Davidson Then and Now

The News & Observer ACC blog uses the occasion of the Davidson-UNC game to look back at the nadir of the Doherty tenure, and lays the blame at the feet of Jason Capel and Kris Lang. This prompted me to Google the younger Capel, who is unfortunately saddled with a Slate article pinning the debacle solely on him. When New Republic editors are getting paid to complain about your basketball leadership, you know you've been dealt a poor hand.

(For the record, the whole "Capel and Lang! Of course they were awful!" line of thinking is a pretty shoddy one. Capel was putting up numbers similar to NBA-bound Chris Wilcox at Maryland, and as frontcourts go, they weren't many with superior talent. Duke was getting by with Carlos Boozer and Dahntay Jones, Wake Forest was grooming the underrated Darius Songalia and Josh Howard, Virginia had Travis Watson and Chris Williams, and Maryland had Wilcox and Lonny Baxter. It was the guard play that was outstanding that year - the All-ACC team was backcourt heavy, and it's the Dunleavy-Williams and Dixon-Blake tandems that everyone remembers from the Final Four that year. The Tar Heels were sporting two future transfers and a couple of freshmen "determined to lead UNC back to the top.")

Four years later, and Davidson's only another opportunity for the team to irritate Williams with a lack of focus. Not the best sign with the Wolfpack next on the horizon.