Does Calipari's move put Wall on fence again?

Well, the John Wall sweepstakes just took a turn. John Calipari's leaving Memphis, the front-runner for Wall's considerable services, for Kentucky, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

ESPN says the deal is worth $35 million over eight years.

Wall, the No. 1-rated guard prospect in the class of 2009, said Monday Memphis was his leader but he was waiting for Calipari's decision. The Raleigh Word of God senior said his final list is Memphis, Duke, N.C. State, Baylor and Kansas.

-- J.P. Giglio

Queasy memory for Williams

CHAPEL HILL — Thinking back to Kansas' 40-12 game-opening run last season during the NCAA national semi-finals still makes UNC coach Roy Williams a bit queasy. But not, apparently, as sick as he was that day, when he coached with the stomach flu.

"It bothered me because of the scenario, it bothered me because of the way we played, it bothered me because I thought we would really play well,'' Williams said of the eventual 84-66 loss.

"It bothered me because I'm throwing up in a towel because I'm sick as a dog. It's the first time in 21 years as a head coach I've ever leaned over to an assistant and told him stand up and call a play. ... I've got memories there that are going to last with me forever. Plus I felt it was very very very very very -- add as many as you want -- unfair treatment of me two days later [when fans took him to task for wearing a Jayhawks sticker to the national championship game]. So I'm going to remember it after you guys are all dead and gone."

The Tar Heels will play Villanova on Saturday in this year's national semifinal game, hoping there won't be a repeat of the ill performance.

-- Robbi Pickeral

Recruiting Wall a desperate act by Duke

AP Photo

Duke's pursuit of Raleigh's John Wall (above), a presumed "one-and-done" basketball recruit, illustrates both a shift in Mike Krzyzewski's recruiting philosophy and just how desperate the situation is for Duke.

In the aftermath of the 2004 Final Four, losing Luol Deng after one season and Shaun Livingston before he got to campus, Coach K made a conscious decision to avoid one-year college players.

Maintaining some semblance of academic integrity was an ancillary benefit to the decision but not that primary motivating factor. The disruption of the recruiting cycle is what kept Coach K away.

Two years after Deng departed in '04, before what would be one of K's worst teams (worst being a relative term) since the early 1980s, the Duke coach was still stinging from the twin decisions of Deng and Livingston, both of whom he thought he would have for at least two seasons each.

Asked in Greensboro in the preseason how the program got the point that '06-'07 would be a rebuilding season and why Duke had lost in the Sweet 16 in two straight years, Coach K said:

"We had Luol one year and we never had Shaun," Krzyzewski said. "Those two guys would have made a huge difference."

Duke went two recruiting classes without a serious pursuit of a one-and-done prospect. Josh McRoberts, the No. 1-rated prospect in the class of '05, stayed two seasons.

The Blue Devils did sign mid-level forward prospects David McClure (in '04) and Jamal Boykin (in '05) based on the premise that both would stick around for four years, and perhaps develop into senior leaders in the mold of Shane Battier, albeit less talented.

Neither four-year project worked out according to plan. McClure, as a fifth-year senior, eventually became a functional role player. Boykin transferred to Cal after one-and-half seasons.

Only after the disappointment of 0-4 finish in March '07 did the reality of the changed recruiting landscape hit Duke.

The Devils pursued blue-chip forward Patrick Patterson, who chose Kentucky instead, and settled for another late signee, Lance Thomas, a McDonald's All-American who has started 62 games in three seasons but not made a high-level impact (see: career scoring average, 4.6).

They struck out again in the spring of '08 with top forward prospect Greg Monroe, who chose Georgetown. Again, Duke decided to add another late recruit in forward Miles Plumlee, who had committed to Stanford but decided on Duke after Cardinal coach Trent Johnson left for LSU.

Despite his size, 6-10 and 235 pounds — and Duke's need for interior size — Plumlee averaged less than 2 points in less than 7 minutes a game as a freshman.

In the immediate aftermath of the successful yet unconventional '08-'09 season, which included the ACC title, Coach K promised to hit the recruiting trail in search of a conventional point guard and a capable post option.

On Sunday, the Devils landed Seth Curry, who'll transfer from Liberty after leading all freshman scorers this past season. Curry plays neither of K's intended target positions, but he will slide nicely into the combo guard role of Jon Scheyer in '10-'11.

But Curry can't help Duke in '09-'10, a potentially great Duke team if both Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler return. Wall can, hence the mercenary's visit with Duke on Monday, a recruit K wouldn't have touched five years ago. A less desperate Coach K would have wished Wall good luck, not promised him Jason Williams' playbook.

The truth is, as Krzyzewski himself admitted it after UNC's win in Durham on Feb. 11, UNC's just better than Duke right now. And despite public protests to the opposite, by both sides when the subject is brought up, beyond winning, what matters most to both Duke and Carolina is keeping up with the other side.

Since Duke's most recent Final Four appearance ('04), UNC has been to the Final Four three times, with one title in the bag and another just 80 minutes away.

That's why Duke is back in the one-and-done business. Right or wrong, it's that simple.

####

Either by their own volition, or their own recruiting failures, Duke has avoided one-and-done recruits.

While Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has been criticized for this decision, Ohio State's Thad Matta has been burned by it.

Ohio State freshman B.J. Mullens declared for the NBA Draft earlier this week. Since '06-'07, OSU has had five players (Greg Oden, Mike Conley Jr., DeQuan Cook Kosta Koufos and Mullens) leave after just one season.

No Duke players have left after one season over the same period.

How does Duke's record compare to Ohio State's?

	DUKE			OHIO STATE
	Overall	ACC	NCAA	Overall	Big Ten	NCAA
2008-09	30-7	11-5	2-1	22-11	10-8	0-1
2007-08	28-6	13-3	1-1	24-13	10-8	0-0
2006-07	22-11	8-8	0-1	35-4	15-1	5-1
Totals	80-24	32-16	3-3	81-28	35-17	5-2

They have virtually the same overall winning percentage and the same conference winning percentage.

They each have a conference title — Duke in '09, OSU in '07.

They each have one Sweet 16 appearance — Duke '09, OSU in '07.

OSU went to the Final Four in '07 and Duke did not reach the Final Four in the three seasons. Duke did make the NCAA Tournament all three years, OSU did not (missed in '08).

Which program would you rather be? -- J.P. Giglio

Bennett a good hire for UVa

Tony Bennett's not Rick Barnes, Tubby Smith or Jeff Capel but he is an excellent basketball coach and a great hire by Virginia. If you think otherwise, you are either a victim of East Coast Bias or you don't understand basketball.

Bennett, who turns 40 in June, gives Virginia a young coach, who has already been successful at the highest Division I level, with a likable personality (the opposite of Dave Leitao), a discernible style of play and an ability to teach his system.

What else is there? Oh, yeah, he played three seasons in the NBA (with the Charlotte Hornets). Every team outside of UNC, Duke, Maryland and Boston College would be ecstatic to have such a combination in their head coach.

Two reasons Virginia fans should like Bennett:

1) Any idea how hard it is to win at Washington State? In the 66 seasons before Bennett succeeded his father, Dick, as the head coach in 2006, the Cougars went to the NCAA Tournament four times and won three games.

Bennett took the Cougars to the NCAA Tournament twice in three seasons, going 3-2 in the 2007 and 2008 tournaments.

You think it will be a little easier to recruit at Virginia, with access to DC, Baltimore and the Tidewater areas than it was in Pullman, Wash., where Bennett was fighting UCLA and Washington for the Seattle leftovers?

2) If "UNC" or "Duke" is not on the front of your jersey, you have to be different. You're not going to out-recruit those two schools for the elite talent in the country. You have to have a niche, whether it's a unique offense or defense.

In four years, Leitao failed established any identity for the program, other than his abusive sideline behavior. You'll recognize what Bennett is trying to do in the first preseason game.

Bennett uses the same defensive system his father did at Wisconsin, and Bo Ryan still does. The Bennetts took Wisconsin went to the Final Four in 2000 with their "Pack Line" defense. A shifting zone that prevents dribble penetration and forces the opposition to take contested outside shots. The Cougars have led the country in scoring defense the past two seasons, allowing less than 57 points per game.

It's not unlike Syracuse's 2-3 zone, only Bennett's teams don't play as up-tempo on offense. Bennett understands his style can be classified as boring but he calls it "good" basketball.

"In a nutshell I'd say, [we] make the other team work to get contested shots and [we] work to get good shots," Bennett said in Charlotte last year before the Cougars lost to UNC in the Sweet 16.

And, as a bonus, Bennett's personality doesn't match his philosophy. Unlike other coaches' sons, Bennett's not a basketball nerd who only understands Xs and Os. In one week in Charlotte at the NCAA Tournament last year, he showed more personality at the podium than most coaches do in 10 years. -- J.P. Giglio

Tony Bennett, meet the ACC

Welcome to the ACC, Tony Bennett.

