I should be ashamed of myself. I really should. Here I am, a student at UNC-- a school with a truly great basketball team-- and I'm not confident that the Tar Heels are going to win the national championship this weekend. Up until now, they've managed to survive in the tourney, despite some lackluster performances and some down-to-the-wire victories. A ref's bad call in one game could arguably have been the deciding factor in one victory.

But in my history of "fanship," the team I'm rooting for always gets close to the prize but botches it up when it really matters. Take the Braves, for instance. I used to be a huge Braves fan, and only once did they manage to win the World Series. All of the other years I was a faithful watcher they would lose in the playoffs or in the World Series itself. Sure, during the regular season they were the best team of all, but they choked when it really mattered.

I have a similar feeling here. UNC has been awesome all season, with of course the exception of a few notable games: Wake Forest, Duke, Georgia Tech, and let us not forget Santa Clara. The Georgia Tech game was an example of choking when it mattered-- had they won there, they might have gone on to win the ACC tournament title.

I've watched the team play all season, and perhaps I'm being too critical, but they don't always have it together. Their biggest strength has been their offense (practically every guy on that team can make a basket, and until Sean May started dominating in the latter part of the season nobody was really outscoring anybody else). Their biggest weakness has been their defense, and it looks like that might be the deciding factor this weekend. Right now, May is the one to watch. He almost seems to be carrying the entire team. The downside of that, though, is that Michigan State knows this and you can bet they'll do their best to stop him. And point guard Raymond Felton is a great player, but lately he's been getting into foul trouble early on. If things don't fit exactly right, we're screwed.

So this is what's going through my head. I refuse to get excited, because I don't want to be let down. I'm rooting for UNC definitely, but in the back of my mind I'm more than a little worried. I really hope there's nothing for me to worry about.