I'm going to tattoo lines from this story on my mom's FOREHEAD, for future reference.

From Sarah comes a Basketball Prospectus article about the Tar Heels and the influence of their high-octane offense on their oft-maligned defense. John Gasaway writes:

Here's how it will play out. North Carolina will win a lot of games. (A high-risk prediction, I know, but danger is my middle name.) Then they'll drop one, likely a high-scoring affair. The head-shaking and hand-wringing will then commence. The Tar Heels, it will be said from countless courtside tables during countless telecasts, are talented a nd can score points. But they will have to start playing defense if they want to get to the Final Four.

The only problem: the numbers will in fact show that Carolina plays very good defense. Bloggers will swarm onto the scene with confident alacrity, waving their spreadsheets excitedly to make the hey-wait-a-minute point. Tar Heel games, the bloggers will say, are fast-paced but in terms of points allowed per possession, Roy Williams' team actually plays excellent defense.

Lastly, as inevitable and certain as Tyler Hansbrough "creating contact," the bloggers will be faulted for their dim grasp of on-floor realities. Yo, Chauncey Lymph Node, did you see that game? The Heels play matador defense, period. No discipline. Players out of position. Forget your spreadsheets, there's just no "D" in "North Carolina."

Lather, rinse, repeat. It happens every year. Who's right?

Everybody. (Yay! What a feel-good story. It should really be on the Hallmark Channel.)

I think that Gasaway is right; frankly, the signature of Roy Williams' coaching style -- the blow-your-face-off run game -- relies on having a great-not-good defense. You can't run if you don't force turnovers in transition (you also end up running the wrong way if you have too many turnovers on offense, but I'm not sure that's a defensive problem; if it is, it's a bizarre offensive defense problem and I'm not sure that I have the vocabulary to discuss it, not to mention it's really neither here nor there). A running game like Roy prefers necessitates steals, traps, five second violations, flustered opponents -- and you can't have those things if you aren't playing defense.

So what I really got from this article is that for our offense to function, our defense has to function, which is fine by me. And the third sentence in that first paragraph I quoted, I think that's at the heart of things: a high-scoring affair, that's the one we'll lose. A high-scoring affair in which the Heels probably got to run to their little hearts' contents, because they played great defense and forced turnovers and pushed the ball. A high-scoring affair where the other offense just made more shots than the Heels did, and not because the Heels didn't play defense -- just because they didn't make shots.

High-scoring losses bother me, but not because I think the Heels don't play defense -- because I think our offense falters in the face of great defense, and that's got nothing to do with rebounders under the defensive glass at all.

Blink and you'll miss it, but our defense isn't the only place this team needs work, if we're going to end up in San Antonio. I've got faith and Gasaway does, too. So where's everybody else's? (The Roy's doesn't count. The Roy is not, actually, contractually obligated in believe in his team. The Roy is allowed to think they're all bozo defensive slackers if he wants to. Because he's The Roy.)