one of the highlights of the tournament. Also, ESPN is teasing whether UNC is in or out to keep folks watching.

9:21 pm UNC makes the bracket, and immediately the talk becomes that they shouldn't be there, and that William & Mary will win going away. And this is the toughest bracket, by far. Mississippi St. took Kentucky to the wire, State and South Florida are both strong, and the Tribe have some ACC scalps. (Ba-dum-dum) Time for the Heels to step up.

9:24 pm C.M. Newton comes out and says than an NCAA expansion will end the NIT, which is pretty much expected. He also doesn't seem to enthused by the idea.

9:30 pm Still no word on where the game will be played – presumably Chapel Hill, but work on the Smith Center may shift it to Carmichael. Inside Carolina says it's a 9:30 Tuesday tip though. William & Mary have three wins over tournament teams (Maryland, Wake, and Richmond) but they were all back in 2009, when UNC was beating Ohio State and Michigan State. They were 11-6 in the Colonial, got spanked by Old Dominion twice, and play some of the slowest basketball around. The thing they do best? Generate turnovers.

9:36 pm It'll be in Carmichael. That alone might light a fire under UNC.

More photos » Sue Ogrocki - AP

UTEP forward Derrick Caracter, right, shoots in front of teammate Jeremy Williams, left, and Houston guard Kelvin Lewis, center, in the first half of the Conference USA men's championship NCAA college basketball game in Tulsa, Okla., Saturday, March 13, 2010. Caracter had 18 points for UTEP, but Houston won 81-73.

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Joe Sheehan is annoyed:

The committee did it again, matching up non-BCS schools aggressively and keeping them away from BCS schools. UNLV/Northern Iowa. Butler/UTEP. Temple/Cornell. Richmond/Saint Mary’s. The committee is taking one of the best things about the tournament–that the big guys ahve to play the little guys on a neutral floor–and destroying it, aggressively so. Defenders of the bracket and the committee will always point out that this isn’t intentional, but after it happening year-in, year-out, I simply don’t believe them. You can’t keep playing off the non-BCS schools one another every year and pretend it’s not a strategy. It very clearly is one, and it’s designed to prevent the possibility of the schools from smaller conferences showing that the main difference between them and the middle of the BCS leagues is home games. The commmittee and the NCAA should be embarrassed.

There are 15 non-BCS schools on seed lines 5-12 in this bracket. Eight of them are playing each other. Thanks, NCAA. Just what the fans want.

Damning evidence. But wait. 5-12 seeds? That's eight teams per region, thirty-two teams over all. Almost half of them are non-BCS, and half from the big six conferences. If, to make the math simple, there was 16 BCS and 16 others, and you paired them completely random, you'd end up with... eight non-BCS teams playing each other. And eight BCS teams playing each other. And the remaining eight games would pit one small team against one large one. 

That's pretty close to what we got. Michigan State (5) plays New Mexico State (12). Tennessee (6) vs. San Diego State (11). Gonzaga (8) vs. Florida State (9). Brigham Young (7) vs. Florida (10). Xavier (6) vs. Minnesota (11). Texas A&M (5) vs. Utah State (12). Notre Dame (6) vs. Old Dominion (11). Seven games, balanced relatively fairly as to which team is the higher seed.

If you want to argue that the committee should only seed mid-majors against the middle ranks of the BCS conferences, that's one thing. But that seems just as hacky as doing it the other way around. There are a lot of problems with the seeds, but that there's a concerted effort to keep the little guy down isn't one of them.

Just because they won't be calling North Carolina's name doesn't mean I'm not going to yell at my TV over the internet. So here goes:

5:34 pm And again, coaches are being interviewed on their court, in front of screaming crowds. (This year it's New Mexico.) Why do this? Act like you've been to a tournament before, will you?

5:40 pm Over on ESPN, Joe Lunardi is reading off his bracket like it means something. You are on television talking about the imaginary games in your head. Perhaps it's time to lie down?