We’re not sure if the snail’s pace basketball you used to become one of the nation’s hottest coaches in 2007 and 2008 will work at Virginia. But you seemed like a decent guy when we met you in Charlotte last year for the NCAA Tournament regional, and after suffering through three seasons of Dave Leitao, Virginia needs a decent guy.

In a little more than a month, you will find yourself seated in a Ritz Carlton conference room on Amelia Island near Jacksonville, Fla., with the rest of the ACC’s coaches. Here’s what you need to know about them as you join the conference:

Mike Krzyzewski and Roy Williams: They are not as clumsy as they look in their “Guitar Hero” TV commercial guest spot. K likes fine wine and Roy likes to play golf. And though they may seem friendly, Roy will run circles around you in recruiting and K will simply outcoach you during the course of a game.

Sidney Lowe: He’s a really loud whistler. And he's a strong X's and O's coach. His ability to build a program, though, has yet to be proven.

Oliver Purnell: You don’t want to play his team in early January. You do want to play Clemson in late February or March. It may be because the Tigers’ full-court press wears them out.

Paul Hewitt: Don’t get too close to him, because he might not be around too long. He’s a heck of a recruiter and a highly principled leader in the college basketball world, but his teams are never as good as the sum of their parts.

Gary Williams: If you could put Hewitt in charge of recruiting and Williams in charge of game coaching, you’d have one of the strongest programs in the country. Williams might be the best X’s and O’s guy in Division I, and he’s not a maniac away from the court even though he looks like one while he’s coaching.

Al Skinner: Here’s another guy who will flat-out take your lunch. How he beat North Carolina and Duke with a team that consisted of Tyrese Rice and not much else this season is almost impossible to figure.

Seth Greenberg: This is the coach in the ACC you’d most want to have a beer with. Unless you were a referee. For some reason, he always seems like he thinks the officiating tilts against his team.

Leonard Hamilton: If you need a primer on how to coach defense in the ACC, this is your guy. If you’re interested in offense, he wouldn't be at the top of the list.

Frank Haith: He’s still a good coach even though his team underachieved this season. But when you see him, be thankful you landed where you did. Miami is just not a college basketball town.

Dino Gaudio: Don’t worry if he doesn’t have much to say. He’s still trying to figure out how a team with three future first-round NBA draft picks could get hammered by Cleveland State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

One more piece of advice, Tony. Make sure you’re wearing a sweater when you leave your room at the Ritz for the conference room, which is the coldest place in the ACC region other than the Greensboro Coliseum media room.

In the meantime, good luck getting started at Virginia. The new arena there is gorgeous and the fans will be excited to have you around. It won’t be difficult to generate more good will than Leitao did, so you should have a nice grace period as you prepare to build a winner when you start without much talent. – Ken Tysiac

Ol' Roy's Final Four record not that bad

Roy Williams is off to his seventh Final Four and the Tar Heels are installed as a 4-to-5 favorite to win the national title.

Yet, some UNC fans, or followers of Barack-a-tology, are worried Ol' Roy will screw up another Final Four.

Why?

In the grand scheme of things Ol' Roy is 1-for-6 at the Final Four but the overall record (4-5) and round-by-round numbers are more than respectable. Williams is 3-3 in the semifinals and 1-2 in the title game.

If you measure the six trips on the Ol'-Roy-o-Meter, it's more like: Acceptable Losses 3.5, Should Have Won 1.5, Won 1

Let's take a closer look at those individual years:

1991
Semifinals: beat UNC 79-73
Final: lost to Duke 72-65

Williams beats his mentor, Dean Smith, in the Final Four and then gets Duke, which just pulled off one of the biggest upsets in tournament history (and the biggest in the semifinal round).

Are you really going to hold this loss against Roy?

1993
Semifinals: lost to UNC, 78-68

How can you be mad at anyone for losing to Dean in the Final Four? Another acceptable Final Four loss.

2002
Semifinals: lost Maryland, 97-88

A veteran Maryland team on a mission against Kansas' junior-based team. Make that three-for-three on the Roy-o-meter.

2003
Semifinals: beat Marquette, 94-61
Final: lost to Syracuse, 81-78

Senior-based team and Roy's second-best group at Kansas (behind the Paul Pierce-Raef LaFrentz-Jacque Vaughn trio) destroys Marquette and Dwyane Wade in the Final Four and then loses a game it should have won against a freshmen-based Syracuse team.

Score one for the Ol' Roy haters.

2005
Semifinals: beat Michigan State, 87-71
Final: beat Illinois, 75-70

Score one for Ol' Roy.

2008
Semifinals: lost to Kansas, 84-66

Should UNC have been more prepared and should have been more motivated? Absolutely. But, honestly, Kansas was just a better team than Carolina.

Split the difference here: Half for the Ol' Roy haters, half for Ol' Roy. -- J.P. Giglio

Final Four cheering guide for ACC fans

You're a fan of the other 11 ACC teams and your team is at home while UNC chases the national title at the Final Four.

Who should you root for at the Final Four?

Duke: Villanova
You always want to get knocked out by the champ, plus, there's the small, private school kinship.

And this is no time to be an ABCer. You really don't want UNC to win but let's think of the alternative. If UConn wins, Jim Calhoun would have three titles, just like Mike Krzyzewski.

Right now, Coach K can claim coaching supremacy over Calhoun, despite the Final Four losses in 1999 and 2004, but if Calhoun equals K's title collection, that would be a tough argument to make.

N.C. State: Michigan State
Land grants unite!

Wake Forest: Michigan State
Right now, you're desperate for good coaching so you take the best one still in the dance.

Georgia Tech: ABC
Anybody but Connecticut. Never forget the '04 title game.

Virginia: UNC
The Heels were kind enough to end Jeff Capel's season, and perhaps, expedite his arrival in Hooville.

Clemson, Florida State, Maryland: UNC
Conference pride!

Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College: UConn or Villanova
Conference pride!

-- J.P. Giglio

Score one for the numerologists

Pencil Michigan State in for the 2013 Final Four and UConn for a return in 2014, but not before.

History majors should have put the Spartans in Detroit on the four-year cycle. Tom Izzo took the Spartans to the Final Four in 2001 and 2005 (let's just ignore the '99 and '00 trips for purpose of this blog post).

Like the Olympics or World Cup, Izzo has his team ready every four years (which actually makes some sense on a recruiting-cycle basis).

UConn's five-year plan is tougher to decipher but easier to predict. Jim Calhoun's only Final Four trips have come five years apart. All three have been routed through the greater Phoenix area as well.

One thought for UNC fans: Calhoun's 2-for-2 in the Final Four, winning the title in 1999 and 2004 and each championship win came against an ACC team -- Duke in '99 and Georgia Tech in '04.

One thought for UConn fans: The Huskies refused to cut down the nets after winning the West Regional. Mistake. Always cut down the nets after the conference tournament or regional final (but not the regular-season title).

UNC skipped the net-cutting ceremony in 1994 in Charlotte after winning the ACC Tournament. The Final Four was in Charlotte that year and the Heels assumed they would be back and take the nets then. UNC never got back to Charlotte, losing to Boston College in the second round. -- J.P. Giglio

Virginia to hire Bennett

Tony Bennett will be Virginia's next basketball coach, according to the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Bennett led Washington State to the NCAA Tournament twice in three seasons, including an appearance in the Sweet 16 in 2008.

Bennett replaces Dave Leitao who resigned after the ACC Tournament, his fourth season at UVa. Bennett, a defensive-minded coach and former NBA player, inherits a team that 10-18 this past season and went 9-23 in the ACC since sharing the regular-season title in 2006-07. -- J.P. Giglio

Duke gets proven commodity in Curry

Future Duke wing Seth Curry might be as close to a sure thing as you can get in recruiting as a transfer from Liberty University.

When evaluating high school players, coaches always have to project how they might fare against ACC competition. The problem with that is, the high school players are being guarded by other high school players.

Curry already has demonstrated what he can do against the ACC. He scored 26 points with four 3-pointers on Nov. 25 as Liberty defeated Virginia 86-82 in Charlottesville, Va.

On Dec. 7 at Clemson, Curry made six 3-pointers and scored 24 points in an 80-75 loss. Those numbers, even more than the 20.3 points per game that made him the nation’s leading freshman scorer, made him attractive to ACC coaches.

Curry’s father, Dell, confirmed Sunday that Curry has committed to Duke. Scout.com analyst Dave Telep predicted that Curry -- the brother of Davidson junior Stephen Curry -- will play a big role for the Blue Devils.

Telep also said sitting out one season, as NCAA rules demand transfer students must do, actually will benefit Curry because he needs to get stronger. Curry is listed as 6-foot-3 and 180 pounds on Liberty’s roster.

“The best thing that’s going to happen to Seth Curry is that he now has a year off to get his body prepared for the ACC,” Telep said. “There’s a significant difference between the Big South and the ACC, and he’s got one year to get his body ready to go for the rigors of that league.”

