Road Skid Hits 11

After winning seven of its first seventeen ACC road games, the Hurricanes have now dropped eleven straight. I keep reading on various message boards how the team is progressing and how Frank Haith is doing a good job. I am not taking sides here and want to remain objective until the season plays out with us likely in the NIT or the new third tournament the Basketball Invitational. However, considering Haith has coached this team since its very first ACC game the evidence of backsliding and decline is certainly apparent. It seems expectations for the Hurricanes are perennially so low locally and that those who cover sports here forget completely how good Miami was in the late 1990s that annual NIT trips are seen as some sort of reward for fine play, when they are simply a reward for being in power conference whose perception makes its image greater than the reality which is that the ACC hasn't been very good top to bottom since the mid 1990s. I'll go on the record saying the teams Miami had that finished in the upper division of the Big East very likely would have WON the ACC, because in my opinion the ACC is a lot weaker top to bottom than the Big East and the results when the two leagues match up head to head over the past several years is testimony of that fact.

The Hurricanes loss to Duke today needs no explanation. It was pathetic for a team that has nothing to play for to perform so poorly against a team, albeit a superior one with this as a trap game in between a game against two local rivals. The Hurricanes inability to get the ball inside and box out against a much much smaller team shows how bad this squad really is. The Hurricanes are a mentally weak bunch who seem to be regressing by the game. Coach Haith better figure something out real soon or he will be looking for employment elsewhere in the near future.