5:42 pm Someone asks Bill Self who he thinks is the best team other than Kansas. Self dissembles admirably, but why would you think any coach would give a remotely interesting answer to that sort of question?

5:48 pm I will not end this comment with a fourth straight rhetorical question. So, Mike Brey is being interviewed by CBS, which is a good excuse to link to John Gasaway's great article on Notre Dame's resurgence in the last few weeks. It's also why I don't think the Irish will go far in the tournament.

5:54 pm CBS is running last year's One Shining Moment as filler; talk about throwing salt in the wounds of Carolina fans this season. And is this the time to admit that One Shining Moment has never done a thing for me? The song annoys me. The clips always strike me as emotionally manipulative as opposed to the ones I actually want to see.

5:58 pm According to my Twitter feed, I am alone in my thoughts on One Shining Moment. It's true, I have no soul.

6:00 pm Kansas gets the overall number one seed. Kansas players seem bored by this.

6:03 pm Kentucky, Duke (sigh) and Syracuse get the other three. Duke even slips ahead of the Orange. Midwest meets West (Syracuse) and East meets South in the Final Four.

6:04 pm Nobody likes Duke ahead of Syracuse. Of course, this is all pretty meaningless as far as things go until you see how the rest of the brackets fill out.

6:05 pm This, by the way, is the rare year when North Carolina is not hosting any round of the tournament. So UNC picked the correct year to, you know, not show up.

6:14 pm First bracket in with the Midwest. Things don't look good for Maryland or my other alma mater UC Santa Barbara. (Expect a lot of UCSB coverage next week, by the way.) That top half looks brutal; I'm also down on Georgia Tech's chances, although the fact they squeaked in is good for the other ACC bubble teams.

6:21 pm Wasn't Oakland a play-in team a few years ago having to face UNC? And now they're ahead of Santa Barbara. Brutal. The bottom half of this bracket looks like a pretty easy road for KSU and Pitt, which would be nice, since I always pick Pitt to go too far anyway. No one's allowed to whine about UTEP without seeing their possession stats. Florida State's nine seed seed despite a third-place ACC finish says something about the conference this season, and has to make the Hokie fans a little nervous.

6:30 pm Wake Forest lucked out in getting the only team in the country flailing as badly down the stretch as they are. Don't think it will help them get the win though. Temple has to be irritated at being a 5th behind Wisconsin's 4th, and Cornell should be higher than a 12th, so that'l be an interesting game. Overall, Kentucky and WVU should make it to the Elite Eight without too much difficulty.

6:39 pm Now you can complain about Duke over Syracuse, because Duke's half of this bracket is ridiculously easy. Also, Virginia Tech (4th in the ACC) gets left out. Which means six more weeks of Seth Greenberg complaining, I think. 

6:40 pm Overall, I like that there are more small-conference teams in the tournament, and this is the the year to do that, with a lot of teams week overall. Unfortunately, this will only increase the calls for a 96-team tournament, because the names that just missed it are big ones folks will recognize. It would still be a mistake though.

6:45 pm My girlfriend's response to Clark Kellogg's defense that Duke did win the ACC regular season and tournament, and should be above Syracuse. "Yeah, but my eleven year-old nephew could have done that."

6:50 pm Backing the Pack informs me that the NIT selection show is at 9. Meanwhile the NCAA rep is trying to justify Duke over Syracuse, and indeed is blaming the injury in the Big East tourney.

6:55 pm Consensus puts the Midwest and East brackets as the toughest, which I both agree with and approve of, as I dislike both KU and UK. Duke's easy NCAA path after an easy ACC tournament is going to grate on me for quite some time though.

7:04 pm Dick Vitale is advocating for Virginia Tech over Wake Forest, since VT beat Wake. Of course they did it at home, and Wake is a horrible road team. That 339 non-conference strength of schedule is killer though. Also, the fact that Seth Greenberg continues to brag about beating N.C. State. That is not an argument in your favor, Seth.

7:10 pm Looking at Tech's schedule, by the way, and there are a lot of bad losses there. UNC, Miami twice, and Boston College. Although Wake's shame of UNC, State, and Miami twice doesn't help, either.