He already has demonstrated that he can score against ACC teams in isolated games. Adding some muscle should help prepare him for the cumulative pounding a full ACC schedule will exert on his body. – Ken Tysiac

• POLL: What do you think? Will Seth Curry succeed at Duke?
• GALLERY: Photos of Seth Curry at Liberty and Charlotte Christian

Tudor's Take: Behind the Heels' 72 points

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Although North Carolina's 72-60 win over Oklahoma wasn't really as close as the final score indicates, the Tar Heels were in their offensive trouble range.

In the only two other games this season when they failed to score more than 73 points, the Heels' record was 1-1. There was the 73-70 loss to Florida State in the ACC Tournament semifinals at Atlanta and a 69-65 win at Miami on Feb. 15.

Several factors contributed Sunday, the most important of which was OU's defensive work against Tyler Hansbrough (eight points).

But Carolina also eased off the tempo, which Roy Williams very rarely does.

Up 61-40 with more than seven minutes left, Carolina was on pace to hit the high 70s or low 80s, depending upon the Sooners' willingness to foul and gamble to grab steals. On five straight possessions after getting that 21-point lead, the Heels turned to their clock-killing strategy. It's one of the few things this team doesn't do well. The momentum quickly changed, and had Ty Lawson not canned a couple of free throws to make it 63-49 with 4:12 to go, the final minutes could have been exciting.

A third, but less obvious, contributor was the fact that Carolina wingman Wayne Ellington finally had a poor shooting performance - 3-for-9 with four misses on five 3-point attempts. He finished with nine points after having averaged 20-plus over the past five games.

On the opposite end of the court, Ellington more than countered. For most of the game, he held OU's Willie Warren in check. Warren finished with 18 points, but seven of those came after the outcome was beyond doubt. He also committed four turnovers and rarely got an open look on 3-pointers.

The Sooners naturally preferred to cite their bad shooting luck, but Carolina had nine steals. Only Blake Griffin consistently had offensive success and much of that was the result of his six offensive rebounds.

-- Caulton Tudor

Roy, K get their 'Guitar Hero' on

Presented without comment, Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski's new commercial. There's also an ESPN look at the commercial, which also features Rick Pitino and Bobby Knight.

-- Rachel Carter

Plenty of history between UNC, 'Nova

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- North Carolina and Villanova have a long, rich history of conflict in the NCAA Tournament, including a couple of heartbreaks on each side.

When the two meet Saturday at about 9 p.m. in the Detroit Final Four, it'll be their fifth NCAA game.

The Heels have won three of the previous four. But in 1985 at Birmingham, Rollie Massimino's eventual national championship Wildcats defended the life out of the Tar Heels' season, winning 56-44 en route to the Lexington Final Four and a championship win over Big East rival Georgetown.

Three seasons earlier, Dean Smith and UNC had stopped the Wildcats, 71-60, in the East Regional title game at N.C. State's Reynolds Coliseum.

That UNC team won the title and over the same opponent Villanova beat in '85.

In 2005, the Heels had perhaps their most difficult NCAA game in a 67-66 escape against the Wildcats in a third-round East game at Syracuse. Lots of Villanova fans that night thought Carolina got more than its fair share of officiating judgments.

Carolina made the most of the escape, though. Roy Williams' team then defeated Wisconsin in the regional final and outlasted two more Big Ten teams -- Michigan State and Illinois -- in the Final Four at St. Louis.

The Heels' most difficult season ever against Villanova was in 1995-96, when they lost to the 'Cats in the championship game of the Maui Invitational and then absorbed a second loss a month or so later in the Smith Center.

Heels headed to Detroit for Final Four

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — UNC looked like a veteran NCAA Tournament, one that has been there and done that. Now, the Tar Heels are going to do it again.

Carolina's experience helped control Oklahoma from tip-off to the final horn in the NCAA South Regional in Memphis. As a result of its 72-60 victory at FedExForum, UNC advances to its 18th Final Four. It will play Villanova at approximately 8:47 p.m. on Saturday in Detroit.

The Heels jumped out to a 13-2 lead and kept Oklahoma at arms length for the entire game despite foul trouble by star forward Tyler Hansbrough (8 points), who was out-played by Blake Griffin (23 points).

But it didn't matter. Not with Ty Lawson getting 19 points, Danny Green chipping in 18 and the team playing solid defense.

The Sooners were hurt in the first half by their 3-point shooting (0-9), which was so successful (9-21) in Friday's rout of Syracuse.

Trailing 61-40 in the second half after UNC's Deon Thompson scored on an inside move, OU tried to make it interesting, peeling off a 9-0 run to cut it to 61-49. But two free throws by Lawson padded the Tar Heels' cushion.

All-region team:

Jonny Flynn, Syracuse
Tyler Hansbrough, UNC
Blake Griffin, Oklahoma
Danny Green, UNC
Ty Lawson, UNC (Most outstanding player)

FINAL FOUR - SATURDAY, APRIL 4

Ford Field - Detroit, Michigan

(2) Michigan State (30-7) vs. (1) Connecticut (31-4), 6:07 p.m.

(3) Villanova (30-7) vs. (1) North Carolina (32-4), 8:47 p.m.

CHAMPIONSHIP - MONDAY, APRIL 6

Semifinal winners, 9:15 p.m.

-- Robbi Pickeral

UNC-OU: Four (other) things to watch

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough, the 2008 consensus national player of the year, returned for his senior season because he wanted another chance to win a national championship. So it seems rather fitting that to reach the Final Four, he'll face the toughest individual match-up of his career tonight: Oklahoma's Blake Griffin, who is expected to sweep the NPOY awards this time around.

If you're going to focus on one thing during tonight's NCAA regional final game, that would be it. But here are a few other things that will be key to the outcome:

* THE BENCH. UNC reserves, whittled earlier this season by varying injuries, have been on a roll of late, getting 55 points from the combination of Bobby Frasor, Larry Drew, Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller during the NCAA tournament. Oklahoma's bench production, meanwhile, has been lean at best. It has managed only 12 points over the last three games, and 9 came during it's opening blowout over Morgan State.

* OU's TONY CROCKER. The long-sleeved shirt he wears under his jersey is to help keep him warm. But the Tar Heels need to keep him from getting downright hot again. His 28 points against Syracuse on Friday were a career high, and helped make up for the 2-for-7 performance of Big 12 Freshman of the Year Willie Warren.

* DEON'S DEFENSE. It wouldn't be surprising to see UNC junior Deon Thompson guarding Griffin, and one of the biggest keys will be to try to keep the OU sophomore away from the post. Griffin doesn't like shooting from very far out, and the combination of Thompson and Hansbrough need to try to keep the big guy out of his comfort zone -- while also watching out of that other Griffin brother, Taylor, who starts at the other forward spot.

* DANNY GREEN'S SHOOTING TOUCH. The senior small forward finally started coming out of his shooting slump Friday, making multiple 3-pointers for the first time since the end of the regular season. If he keeps hitting -- as well as Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson -- the Tar Heels might have too much firepower to beat, no matter who wins the Hansbrough-Griffin battle.

-- Robbi Pickeral

Cookie conundrum for Tar Heels

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams is a superstitious guy. So maybe he was just trying to continue his NCAA trend when he started complaining that there weren't enough cookies at FedExForum before his team began its press conference on Saturday.

"I think as much money as we're making off this tournament, we oughta be able to afford more than one frickin' cookie back in the room there," said Williams, whose team will face Oklahoma tonight. "I think the NCAA can afford more than that. Other than that, we're happy to be here."

Remember: two years ago, Williams was cranky about the fact that he had to pour his soda into an NCAA-mandated cup. Last year, it was all about the NCAA sticker-logo in the middle of the playing floor.

Eventually, a moderator asked that more baked goods be made available for the Tar Heels (Ty Lawson requested oatmeal, Williams asked for peanut-butter). But what happened to that one cookie in the meantime?

"Nobody got the cookie," Lawson said. "I was about to take it, but everybody was looking at it, and I didn't want to be selfish. So I just left it there." -- Robbi Pickeral

Pick Two: Sunday's fourth round

South Regional

Oklahoma (2) vs. UNC (1)
@ Memphis
Time: 5:05

Sadly, I've been right about only two teams in this tournament — UNC and Michigan State. That can't bode well for either team today. I'm sticking with the Heels because they have better guards and they have tournament experience.

This is a huge test for Oklahoma coach Jeff Capel. If he is half as good as we think he is, he'll attack Tyler Hansbrough (like Kansas did) early on defense and run four to five different players at home on offense (I'm guessing he uses the "other" Griffin to keep the "great" Griffin out of foul trouble).

Two predictions:

1) Ed Davis' NBA stock goes through the roof with a defensive performance against Blake Griffin.

