I've posted this a couple of times since I first wrote it, editing it each time. I truly love the UNC-Kentucky game, and it's worth putting it up one more time, as ESPN doesn't know the meaning of the word underhype. Possibly because said word does not exist, but mostly because they're ESPN.

There exists, in this day an age, a basketball game that doesn't merely live up to the hype that surrounds it, but goes virtually unnoticed despite being one of the best games of the year. I'm not sure why - the fact it's not on ESPN certainly helps, and the shiny football conference championships splayed across the networks draw away some of the interest, but it still sneaks up on me every year.

Think about this game for a second. The two teams in question aren't traditional rivals. They don't share a conference and are nowhere near each other geographically. The game isn't part of a television-generated event, dreamed up in a corporate boardroom to sell advertising minutes in early December. It doesn't have a name, or a cup, or a bet between governors, or even a particularly long history. It's blessfully free of Dick Vitale color commentary. It is simply a basketball game between two teams, one the winningest college program in history, and the other the school that will innevitably surpass them in this regard.

It's North Carolina vs. Kentucky.

Both programs deserve praise for keeping the game on the schedule eight years running now, despite the fact that a touch matchup this early isn't what a coach always wants to see. (Matt Doherty especially could have done without it, but you have to respect him for agreeing to it and never backing down.) It's always a good game for the fans, and often an important one for the teams - the past two wins for UNC has been where a championship team first truly gelled, and their freshman successors proved to folks they could compete at the highest levels. Kentucky's upset in 2002 was a coming out party for a team that would go undefeated in the SEC and make to the Final Four, as well as the first smack in the mouth for freshmen Mays, McCants and Felton.

This year won't be any different. Kentucky fallen from the heights it's fans may be used to, but the Wildcats won't have any trouble getting amped for UNC - this is a school that scrapped an entire set of uniforms because Nike picked a shade of blue a little to close to the one favored in Chapel Hill. The Heels should still triumph as this is Carolina, after all, but no matter what, it'll be one of the best games of the year.

And you won't hear a damned thing about it beforehand.

If only the Dick Vitale parts were still true.

I've haven't mentioned basketball much this fall, in part because I've had little to say. UNC brought back practically everyone from last year, added an impressive recruiting class, and was unanimous preseason #1. There's only so many ways to say, "This team is going to be good," and I figured most of them had already been said. Then, of course, I had this conversation at the UNC alumni shindig prior to the Maryland debacle:

Fellow UNC Fan: ...and I'm recording the game, in case the rain's so bad we need to find out what happens after the fact.

Me: Ah, but are you also recording the basketball game?

F.U.F: There's a basketball game?

Me: Yep. Against Penn, at four.

F.U.F.: Man, I've really got to start reading the sports page again.

So for those of you I've let down and left without the information you so desperately need: Yes, basketball season has started. It began in what has become a tradition in the last couple of years, with lackluster play against an inferior opponent, but at least it wasn't an embarrassing home loss or anything. The freshmen outperformed expectations - Zeller with 18 points, and Davis with 10 points and 14 rebounds - and the team played well with a good chunk of its senior leadership on the bench and what for Carolina passes for not a lot of depth. After all, when was the last time only seven players had more than fifteen minutes of floor time?

Next up, of course, is UNC-Kentucky, moved over to ESPN and shoved ridiculously early in the basketball calendar as some sort of marathon television stunt. This game in particular deserves better, but it managed to get Bobby Knight in a Carolina blue sweater, so it's still head and shoulders above anything else you'll see before the new year.

The Wildcats return much of the same team that was dispatched by the Heels last year in an orgy of fouling; they lost their go-to shooter Jamal Crawford and point guard Ramel Bradley to graduation. The core of the team is now the Patrick Patterson / Perry Stevenson front line with Jodie Meeks (who missed the UNC game, and much of the season, to injuries) out on the perimeter draining shots right and left. Hansbrough won't play in this game, either, but the matchups for Kentucky are still pretty rough. UNC has interior size the Wildcats can't match, and depth (even short two starters) to keep pace should Kentucky try to outrun the Heels to compensate. Provided the youth holds up - and they're being thrust into the deep end quicker than expected - Carolina should win by a nice eight point margin with the home court advantage.

That was a crap football game.

It was a crap football game, played in the rain, at a miserable stadium in a miserable town among miserable people subjected to an endless barrage of the same two cuts off whatever miserable Jock Jams CD the Maryland AV Club dug out of a bargain bin. It was a crap football game in which UNC, with a chance to accept clear control over the Coastal Division instead, for the third time this season, not show up for the second half and give it away. It was a crap football game that was painfu to watch and I am all the worse for being subjected to it.

The blame can't be laid on the defense, although the 27 first downs and 9 of 18 third down conversions didn't help matters, as Da'Rel Scott and Davin Meggett had stretches where they ran at will. No, the defense held the surging Terps to a field goal in the closing minutes after being on the field for a whopping forty-plus minutes of play. And more importantly, early in the fourth they recovered a Josh Portis fumble on the Maryland 33, giving the offense the short field they needed to put the game away.

The offense failed to score there; they in fact failed to move the ball at all. Just like on the previous possession, where after a gimmick pass from Bobby Rome put the Heels on the Maryland 17, they gained no further yardage only to have Casey Barth shank what would turn out to be a crucial field goal off the left upright. In fact, that drive was UNC's only offensive push of any consequence in the second half; on the others they managed 1, 19, 0, 21 and -2 yards. Hakeem Nicks only had three catches; the offense only one third down conversion. It was one big bag of hurt, and now the Heels have cast themselves back into the rugby scrum of failure with the rest of Coastal Division.

