The North Carolina Tar Heels, a basketball team that was looked at as one of the top two in the country just last month, lost their third game out of their last five tonight to Georgia Tech.
In their last games the Heels have lost four -- including defeats at the hands of NC State, Virginia Tech, Maryland and the above mentioned Yellow Jackets.
Now, I'm not applauding the fact that the Heels have been falling as of late -- I'm not at all. In fact, this just adds a little relief to my thoughts on the current affairs surrounding Gators basketball, as I feel the Heels are still one of the favorites to make it to the Final Four, just like the beloved Gators.
The Tar Heels may have some more excuses, I guess. They are a younger team that is more open to poor performances than the Gators. Their losses have come against a couple of tournament type teams in Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Maryland.
On that note, though, the Gators have lost to pretty good opponents in Vanderbilt and Tennessee.
The point is good teams lose games late in the season, especially on the road, and this is a common theme among many past championship squads. It's just so tough to win on the road late in the season when opposing teams are trying to cement NCAA tournament berths or trying to grab a higher seed. In some cases teams are just trying to get some sort of signature win out of a bad season.
I know that this probably doesn't help too much in the case of worry over the state of the basketball team right now. It shows us that the Gators aren't the only ones that are going through tough times.
I fully expect UNC to make noise in the tournament, and with that I believe we'll see the same from the Gators. Both of these two teams are too good to have consistent failure.