2) UNC wins this game and the national title. Pick: UNC

Midwest Regional

Michigan State (2) vs. Louisville (1)
@ Indianapolis
Time: 2:20

Picking against the Big East has worked so well this tournament. I'm the last person in the world not sold on Louisville. The Cards avoided just about every big road game in the Big East and have wins over Morehead State (16), Siena (9) and Arizona (12) in the tournament.

Rick Pitino's 9-0 in the Sweet 16 but has a history of choking (or losing epic games) in the Final Eight (1992, 1995, 2008).

Since Michigan State is other team I have been right about, I'm sticking with the Spartans. Pick: Michigan State

First round: 25-8. Second round: 13-3. Third round: 4-4. Fourth round: 0-2

-- J.P. Giglio

Villanova would be next for UNC

If UNC can get past Oklahoma on Sunday, Villanova will be waiting in the Final Four. That's a good sign for the Tar Heels. UNC beat Nova in the tournament in 2005 and 1982.

What do those years have in common?

Scottie Reynolds' runner with 0.5 seconds left lifted the Wildcats to a 78-76 win over Pittsburgh and a spot in the Final Four for the first time since 1985.

Nova, the third seed in the East Regional, almost let the top-seeded Panthers steal the win late. Levance Fields' free throws with 5.5 seconds left tied the game at 76, after Pitt had trailed by four in the final minute.

Reynolds took the inbounds pass and darted up the right sideline and then cut into the lane for a hanging 5-footer over Pitt's defense.

Nova beat American in the first round, UCLA in the second and Duke in the third to get back to the Final Four. The Wildcats have tournament history with the Tar Heels. They almost beat the Heels in 2005, losing 67-66 in the Sweet 16 on a late traveling call.

UNC beat Villanova in the regional final in 1982 and in the second round in 1991.

Of course, the Heels presence could be a good omen for the Wildcats. Nova's national title in 1985 went through UNC in the regional final. -- J.P. Giglio

Source: Matheny lands Elon job

Davidson associate basketball head coach Matt Matheny will be named Elon's new head coach at a 1 p.m. press conference today at the school, according to a source close to the proceedings.

Matheny, 39, has been on the Wildcats staff since 1993. He is also a Davidson graduate who played basketball and football at the college.

He replaces Ernie Nestor, who was removed after finishing 11-20 overall this season. Nestor was 67-117 over six seasons.

Elon, like Davidson, is a Southern Conference member, meaning that Matheny will now be coaching against his long-time mentor, Wildcats coach Bob McKillop.--Stan Olson

Q&A with recruiting expert Dave Telep

Even Dave Telep can't be in two places at once.

Not that he doesn't try. Telep has two courts set up at Cary Academy for his Carolina Challenge, a showcase of the top 80 high school basketball players in the state. As much as he wants to, Telep can't watch every game.

Scout.com's national recruiting director took time for a few questions on Saturday to talk about the third annual challenge:

Q: Why did you decide to start this event?

Telep: "I've gotten a lot out of the state of North Carolina, professionally basketball-wise and personally. I thought this was my to say thanks.

I thought if you could invite the guys who are not seniors, you can get to them and talk to them just a little bit about academics. You give them three games to play, and you try to talk to them a little bit about life skills and try and get them thinking a little bit.

The guys in the state have taken this event and made it a priority to be here and that's made it a huge help."

Q: You're not going to have too many groups like last year (with top prospects John Wall, Ryan Kelly and Mason Plumlee) but what do you think of this year's group?

"I think this is a better field, one to 80. Last year we had unbelievable star power. This year, one through 80, everything is going to be so competitive."

Q: Procedural question — how are you able to tell which player is No. 2, 20, 21 or 50?

"I cheat because I've seen these guys a lot. In a camp like this, guys will separate themselves, whether it's athletically or their basketball IQ.

You just keep watching, watching and watching. When it's your job, you know, you're supposed to be able to tell if these guys can play or not."

Q: Is C.J. Leslie the best player here?

"I don't know. There are a lot of good prospects here. There's no doubt he's one of the best guys here and across the country when you add up his athletic ability and his attributes. C.J.'s just about putting polish on and finishing that product up.

Athletically, he's so far and away superior to the other guys it's ridiculous." -- J.P. Giglio

Heels likely to see mix of defenses

MEMPHIS — If patterns hold, Oklahoma will give North Carolina a dual defensive look Sunday in the NCAA South Regional championship game.

Throughout most of the season, OU coach Jeff Capel has mixed zone and man-to-man strategies. In Friday's 84-71 semifinal win over Syracuse, the Sooners played zone variations on about 25 percent of the Orange possessions.

"We're comfortable doing that," said senior forward Taylor Griffin. "I guess it's a little unusual, but I think it's helped us against a few teams. It's surprised a few of our opponents a little, I think."

Zone defenses have given Carolina some trouble over the years, but this season's team generally has been different, due in large part to the perimeter shooting of Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green.

"But our plan still is try to go inside first, even if we are playing against a zone. That doesn't change," Lawson said Saturday. "When you have guys in there like we have, you don't to just settle for long jump shots."

When the Sooners go man, the 5-11 Lawson expects to face lanky 6-3 senior Austin Johnson, who has been rated among the top defenders in the Big 12 Conference for the past two seasons. If Lawson's correct, then OU frosh Willie Warren (6-4, 207) would get the primary assignment against Ellington (6-4, 200) with the Sooners' Tony Crocker (6-6, 206) on Green (6-6, 210).

Apart from rebounding, Lawson thinks the outcome will hinge on the abilities of the Carolina perimeter players to find and make shots when the Sooners limit entry feeds to Tyler Hansbrough, Deon Thompson and Ed Davis.

"Rebounding is the most important thing, because Blake Griffin gets so many offensive boards [eight against Syracuse, 130 for the season]," Lawson said. "But after that, I believe it's going to be the guards and not just our shooting. We've got to have the best perimeter defense we've played all season. Their quickness is something we've really got to worry about. They're just quick, I mean really quick."

Like most of his teammates, Lawson said without prompting that the Sooners present the biggest challenge of the season.

"If I were just around here this weekend and not playing, this is a game I'd pay to see," Lawson said. "I'd pay what it takes to buy a seat right at courtside, too." -- Caulton Tudor

UNC's Davis: I'll be back

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — With freshman forward Ed Davis’ increased offensive presence of late, there’s been a lot of speculation as to whether the reserve might jump to the NBA after this season. Asked Saturday if he will consider it, he said “no.”

“I just want to win a national championship, I just want to play my years at Carolina, that’s all I’m thinking about right now,’’ said Davis, whose Tar Heels play Oklahoma in the regional final Sunday.

Davis is averaging 6.7 points and 6.7 rebounds this season. His dad, Terry, played in the NBA for 10 years. -- Robbi Pickeral

Leslie weighing all his options

CARY — C.J. Leslie is not in a hurry.

After committing to N.C. State as a freshman, the Word of God junior wants to take a second look at his college options. As the 16th-rated prospect in the country in the class of 2010, Leslie has plenty of options.

"I wanted to open it up and see what else is out there," Leslie said Saturday at Dave Telep's Carolina Challenge in Cary. "I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any opportunities."

Leslie, a 6-8 forward, said he was too young when he made his initial verbal commitment. Leslie said the Wolfpack is still on his list but he has "no favorite." Leslie said he has offers from "everybody" and has recently talked to Florida, Memphis, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Miami.

"I want to look at everybody before I make my final decision and make sure that's the place that I really want to go," Leslie said. "There may be something else out there and I would have missed out on that if I had stayed committed [to N.C State]."

Leslie showed flashes of the ability that has so many colleges pursuing his services. The tall and skinny forward hit a quick turn-around in traffic, a move that showed touch, in his first game on Saturday with Team Josh Howard. In the same game, he rained in a 3-pointer from the left corner, showing some range.

Leslie has a busy summer planned with trips to the Vince Carter Skills Academy (June in Orlando), LeBron James Skills Academy (July in San Diego) and NBPA top 100 camp. He said he will make his official visits in the fall before making a final decision.

"I want to take my time," Leslie said. "I'm going to weigh my options after all the visits. I'm just focused on finding a good team that's a good fit for me." --J.P. Giglio

'Cuse surprised by Sooners' Crocker

MEMPHIS — The most surprised person in the FedExForum on Friday night must have been Jim Boeheim.

In his team’s 84-71 NCAA South third-round loss to Oklahoma, the Syracuse coach expected all sorts of trouble from the Sooners’ Blake Griffin, Willie Warren and Austin Johnson.

But the guy who really shot holes in Boeheim’s usually reliable 2-3 zone defense was OU wingman Tony Crocker, who poured in 28 points and canned six 3-pointers.

At halftime, when the game essentially was over, Crocker had 14. Not bad for a guy who had scored all of eight points in the two previous NCAA games and had not been in double digits since rustling up 14 points against Texas on Fed. 21.

“We didn’t do a good job on Crocker, obviously,” Boeheim said.

