In all of modern day sports, there are only a few sports in which there is a possibility of a team going undefeated. We accept the fact that there will never be a baseball team good enough to win all 162 games. We accept the fact that there will never be an NBA or NHL team that wins all 82 games. We know that there is a possibility for this to happen in the NFL. Only last season we saw the New England Patriots make a run at such an improvability, only to be thwarted by the New York Football Giants in Super Bowl XLII. While it hasn't happened since the expansion to a 16-game regular season schedule, it is not seen as an unattainable feat.
While it hasn't happened in college football since the 2005 Texas Longhorns, we nearly expect our college football champion to reach their goal flawlessly. If they cannot do so, there is often controversy (within the current bowl system) as to whether or not they are the true and deserving champions.
So it takes 19-0 to accomplish NFL perfection. It takes 13-0 or 14-0 to accomplish college football perfection and here we are today, many experts believing that a team could possibly double the feats we know to be highly unlikely and go an astonishing 39-0. Well, perhaps they do not believe that anymore after the University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team lost on Sunday to Boston College, 85-78.
So why was it that there were certain so-called experts believing the University of North Carolina Tar Heels could go 39-0? I'd argue for one reason and one reason only: it has been done before. It has been done seven times, once by San Francisco, once by UNC, four times by UCLA, and most recently by the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. That was only a 32-0 bid, around seven less games than a team of today would have to win for perfection.
So it has been more than 30 years. Is it still possible? As a lifelong sports fan, I will never say anything is impossible, but I don't think it is going to happen for the 2009. Of course this can be done. But will it remains to be seen.
I think that the Tar Heels loss last Sunday to Boston College will prove to be, dare I say it, a good thing.
Why? Pressure.
The pressure of being undefeated is ridiculous. It is an expectation that removes a team simply from being the best in the country for a given season into the ranks of arguably the best ever.
Sportswriters seem to always be searching for the next team, player, coach, offense, defense or special teams that they can peg as the best ever and the hype about UNC was no different. A team that could go 39-0 in this era of college basketball would truly be in consideration for the best college basketball team of all-time. The problem is that a team going 37-2 or even 38-1 and still winning the NCAA tournament would receive little to no consideration as one of the best of all-time by most people. That happens, maybe not every year, but has become expected. 39-0 is not expected. 39-0 is nearly unfathomable. History seems to remember the undefeated teams far more than the one-loss teams.
I do not believe the Tar Heels had set their standard to 39-0 or bust, but this loss is initially a shaking one, especially considering that Boston College wasn't even ranked and the game was at home.
But it has to relieve some of the pressure. The pressure that is piled upon an undefeated team is always more and always will be more than a team not striving for perfection. There's no question in my mind that a team that goes 34-5 yet wins the NCAA tournament is better than a 38-1 team whose one loss was in the championship game, yet it seems as though the media and the nation's fans would choose the 38-1 team, falling shy of perfection at the last moment, any day over the 34-5 national champion.
The pressure to perform at a perfect level is more than people can handle. Why do you think we haven't seen an undefeated college basketball team in 33 years? The quest to win a national championship is great enough. Why make the quest more difficult? I think the Tar Heels will learn from this loss and be able to move forward with some perspective, and it will make them in the long-run a better candidate for a national championship.
As for the teams that remain undefeated, my prediction is this. In this day and age, if any team actually manages to enter the NCAA tournament undefeated, they will emerge nothing more than the biggest disappointment in NCAA history.
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