7:14 pm I love when Jay Bilas turns on full-hatred mode. "This is the weakest field in the history of the tournament. If you couldn't get in, you flat-out couldn't play." Dick Vitale, in response, randomly name drops Sam Perkins and moves on to how they shouldn't expand the tournament. Good for you Vitale. ESPN can't be happy with the way Vitale harps on it, though.

7:17 pm Bob Knight, on the other hand just hates the committee (not enough basketball expertise), November games, mid-major teams, conference tournaments, Virginia Tech not being in the tournament, Virginia Tech's players for screwing up, and possibly your mom. No wait, he definitely hates your mom, too.

More photos » Gerry Broome - AP

Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio, right, is seen in the waning moments of an NCAA college basketball game against Miami in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Thursday, March 11, 2010. Miami won 83-62.

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So not only was UNC knocked out in their first tournament game – second time Georgia Tech's done that to Roy Williams by the way – but they were the only lower seed not to advance. Miami, N.C. State, and talent-deprived Virginia all had better tournaments than the Heels. Don't expect that trend to continue, though. The bottom four seeds are 2-8 on Friday since the tournament expanded. N.C. State has had the greatest success, making it all the way to the finals as a ten seed in 2007.

The Wolfpack remain the only team to win three ACC tournament games and not be awarded the title, having done it twice,  both that season and in 1997, during the days of the Les Robinson Invitational. They're the most likely to advance today as well. Florida State, despite winning a lot down the stretch, has been playing slower and slower, and getting narrower and narrower in their victories. It's the last game of the night, they'll have had the longest time off, and they're ripe for the upset.

UNC will be back in Chapel Hill,of course, hoping for an NIT bid. If you need something to debate, here's Larry Drew's postgame quote, one of the few new criticisms of this team I've heard in some time:

"If I had to say something, I would probably say in certain situations Coach will call a set play and guys, I feel, are so caught up into carrying the play out that they're not really letting their basketball instincts take over."

Thoughts?

More photos » Gerry Broome - AP

North Carolina's Marcus Ginyard (1) misses a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Georgia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Thursday, March 11, 2010.

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Can we just end this season now? I'm serious. Decline any NIT bid that might float UNC's way. Ignore the CBI. Just walk away. I'm tired of watching this team fall apart. 

For awhile at least, this team played like they wanted to be there. Some of it was more Tech's ineptitude than anything else; the Yellow Jackets came out slow and unfocused, with nine turnovers and 2-11 shooting from behind the arc in the first half. The Heels, on the other hand, outhustled, outrebounded and plain embarrassed Tech in the first half. Even with their all-too familiar poor shooting, UNC went into the locker room with a ten point lead, led by Marcus Ginyard, who was everywhere on the court spurring the team on.

Less than four minutes into the second half, that lead was gone. And Carolina was never able to pull back away, despite Tyler Zeller's first career double-double. With John Henson on the bench in foul trouble for large stretches, the Heels had no answer for Derrick Favors and no ability to get the ball in the basket. UNC was 10 for 33 from the field in the second half, and scored their last field goal with 5:11 to play. The defense was pretty good down the stretch, but Deon Thompson had a silly foul with thirteen seconds remaining on the shot clock, and that was all she wrote. A typical end to a very atypical season.

Carolina won't turn down an NIT bid, of course. Williams has already said as much. I think the fans would prefer it if he just spared us all the pain, though. Spring football has to start up soon, right?

Chuck Burton - AP

Wake Forest's Ishmael Smith (10) Chas McFarland, (13) and Tony Woods (55) react after an NCAA college basketball game against Miami in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament in Greensboro, N.C., Thursday, March 11, 2010. Miami won 83-62.

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Well, after this morning it's quite clear I know nothing about basketball. Perhaps you'd like to try the mothership, instead?

Here's hoping UNC can continue the lower-seed trend Miami and a Sylvan Landesberg-less Virginia have started.