Obviously. While Crocker was going off beyond the arc, Syracuse missed all 10 of its 3-point attempts in the first half.

Sooner coach Jeff Capel was less surprised by Crocker’s outburst.

“I just had a feeling he was ready to have a good game,” Capel said. “Tony’s a good shooter who’s been off for a few games and has looked more to help us win games in other ways than with his shot. But he can shoot, and we never lost confidence in him.”

In some ways, Crocker has gone through a shooting slump similar to that of North Carolina’s Danny Green. But in the Tar Heels’ 98-77 win over Gonzaga, Green converted his first 3-point of the game and finished with 13 points and three 3s.

In Sunday’s regional title game (5:05 p.m. Eastern), Green likely will have the defensive assignment on Crocker. -- J.P. Giglio

Pick Four: Friday's third round

On the heels of a blistering 1-3 performance on Thursday, I figured you could use these picks to go the other way tonight. I like the Heels, but that might not be bad news UNC fans, I did get one right on Thursday (Pitt).

On with the games:

First round: 25-8. Second round: 13-3. Third round: 1-3

All games on CBS

South Regional

Syracuse (3) vs. Oklahoma (2)
@ Memphis
Time: 7:27

To beat Syracuse and its 2-3 zone, you have to hit 3s from the wings or the corner. If your point guard is your best 3-point shooter, and Willie Warren is for Oklahoma, it's tough to find shots because of the way Syracuse pressures the top of the zone.

Johnny Flynn and Eric Devendorf get all the press mileage for the Orange but forwards Rick Jackson and Arinze Onuake have the strength and size to relatively control Oklahoma's Blake Griffin.

Oklahoma's a two-man team and Syracuse's defense is designed to stop those two parts. That's bad news for OU. Pick: Syracuse

Gonzaga (4) vs. UNC (1)
@ Memphis
Time: 9:57

Gonzaga has some parts — namely point guard Jeremy Pargo, small forward Matt Bouldin and center Josh Heytvelt — but the Zags lack toughness and positive tournament experience. This group lost in the first round in 2007 and 2008.

Plus, the Zags just don't play enough defense. Western Kentucky scored 81 points on the Zags in the second round. How many do you think UNC will score? Pick: UNC

Midwest Regional

Arizona (12) vs. Louisville (1)
@ Indianapolis
Time: 7:07

Quick, name Arizona's coach. No cheating. His name is Russ Pennell and just last year he was working the radio broadcasts for Arizona State. That's like Duke asking Eric Montross to replace Mike Krzyzewski for a year.

There's no doubt Zona has talent — forward Jordan Hill projects as a top-5 pick in the next draft — but coaching plays a role. Rick Pitino has never lost in the Round of 16 (8-0). Pick: Louisville.

Kansas (3) vs. Michigan State (2)

@ Indianapolis
Time: 9:57

Is it me or should Kansas fans be thankful Roy Williams left for UNC? Bill Self won a title at Kansas, beating Roy Williams no less in last year's Final Four. He also one-upped Ol' Roy in his "year after" piecing together a patchwork roster and reaching the Sweet 16 (UNC lost in the second round in 2006). One thing is for sure, Self's teams play better defense than Ol' Roy's.

Can the Jayhawks out-halfcourt the master halfcourter, Michigan State's Tom Izzo? Sparty beat KU by 13 earlier this season in East Lansing. Closer this time but still the same result. Pick: Michigan State

-- J.P. Giglio

Heels getting ready

MEMPHIS — After breakfast and a couple of hours of free time, North Carolina began its standard basketball game-day routine with a midday light practice session and shoot-around in a Memphis area high school gym.

The favored Tar Heels (30-4) face Gonzaga (28-5) at approximately 9:57 p.m. Eastern time in a third-round NCAA Tournament game at the FedExForum. The winner will face the survivor of the other South Regional semifinal between Oklahoma (29-5) and Syracuse (28-9). That game will begin at 7:27 p.m. Eastern.

Tonight's winners will play for a Final Four berth on Sunday. Starting time for that game will be announced late tonight or Saturday by CBS-TV.

After the practice, the Tar Heels will return to their team hotel and have an early-afternoon academic study hall with tutors. The pre-game meal will be served in the hotel at approximately 5:30 p.m. Eastern.

There were no other team activities scheduled for Friday. Should Carolina win the game and advance to Sunday's round, the players and coaches could have enough free time Saturday to tour the city. Also on the Saturday agenda would be a formal practice period and a 30-minute media interview session. All practices today and later in the weekend are closed to the public and the media.

With Duke's third-round loss to Villanova on Thursday in Boston's East Regional, the Heels are the last ACC team remaining in the post-season mix.

Entering the Friday workout, there was no update on guard Ty Lawson's toe injury. -- Caulton Tudor

Curry on ESPN's PTI today

Davidson guard Stephen Curry will be a guest on ESPN's Pardon The Interruption at some point during the today's show, scheduled to air at 5:30 p.m.

The interview, which lasts about 5 minutes, touches on his struggle to decide whether to return for his senior year or enter the NBA draft, his thoughts about brother Seth's decision to transfer from Liberty and who he likes to win the NCAA Tournament.

The segment was taped earlier this afternoon.--Stan Olson

Keys to offseason improvement for Duke

BOSTON - There’s no disputing the fact that Duke’s 77-54 debacle at the hands of Villanova was an ugly way to finish the season.
It was the Blue Devils’ most lopsided NCAA Tournament loss since UNLV sent Duke home from the 1990 NCAA championship game with a 103-73 decision, and coach Mike Krzyzewski admitted afterward that he wished his team had played better.
Nonetheless, Duke did make strides this season. The team captured its first ACC title in three years and advanced to the regional semifinals for the first time since 2006, when J.J. Redick was a senior.
If the Blue Devils are going to continue improving, everybody in the program needs to make progress. Here are some things Duke’s guys can work on to get better during the offseason:

F Gerald Henderson: Make a good decision. Before the NCAA Tournament, first-team All-ACC selection Henderson seemed a good bet to forgo his senior season and leave for the NBA draft. By shooting a combined 11-for-44 in three NCAA Tournament games, he might have demonstrated he’s not ready for the NBA yet. His father, former Boston Celtic Gerald Sr., should be able to help him make the right choice.

G Jon Scheyer: Get stronger. If Duke moves forward with Scheyer at point guard rather than on the wing next season, he will need to be able to muscle his way into the lane better. He makes great decisions with the basketball, but he needs more than guile to make plays against athletic opponents.

F Kyle Singler. Develop more of a post-up game. Singler is big and strong enough to score over other power forwards with his back to the basket now. If Duke can work inside-out and outside-in with him, he will be even more effective.

F Lance Thomas. Practice the mid-range jump shot. Most opposing centers are strong enough to push Thomas off the block. If he could pull them away from the basket a bit with 15-foot jump shots, it would open up rebounding opportunities for the Blue Devils.

G Nolan Smith and G Elliot Williams. Work on ball handling. Both players have the athletic ability to be more dangerous on the dribble. Their development in this aspect will be much more important if Henderson decides not to return.

C Brian Zoubek. Get quicker. Anything Zoubek can do to increase his ability to move his feet faster will make him more of an asset, although he already made huge strides defensively this season. Of course, it’s a tall task to be quick at 7-foot-1.

F Miles Plumlee and F Olek Czyz. Become skillful. Both rising sophomores have big bodies and are athletic enough to help the Blue Devils. But they need to make strides in all aspects of their basketball skills – passing, ball handling and shooting – to make an impact.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Recruit, recruit, recruit. Krzyzewski himself said Duke needs a big-time post scorer and a point guard. The Blue Devils made the best of a roster with essentially a bunch of extremely talented wing players this season, but it’s no secret that point guard and center are the two most important positions in college basketball. Duke is a proud enough program to have excellent players at both positions. – Ken Tysiac

Star Wars: Only Heels can save ACC universe

After Duke's pathetic limp to the exit on Thursday night, John Swofford deployed the droids to Memphis with an urgent message for Roy Williams.

Indeed this is the ACC's most desperate hour and UNC's the only hope.

Two scenarios that seem to be unfolding:

1) The Big East builds the Death Star

Will the grin ever leave ACC critic and departing Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese's face if the Big East takes all four spots in the Final Four?

The East Regional is guaranted for the Big East, with either Pitt or Villanova headed to Detroit.

UConn dominated again on Thursday in the West Regional, dispatching Purdue. The Huskies have to beat upstart Missouri — the Tigers are Big 12 champs but still upstarts in this heavyweight tournament — to return to the Final Four for the first time since 2004.

Louisville, the No. 1 seed in the Midwest, has 12th-seeded Arizona — the highest/lowest seed left in the field — and the Kansas-Michigan State survivor in its way of a date in Detroit.

Syracuse, the No. 3 seed in the South, has the toughest path, but given how well the Orange is playing — and how well the conference is playing – it would be foolish to think Jim Boeheim couldn't pull off consecutive wins over Oklahoma and UNC.

