While the Tar Heels’ tanking season doesn’t come close to measuring up to the situation in Haiti, it does speak to the truth that suffering befalls us all, and sometimes due to no fault of our own.

Christian broadcaster Pat Roberston claimed the Haiti earthquake was the goblins coming home to haunt on account of a pact made years ago between the Haitian people and the devil.

OK, so who sinned in Chile?

Listen, at some point we’re all going to suffer. Oh, things may be swell for you now. But just keep on living, you hear? Hard times will darken your door before long.

Just look at Roy Williams. The good times rolled season after season for the UNC basketball coach with the aw-shucks swagger. Now he’s so keenly impersonating former UNC coach Matt Doherty that impressionist Rich Little’s probably taking notes.

Yet it’s not all Williams’ fault, because he went out and beat the bushes and brought to Chapel Hill some real hotshots. Problem is, a bunch of them are freshmen.

Not that a millionaire coach can’t earn his keep by figuring out how to win with freshmen. Just ask Kentucky coach John Calipari, who has that John Wall guy.

Now, you might as well say it, because I know you’re thinking it: “Roy Williams sure wishes he’d spent more time on I-40 going to Raleigh to holler at John Wall, huh?”

And had Wall ended up running up and down the court with NORTH CAROLINA emblazoned across his chest, sure he would have broken down defenses better than Larry Drew II and fed Ed Davis and Deon Thompson the way speedy Ty Lawson — a terrific set-up man — had them feasting all the way to last season’s national title. The Tar Heels would have more wins right now. Things would be better.

This season.

Meaning next season would have been Williams’ worst, because, remember, one-and-done Wall is next in The League.

In other words, suffering is inevitable. It’s bound to happen.

The knock on Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski in past seasons when his squad was down compared to the Blue Devil standard was he had too many white boys on the court and not enough black dudes. Yet who’s Duke’s leader this season? Yep, Jon Scheyer, a white boy, who very well may be the ACC player of the year.

But for the disillusioned souls convinced Scheyer’s too good to be white and therefore must be a very light-skinned black guy, for time’s sake let’s cede the point in order to make another, that winning sometimes has less to do with collecting talent and more to do with corralling teammates. A squad of guys who really understand they need each other can do some things. I mean, you tell me what’s stronger: one solitary finger poked out and hogging all the attention, or a tightly wound fist?

Duke has a nucleus of Scheyer, Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler. They’re good. They know how to get it done on the court. But those brothers — uh, that term includes Scheyer and Singler — know they needed three and four years of college before even thinking about pro ball. UNC’s ballyhooed freshmen hopefully are taking notes.

Yet even then a good result isn’t guaranteed.

A popular maxim posits opportunity plus preparation equals success.

But there’s also this truism: Life happens.

And sometimes, for whatever reason, the bottom falls out. In Haiti. In Chile.

Even in Chapel Hill.

Reach John McCann at jmccann@heraldsun.com or (919) 419-6601.