On the bright side, the Boardwalk Fries were good.

For the second week in a row, the biggest game remaining on the schedule - the Coastal Division leader versus the Atlantic, on now on ABC.

A Musical Tribute to the Opponent

Who could you choose for Maryland but D.C.'s finest Wale. Who, naturally, eschews the Terrapin Under Armour for UNC sponsor, well, Nike.

The fine folks at SBNation have put together a comprehensive BCS page, complete with rankings, scoreboards and links to the blog posts on each team in the BCS Top 25. Which includes UNC, sitting pretty for the moment at sweet sixteen. So go play around and see how you like it.

So around this time last year, these were my thoughts on the Terps:

I currently live in the D.C. area, right in the midst of Maryland's ACC market area. I drive by the Beltway exit for the campus daily on the way to work. In theory, I should be saturated in coverage of the Terps.

I don't know a thing about this team.

Maryland hasn't made it any easier, though. The team beats Rutgers one week, and is blown out by Clemson in another. Beats Georgia Tech but loses to Virginia. And no, I don't care what Virginia's record is - the Cavs lost to State. 

And this year? The team that loses to Middle Tennessee, beats Cal. Shuts out Wake and went scoreless against Virginia. They hobbled a powerful Clemson running game (for a half, at least), and then let Virginia Tech's Darren Evans, who had never cracked 100 yards, rack up 258. I'm beginning to suspect Friegden just picks a team at random every week.

There are a couple of common denominators, though:

• The Terps play better at home. Those MTSU, UVa and Virginia Tech losses? They were three of Maryland's four road games to date. The other was the trip to Clemson, where the Terps fell behind after giving up 204 yards on the ground in the first half.
• That Darrius Heyward-Bey kid is pretty good. He has twice the receiving yardage of any other player on the team, but only has 30 receptions. Either the team doesn't know to look to him, or he can be easily covered. The UNC secondary has wrangled tougher wideouts, and should be able to do so here.
• Da'Rel Scott hasn't been the same since the shoulder injury against Cal. The running back racked up 507 yards in his first three games, but since conference play began he's run for less than 40 in three of five contests. UNC's done a good job of bottling running games in the last few weeks, and if they can avoid another Scott explosion like against N.C. State, they'll be sitting pretty.
• The defense isn't much to write home about. The Terps are middle of the pack or worse in most statistical categories. The UNC offense has to take advantage of that - if they can get a solid lead under their belt and then let the Heels' defense take over, it should make for a pleasant afternoon.

Really? We're being stuck with this crap again?

There certainly are reasons why Tennessee would be an attractive proposition for Davis. The Vols play in the Southeastern Conference, which is superior to the Atlantic Coast Conference in football. And at Tennessee, the football program is No. 1 on campus. Davis will always be No. 2 at North Carolina - or 1-A at best - behind Roy Williams and his basketball powerhouse.

I'm sure that's why Bruce Pearl is out interviewing for every job he can, desperate to get away from being a basketball coach at a football school, suffering the indignity of only making $1.6 million a year. Why Billy Donovan fled Florida as fast as he could, and Rick Barnes only lasted a few scant years at Texas. It's the immutable law of college athletics, you see; you must choose between football and basketball.

Of course, none of that preceding paragraph is true. And you never hear sportswriters pushing that garbage in that direction. "Football" schools are expected to compete in basketball. At best you get a bemused "Football crazy fans come out for basketball!" stories, but no one expects their basketball coaches to inevitably flee for greener hardwoods.

And yet it's been the common refrain since UNC first thought about hiring Butch Davis. He'll never stay. It's a stepping stone. No self-respecting coach could ever tolerate a job where they're known for basketball. The Davis Exodus has been foretold, and like fundamentalists obsessed with the End Times, every word is a sign that the predictions are true. The same predictions were made last year, and the year before that, and they'll continue as long as there's college athletics in Chapel Hill. Just do me a favor, all right? Make a macro or keep a standard article around to use each year so I can just start skipping these damn things, OK?

(Oh, and with regards to the ticket thing - as one of the Carolina faithful who will be in Byrd Stadium on Saturday, tickets had to be purchased by October 10th, when no one knew whether UNC or Maryland would be any good, and as the commenters noted, they did sell out. So, I don't think Davis needs to be as worried as another coach down the road.)

It's a bit of a disconnect to look at the BCS rankings and see North Carolina on the list. Even though it will have practically no effect on UNC's postseason destination, it's interesting to see where they're placed. Especially since the Heels are one of this year's crop of teams respected by computers, and dissed by the voters - one poll has them as high as 10th (Massey's) and another two 13th. The remain three put the Heels at 16th and 18th, roughly where the voters place them. Maybe it's time to twist some SBNation arms about the blogpoll.

Not as fond of Carolina as our silicon-powered bretheren, however, is Georgia Tech's coach Paul Johnson:

At the luncheon, held at Fox Sports Grill at Atlantic Station, a guest asked Johnson if he was irked by Carolina’s passing the ball with less than four minutes to go and the score 28-7.

Said Johnson, “I can only coach one team at a time, but they’re in our division, and we will see them again.”

For the record the passes - there were three, two of which fell incomplete - were the first snaps taken by T.J. Yates, injured since mid-September.  Heck, they threw on 4th and 10 from the Georgia Tech 23 rather than kick a field goal just to get Yates another play. It wasn't running up the score, and it absolutely was the right thing to do to prepare for this week's game at Maryland. Why don't you go back to being mad at the refs?