With the right combination of wins, the Big East — and it's 14-2 in the NCAA Tournament — could have Louisville-UConn on one side of the bracket and Pitt (or Nova)-Syracuse on the other.

The conference sent three teams to the Final Four in 1985 (with Villanova beating Georgetown in the final) but there has never been an all-conference Final Four.

2) Luke Skywalker (UNC) blows up the Death Star

The Tar Heels need to win four more games to win the national title. It's possible three of those will have to be against Big East teams.

With the right combo, UNC's looking at Syracuse in the regional final; Pitt/Nova in the Final Four and UConn/Louisville in the title game.

Would the smile ever leave Swofford's face if his team beat three straight Big East teams and won the title as the outsider in a three-team Big East Final Four?

Or, of course, the Missouri student with the Perfect Bracket could be right and Mizzou could win it all.

Cohen should help keep Davidson atop SC

Davidson fans are still getting over their Southern Conference Tournament and NIT losses, but help is on the way in the form of 6-foot-10, 205-pound center Jake Cohen.

Cohen, an in-coming freshman who signed with the Wildcats out of Conestoga High in Berwyn, Pa., continues a recent trend of nationally-recruited players picking the Wildcats, for which some credit must go to junior guard Stephen Curry and the team's run to the Elite Eight a year ago.

Cohen had offers from a number of schools, including Stanford, Penn State, Northwestern, Nebraska and Penn, but visited Davidson, liked it and decided to come on down. On his visit, he spent considerable time with Curry.

"He played ball with us, so I've seen him play," Curry said this week. "I've seen a couple videos on the internet of his playoff games. He's supposed to be a dominant force. He kind of reminds me of Steve Rossiter the way he looks and the way he plays. If we can have two of those down there, that should be pretty good."

While Rossiter is hardly dominant, he is a solid complementary piece. And consider that he is 6-7, while Cohen is three inches taller. Cohen is a good passer from the high post, has a nice mid-range jumper and posts up well despite his lack of bulk. The latter problem can be eliminated in the weight room.

The Wildcats also hope to have 6-9 rising sophomore Frank Ben-Eze, recovering from a knee injury, in good health next season.

Ben-Eze helped establish the trend of big-time prospects picking Davidson--he had offers from Virginia Tech, Virginia, Georgia Tech and Marquette, among others.

The bottom line? If Curry turns pro, the Wildcats will still be a force in the Southern Conference. If he returns they should be better than this year, and back in the NCAA Tournament. --Stan Olson

ACC flops as Big East soars

BOSTON – After Villanova finished demolishing Duke on Thursday night, a reporter asked Wildcats coach Jay Wright how Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese would react to having two teams in the East Regional final in the NCAA Tournament.

Wright smiled, because March has been good to Tranghese. The Big East has followed through on its claims of college basketball superiority in this tournament.

On Thursday night, Villanova, Pittsburgh and Connecticut all advanced to regional finals. Louisville and Syracuse have a chance to join them if they can win regional semifinal games tonight.

“I don’t think he’s gloating or anything,” Wright said of Tranghese after Villanova’s 77-54 win. “But he always likes when his guys are successful. I think everybody in the Big East likes this.”

Nobody in the ACC likes this. The ACC finished the regular season atop the RPI, a mathematical formula that combines won-loss record and schedule quality to measure the relative strength of teams.

The Big East finished fourth in the RPI. For most of the season, coaches from both leagues tried to make the case that theirs was the best conference.

It seems the Big East’s and ACC’s NCAA Tournament results have settled that dispute. The seven ACC teams that reached the tournament are a combined 5-6, with only North Carolina still alive as it prepares to meet Gonzaga at 9:57 p.m. in today’s South Regional semifinals.

Since expanding to 12 schools before the 2005-06 season, the ACC has won 53.3 percent of its NCAA Tournament games, a 24-21 record. Before expansion, the ACC was 313-153 in its history for a 66.9 percent clip that led all Division I conferences.

Those are numbers that will make even the conference’s most enthusiastic backers cringe. Clearly something has changed in ACC basketball since expansion, and it’s not a change for the better.

Meanwhile, the conference that lost Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami to the ACC is dominating the NCAA Tournament. If you’re Tranghese, who criticized the ACC as it took the three schools from the Big East, maybe you do gloat a little.

If you’re the ACC, maybe you stop trying to claim you’re still the best, and you start trying to figure out what you have to do to get better. – Ken Tysiac

Duke routed from NCAA tourney

The Big East is guaranteed one spot in the Final Four. After Villanova's romp of Duke on Thursday in the East Regional, it's just a question of which Big East team will advance to Detroit.

Villanova hit nine of its first 12 shots of the second half to break open a three-point halftime lead and bury the cold-shooting Blue Devils. The Wildcats squashed Duke 77-54 to set up a matchup with Pittsburgh in the regional final on Saturday.

Nova's aggressive defense, a mix of man and a three-quarter trap, reduced Duke's trio of Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Gerald Henderson to the "Little Three."

Henderson, Duke's leading scorer, missed his first 11 shots from the field and finished 1 of 14 with seven points. The junior wing didn't score until hitting two free throws with 1:10 left in the first half.

He wasn't the only Duke player who couldn't shoot. The Blue Devils made only 5 of 25 from 3-point range and 16 of 58 from the field.

Reggie Redding's 3-pointer at 8:44 pushed Nova's advantage to 56-40.

Scheyer responded with a 3 on the next possession but it was a fleeting hope for the Blue Devils who have lost in the round of 16 seven times this decade.

Scheyer finished with 13 points and Singler led the team wth 15. Duke ends the season at 30-7.

Guard Scottie Reynolds led a balanced Nova scoring effort with 16 points.

Pitt (1) beat Xavier (4) 60-55 in the first game, giving the Big East three of the four decided spots in the Elite Eight. The Big East improved to 14-2 in the tournament while the ACC fell to 5-6 with only UNC left.

The Big East still has a shot at all four Final Four spots.

On an officiating note, either the NCAA reads ACC Now (and has a sense of humor) or the luck of the random draw reunited Karl Hess and J.D. Collins — two-thirds of the officiating crew from the infamous Duke-FSU game in Durham on March 3.

-- J.P. Giglio

Blue Devils on verge of being bounced

The combination of Duke's cold shooting in the first half and Villanova's hot shooting in the second, has Duke on the verge of leaving the NCAA Tournament.

Villanova leads the Blue Devils 49-33 with 11:44 left in the second half of the East Regional semifinal in Boston.

The Wildcats have hit nine of their first 12 shots in the second half — after Duke went 7 of 24 in the first half.

Nova (10 of 29) didn't shoot much better in the first half but seized control of the game with its aggressive with its man defense. The Wildcats have forced Duke into bad shots or rushed shots at the end of the shot clock.

Gerald Henderson, Duke's leading scorer, is 0-for-7 from the field with two points. The junior wing didn't score until hitting two free throws with 1:10 left in the first half.

Forward Dante Cunningham leads a balanced Nova scoring effort with nine points.

Jon Scheyer, 2 of 12, leads Duke with nine points.

Pitt (1) beat Xavier (4) 60-55 in the first game in the East Regional in Boston and awaits the Duke-Nova winner in the regional final.

On an officiating note, either the NCAA reads ACC Now (and has a sense of humor) or the luck of the random draw reunited Karl Hess and J.D. Collins — two-thirds of the officiating crew from the infamous Duke-FSU game in Durham on March 3.

Villanova leading Duke at half

Duke has made a habit of shooting poorly in the first half this season. For the most part, the Blue Devils were been able to get away with it against the ACC.

The slow start could cost the Devils their season against Villanova in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Devils have made just seven of their first 24 shots and trail Villanova, 26-23 at halftime of the East Regional semifinal in Boston.

No. 3 Nova (10 of 29) hasn't shot much better but has been aggressive with its man defense and forced Duke into bad shots or rushed shots at the end of the shot clock.

Gerald Henderson, Duke's leading scorer, is 0-for-5 from the field with two points. The junior wing hit two free throws with 1:10 left for his first points.

Forward Dante Cunningham leads a balanced Nova scoring effort with seven points.

Jon Scheyer, 1-of-7, leads Duke with seven points.

Pitt (1) beat Xavier (4) 60-55 in the first game in the East Regional in Boston and awaits the Duke-Nova winner in the regional final.

On an officiating note, either the NCAA reads ACC Now (and has a sense of humor) or the luck of the random draw reunited Karl Hess and J.D. Collins — two-thirds of the officiating crew from the infamous Duke-FSU game in Durham on March 3.

Duke starts off cold, trails 'Nova

Duke has made a habit of shooting poorly in the first half this season. For the most part, the Blue Devils were been able to get away with it against the ACC.

The slow start could cost the Devils their season against Villanova in the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Devils have made just seven of their first 24 shots and trail Villanova, 26-23 at halftime of the East Regional semifinal in Boston.

