Every weekday, Inside Carolina senior reporter Greg Barnes weighs in with his thoughts on the latest in Tar Heel sports. Barnes has been the preeminent reporter and expert analyst on UNC athletics for two decades. Watch his full daily thoughts above.

Greg’s Daily Take:
“As of what we’re hearing from school sources early this morning, we are not expecting any type of official announcement from UNC today (Tuesday, March 24). The ball game was Thursday night, and I know people are are ready to hear some news, one way or the other. As we reported on Saturday, there was a likelihood of this pushing into this week, and that’s what we’re seeing. And I do think it’s important to note, as we laid this out in our reporting on Sunday, that the national media narrative was a little bit ahead of where things actually stood on the ground in Chapel Hill. There was some talk in national media circles of this important meeting on Sunday afternoon and maybe an announcement on Monday, and that just really did not match the intel that we had heard. 

“Well, why is it taking so long? And it’s a good question. There’s a lot of things UNC has to work through. I wish I had an accurate answer now. I do think it’s important for people to understand that the longer this goes, it does set up the situation where a lot of people are able to share more opinions – Larry Brown reached out to me on Sunday night and wanted to share his support for Hubert Davis, and some other prominent people in the North Carolina community have done the same. And each day this goes on, there’s more opportunity for people to reflect and and to talk to other people who maybe are like minded, and it sets up the scenario where people are able to start sharing their opinions and and be more vocal in in what they believe should happen. That’s always a challenge in this dynamic, and I’m sure that’s one of the things that UNC officials are aware of as they work through this process. 

“From my perspective, I do think you have to be careful not to miss the forest for the trees. And sometimes people get so tied down with the specific details that they can miss the overall big picture. When you talk about university officials, it is a decision to be made by them about what Carolina Basketball looks like over the next five years, over the next 10 years, and ultimately that is all that matters, whatever that vantage point is. And once you come to that decision, and everybody’s in agreement with what that looks lthen everything else should fall into place.

“Again, the longer this plays out, it brings different opinions and different conversations into play. And you can get pushed away from that priority of what Carolina basketball needs to be five years, 10 years from now. That is what matters. You have to start with that and then work backward.”