[tarheeljks]

aces: i'm not really following you. yes unc had matchup problems against certain squads-- this does not preclude them from being a a good defensive team. regardless of a team's style of play or make up there will always be another team that poses a match up problem. your anecdotal evidence regarding defensive rotation is a perfect example of exactly what this article means to disprove-- you don't have to play a slow, grinding game to defend well. citing two defensive lapses hardly discredits this article and it seems like your examples are missing the point of the article. more importantly note that 4 of the games unc lost last year (va tech, ga tech, nc state, and maryland) were on the road, where pomus concedes that the heels were much weaker defensively.

obv i'm biased here but offering up a handful of examples of poor defensive performances is pretty lol. the points per possession stat captures the essence of defense, . carolina's struggles last year were a function of streaky jumpshooting and youth much more so than defensive issues (though the youth was likely a factor in the disparity in home vs road play).

basically it sounds like you have said is "i don't care what this guy's numbers say, they don't look like a good defensive team to me." that's fine but support that w/something other than "i just don't agree."

edit: also, i'm interested to hear what you think this stat is missing regarding defensive performance. the only thing i can think of is something like adjustments based on opponent strength; something like the dova rankings in football.