No. 3 Nova (10 of 29) hasn't shot much better but has been aggressive with its man defense and forced Duke into bad shots or rushed shots at the end of the shot clock.

Gerald Henderson, Duke's leading scorer, is 0-for-5 from the field with two points. The junior wing hit two free throws with 1:10 left for his first points.

Forward Dante Cunningham leads a balanced Nova scoring effort with seven points.

Jon Scheyer, 1-of-7, leads Duke with seven points.

Pitt (1) beat Xavier (4) 60-55 in the first game in the East Regional in Boston and awaits the Duke-Nova winner in the regional final.

On an officiating note, either the NCAA reads ACC Now (and has a sense of humor) or the luck of the random draw reunited Karl Hess and J.D. Collins — two-thirds of the officiating crew from the infamous Duke-FSU game in Durham on March 3.

-- J.P. Giglio

Gonzaga eyes underdog role

MEMPHIS — Oddsmakers have made Gonzaga an 8-point underdog against North Carolina in Friday’s South Regional semifinal game in the FedEx Forum.

That fact has not escaped the attention of the Bulldog players. Among the final 16 teams, only Arizona against Louisville is considered more of a long shot to advance.

“It’s kind of nice to be the underdog,” said Zags senior center Josh Heytvelt. “Most of the season, we’ve had the bull’s eye on our back ... There’s just a lot of hype for Carolina. Their fans don’t expect anything less than a championship from those guys.”

When the two teams last met, Gonzaga took an 82-74 win in the Preseason NIT during the 2006-07 season. Carolina star Tyler Hansbrough’s performance in that game (9 points, 9 rebounds, 3 turnovers) was one of his least productive ever. It was due largely to the defensive work of the 6-11, 260-pound Heytvelt, who thinks that experience could work in his favor Friday.

“I had to go into that game with a chip on my shoulder,” Heytvelt said. “You have to make up your mind to match his intensity out there. That gave some confidence, but it’ll take even more this time.”

The Zags aren’t about to back down on the point guard issue, either.

Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn and Carolina’s Ty Lawson are among the top two rated playmakers in the country, and Oklahoma freshman Willie Warren, who averages 14.7 points, sometimes mans the point for his team. But Gonzaga senior Jeremy Pargo (10.1 ppg, 5.0 assists) has plenty of fans.

“It’s for sure I wouldn’t trade him for any of the other point guards here, and I know there are some great ones,” said teammate Matt Bouldin. “We’ve played [against Lawson and Flynn]. I would not make that trade for Jeremy.”

Bulldog coach Mark Few was a little less bold when talking about the Lawson vs. Pargo match. At 220 pounds, Pargo still has plenty of quickness. But in good health, the 195-pound Lawson usually covers floor space in split-seconds.

“That speed at which Lawson can play is something that we really have to be concerned about,” Few said. “Lots of good teams and players have tried to deal with him, but not very many have had that much success.”-- Caulton Tudor

Capel stays on topic

MEMPHIS — While there's at least a reasonable chance that Oklahoma's Jeff Capel will someday coach an ACC basketball program, the former Duke player didn't sound much like a jumper Thursday.

A day before the Sooners’ South Regional semifinal against Syracuse, Capel was predictably on topic and doing nothing to create unrest in his team’s locker room.

Asked what he likes most about Norman, aside from the money, wins, fans and players, Capel quickly went to his Fayetteville roots.

“The people,” he said. “I mean, it actually reminds me of North Carolina. People are all very friendly. They’re just good people and people you enjoy being around ... that’s really important to me.”

But pressed on the memories of his days in the ACC, Capel did sound a bit homesick at times.
“Growing up in North Carolina, everything revolved around basketball,” he said. “The first things I remember, it was all about the sport, but I did grow up in a coach’s home. ...

“One of my proudest memories was my senior season at Duke, when we came back from a lot of tough times to win the ACC regular-season championship. I had been the guy who was blamed for the demise of Duke basketball. My senior year, I got benched early in the season. But in the end that season, I felt like I contributed to our finish.”

With Virginia in need of a coach, Capel is frequently mentioned as a possible target. And when the season ends for the Sooners, there could be reason to look around.

The team’s top player, Blake Griffin, is expected to enter the NBA Draft and freshman guard star Willie Warren could go along. Two other starters _ Taylor Griffin and Austin Johnson _ are seniors. It’s possible that the only returning starter for ‘09-’10 will be junior guard Tony Crocker. -- Caulton Tudor

Heels popular with N.C. swimsuit model Decker

Brooklyn Decker is a big UNC fan.

The SI swimsuit model, and Matthews product, joined Dan Patrick on Thursday to talk brackets, the Tar Heels and supermodels.

What? Couldn't post a link without a picture. -- J.P. Giglio

(At right: Decker arrives at a launch party for the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Feb. 12, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nev. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Sports Illustrated)

Lawson a '6'

Update No. 12,325 (or at least it seems like it) on UNC point guard Ty Lawson's jammed right big toe: It has not improved much since Update No. 12,323 or 12,324.

"I went up to him this morning, and said on a scale of 1 to 10, how was it yesterday?" said coach Roy Williams. "He said about a 8. How is it today? About a 6. I said how was it Saturday before the LSU game? He said about an 8.

"That's not encouraging to me. It's just something that's taking a long, long time to heal."

Nonetheless, both Williams and Lawson expect that the point guard will play against Gonzaga on Friday in the NCAA regional semi-finals. -- Robbi Pickeral

Pining for 2005 with Pack, ACC reeling

BOSTON – Make no mistake, this is a great week to be covering college basketball for the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer with Duke and North Carolina playing highly anticipated NCAA regional semifinal games on consecutive nights.

But as I wait (and wait, and wait) for Duke’s 9:57 p.m. tipoff tonight against Villanova, I can’t help but be nostalgic about 2005. I don’t have a dog in this fight. I graduated from Notre Dame and don’t care who wins or loses.

But at this stage in 2005, the Triangle was abuzz about college basketball in a way that I haven’t seen before or since. Because N.C. State was in the Sweet 16 along with Duke and North Carolina.

Wolfpack fans are a passionate bunch, and it’s great to see them excited about something. But the 2005 NCAA Tournament captured in a nutshell the quandary of former coach Herb Sendek.

He got them to the Sweet 16 with a well-executed upset of Connecticut, then got ahead of Wisconsin in Syracuse. But then the Badgers, who might have been the only team in the tournament with an offense more boring than Sendek’s, bounced back and won 65-56.

Instead of playing North Carolina in the regional final, Sendek was going home. In many ways, it had been a great season for the Wolfpack, but it wasn’t nearly enough for the fans, especially when the Tar Heels went on to win the NCAA title.

For me, that Final Four was fun to cover because the most outstanding player, Sean May, was one of my favorite athletes to work with as a reporter. Because of his injury problems, May hasn’t had a good NBA career with the Bobcats, but he was a fantastic college low-block scorer, a class act with a great sense of humor.

For N.C. State fans, that Final Four must have been agonizing. Sendek is done torturing them now and followed a pattern familiar to them with a second-round NCAA exit at Arizona State this season.

Now they face a new kind of torture. Sidney Lowe, a coach whose legacy they love as the point guard of the 1983 NCAA championship team, hasn’t even come close to the kind of production Sendek provided. And with the roster N.C. State has returning, next season doesn’t appear especially promising.

As for Duke and North Carolina, there is a lot of pressure on both this week to make a big statement on behalf of the ACC. Boston College may be the top basketball draw in town, but this still is Big East country in many ways with its proximity to Connecticut and New York.

The consensus here is that five ACC teams failed to make it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament because the ACC just isn’t tough enough. The ACC is carrying on the legacy of beautiful basketball that’s been established through the years with high-flying players such as David Thompson and Michael Jordan.

Roy Williams runs a gorgeous fast break at North Carolina that relies on speed rather than bulk. Duke rains 3-pointers on opponents but doesn’t have much power in the post.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski offered a plausible explanation for the ACC’s troubles this week when he said recent newcomers to the NCAA Tournament from the league (think Clemson and Wake Forest) may just need a year or two to get accustomed to the tournament in order to advance.

But it seems to me that the toughness theory rings true. And that’s a shame. If I want to watch forearm shivers, I can watch football. I’m not really into gymnastics, so I watch basketball to see style and grace, which is disappearing from the game.

If only it were 2005 again. – Ken Tysiac

Duke-Villanova: Five things to watch

BOSTON – The last time Duke won an NCAA Tournament regional semifinal game, J.J. Redick was a sophomore and Larry Brown – not Mike Krzyzewski – was preparing to coach Team USA in the Olympics in 2004.

Opportunities like the Blue Devils have tonight just don’t come around all the time, even for a program as proud as Duke. Can the Blue Devils make the most of this chance?

