Today, ever so briefly, the number on my thermometer started with a seven. I was able to open windows and air out rooms that have long been shut against the gales of winter, allowing the house to breathe deeply of the lovely, tantalizing warmth. Tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer, another banner day for getting ahead of myself and cramming my jacket into a bin to wait for next year.
Next Monday, the forecasted high is currently 47 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s colder than today’s low, and it will
go lower still. It’s still February; we’ve not even yet turned the calendar over to March to greet the world’s greatest sporting event. That winter wind still has teeth; the same teeth I herald as the harbinger of football season in September, I now lament as the overstaying of winter’s welcome. It’s lovely to live in a place with seasons.
It’s still cold in Syracuse. Little snowflakes dot the online forecast, and the high on Saturday is barely forecast to break freezing. Out of this false spring in North Carolina’s piedmont travel the Tar Heels, looking to get back on track and shake off a few cold shooting performances. My teeth were chattering during the game in Raleigh on Tuesday, and I’m not convinced it had anything to do with the fever I had at the time.
Still, just as I was willing to throw the windows open this afternoon and celebrate the warmth, disregarding the ever-approaching cold, hope springs eternal for this team. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this team is their potential; even without their two stellar bigs, there is talent on this roster that ought to stand a puncher’s chance against almost anyone in conference. All it takes is someone getting hot.
Instead, we’ve seen a hard freeze. Seth Trimble — forever my hero, to be fair — only scored from the foul line against Miami after hitting the literal poster shot against Duke. Derek Dixon was 1-9 from beyond the arc in Raleigh, and 2-12 overall. Without the two starting bigs cooking in the paint, the rest of the team has cooled considerably, a win over a moribund Pitt notwithstanding.
In fact, the last time the Heels were throw-open-the-windows hot was against Syracuse, and even then a late cold snap nearly put a damper on the whole affair. There’s reason to suspect that the sledding, such as it is, won’t be quite as easy this time, as the Tar Heels have struggled on the road when there isn’t wintry precipitation in the offing.
Hope springs eternal, as they say, even if both the hope and the spring are proven false eventually. It’s possible that the Heels are able to heat the Orange up tomorrow afternoon and run it back like they did in Chapel Hill. It’s possible that Jarin Stevenson will be red-hot with his rim running, or even that Zayden will be cooking the Syracuse bigs on High heat. It’ll be interesting to see which team we get, after Tuesday’s letdown; here’s hoping we’ve all got warm and fuzzy feelings when the clock strikes zeroes.
Even when the mercury drops out of the bottom of the thermometer, though, it’s a great day to be a Tar Heel.