Perhaps. Here are five things to watch when No. 2 seed Duke (30-6) meets No. 3 Villanova (28-7) at 9:57 p.m. today in the NCAA Tournament’s East Regional:

1. Scottie Reynolds’ production. Villanova’s honorable mention All-Big East guard holds the key to the Wildcats’ fortunes. He’s averaging 16.2 points with 100 assists and 61 turnovers in Villanova’s 28 wins.

In seven losses, he averaged 10.9 points with 21 assists and 32 turnovers. Duke will have to count on some combination of Elliot Williams, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer to slow him down.

2. Duke’s 3-point percentage. The Blue Devils have made at least 40 percent of their 3-point attempts in each of their postseason games, going 5-0.

This team relies on perimeter shooting because it’s not a great team attacking the basket unless forwards Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler find an advantage on the drive.

Villanova’s opponents have shot 33.9 percent from 3-point range this season. If the Wildcats hold Duke below 36 percent, the Blue Devils could be in trouble.

3. Defense on Cunningham. Duke needs to be able to defend Villanova forward Dante Cunningham with somebody other than Kyle Singler, who’s the Blue Devils’ second-best scorer.

Cunningham has the ability to get Singler in foul trouble, which is why defensive specialists Lance Thomas and Dave McClure need to handle him. Their play will be important as Duke tries to protect Singler.

4. Villanova’s bench boost. If the Wildcats don’t score early, they bring guards Corey Fisher (10.9 ppg) and Corey Stokes (9.7) off the bench for instant offense.

Duke doesn’t have that kind of scoring ability coming off the bench and will have to be aware of the boost Fisher and Stokes can give Villanova.

5. Gerald Henderson’s field goal percentage. Henderson, Duke’s leading scorer, is shooting 33.3 percent (10-for-30) from the field during the NCAA Tournament.

Numbers like that will get you past teams seeded No. 15 (Binghamton) and No. 7 (Texas) in Greensboro. They won’t help much against No. 3 seed Villanova in Big East country.- Ken Tysiac

Davidson's Curry recruiting brother Seth

Liberty freshman guard Seth Curry's decision to transfer -- after averaging 20.2 points a game -- has most certainly set off a feeding frenzy among the larger schools in the Southeast. Curry has made it clear that he would like to play on a higher level than the Big South Conference offers.

Older brother Stephen, currently making a decision of his own on whether to turn pro or return for his senior season, would like to help Seth with his choice.

"Davidson is one (of Seth's possible schools)," Curry said this afternoon. "I'm going to try to recruit him hard, try to finish the job I started when he was in high school two years ago. But we'll have to see where he feels comfortable and where his heart is."

If Seth picked the Wildcats, the two would not be able to play together next year should Stephen decide to return. The NCAA's transfer rule will force the younger Curry to sit out a season.

Stephen, who didn't find out his sibling was transferring until Monday, said he knew that Seth already has a pile of offers, but wasn't sure which schools are in the hunt. Most likely, a number of ACC and SEC programs, and also some Big East schools.

"That was his goal in high school," Stephen Curry said. "It's every kid's dream to go to that kind of level. And now he has plenty of opportunities to do that. I wouldn't be surprised if he did; I wouldn't be surprised if we got him here. It's pretty much up in the air right now.

"He can go pretty much where he wants to at this point."

-- Stan Olson

Duke's national allure lands top scorers

BOSTON - If nothing else, Wednesday's media session reinforced the notion of Duke's ability to wrestle top players throughout the nation away from their home-state schools in recruiting.

The four teams in the East regional held interviews and open practices in preparation for Thursday night’s Sweet 16 games. Duke meets Villanova, whose coach, Jay Wright, spoke fondly of Gerald Henderson.

When Henderson was 9 or 10 years old, his father introduced him to Wright and told him that some day Wright would coach Gerald at Hofstra. Wright’s children went to high school at the Episcopal Academy near Philadelphia with Henderson, and Henderson’s sister attended Villanova.

“Duke just ended up being the right place,” Henderson said Wednesday. “Coach (Mike) Krzyzewski and his vision for me as a player was something that was really intriguing to me.”

Guard Jon Scheyer grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and was coached at Glenbrook North High by Dave Weber – the brother of Illinois coach Bruce Weber. Scheyer said he felt a lot of pressure at home once Krzyzewski started recruiting him.

He had always liked Duke, and grew up idolizing former Glenbrook North standout Chris Collins – who played at Duke and recruited Scheyer as an assistant for the Blue Devils.

“Obviously my coach being the brother, that was something where there’s really a unique situation,” Scheyer said. “But luckily my high school coach was a great guy, he was really understanding and just wanted to do what was best for me. And so in the end I was going to Duke.”

Throw in the fact that forward Kyle Singler’s father and mother played football and basketball, respectively, at Oregon State, and Krzyzewski broke a lot of significant ties to land the three best players on this team.

“Because we’re a national school, our school plucks good people in different parts of the country,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s what a national school does.”

Wright sees big future for King at Villanova

BOSTON – Villanova coach Jay Wright envisions an important role for forward Taylor King with the Wildcats some day.

King, a transfer from Duke, won’t be able to play when the Blue Devils meet Villanova at 9:57 p.m. Thursday because he is sitting out one season in accordance with NCAA rules for transfers.
As a freshman last season for Duke, he averaged 5.5 points in 9.7 minutes per game.

“He will help us,” Wright said during Wednesday’s media session. “He’s a tremendous competitor, outstanding shooter and he loves to play. He’s in the gym all the time. Those kind of guys usually do pretty well for us.”

King did not attend Wednesday’s practice and media session because of class obligations. But Wright expects King to catch a ride to Boston with a friend in time for Thursday night’s game.

Some of King’s former Duke teammates still keep in touch with him. Duke guard Nolan Smith said that after the NCAA bracket was announced on Selection Sunday, King told him he was looking forward to a potential Sweet 16 meeting.

Duke assistant coach Chris Collins said King, who’s a strong 3-point shooter at forward, helped the Blue Devils win some games with his scoring punch off the bench last season.

“Certainly we were disappointed (when he decided to leave),” Collins said. “For him, he wanted a little bigger role and a little different situation, so we tried to help him the best we could in finding Villanova. But there’s no ill will, and we appreciate what he brought to us while he was here.” – Ken Tysiac

Ex-Pack aide Miller faces alma mater in Sweet 16

BOSTON - Former N.C. State assistant coach Sean Miller has one of the most intriguing matchups in the Sweet 16.

Miller, who coaches Xavier, meets his alma mater in Thursday’s 7:27 p.m. opener at the East Regional. He played and has been an assistant coach at Pittsburgh, which is the No. 1 regional seed.

He graduated from Pittsburgh in 1992 and is a member of the school’s All-Centennial team, which honored its best players from 1905 to 2005.

“Pitt has (been) a special place for me,” said Miller, who was the first coach at the podium during Wednesday’s interview sessions. “. . .Like so many former student-athletes, you look back at your experience and mine was amazing. Some of my strongest relationships, including my wife, stem from my time at Pitt, and several of my teammates will be at the game. What side they will be on, I don’t know, until the tipoff.”

Xavier has made steady improvement under Miller’s guidance. After failing to make the NCAA Tournament in 2005, the Musketeers have reached the first round in 2006, the Sweet 16 the following year and the Elite Eight last year.

Miller credits that to the balance in Xavier’s classes, as steady groups of seniors have led the team each season. He said the team’s success in the NCAA Tournament has opened doors to recruits of a quality Xavier would not have been able to approach in the past.

He said he believes the Musketeers have shed the label of “mid-major” that comes from their association with the Atlantic 10, which doesn’t get as much exposure as conferences such as the ACC and Big East.

“It’s about the NCAA Tournament,” Miller said. “Can you get there? Can you advance?. . .We can recruit a high-level student-athlete right now.” – Ken Tysiac

Davidson's Matheny a coaching target?

Matt Metheny, Davidson's associate head coach, has had his name pop up in the middle of several on-going coaching searches, the by-product of the Wildcats' recent and continued success.

The latest mention has been Appalachian State, but a source close to the proceedings said that the Mountaineers are likely to go in a different direction. But that hardly means that Matheny is unwanted--Elon, the source said, has shown considerable interest in Matheny recently.

Matheny is 39 now, and a Davidson grad who has been working with head coach Bob McKillop for 16 seasons. He's ready to take the next step, but is probably considering whether Elon, a school with a limited profile and resources, is right for him.

In any event, expect him to get a team of his own somewhere, and sometime soon.--Stan Olson

Will Roy Williams spit or roll the bones?

CHAPEL HILL — Roy Williams has made a habit of spitting in the Mississippi River for luck during the NCAA tournament -- he did it in 1982 as an assistant coach, when the Tar Heels won the national championship in New Orleans, and again in 2005, when he led UNC to his first national title as a head coach in St. Louis.

So will he do it this week, when North Carolina plays the Sweet 16 in Memphis?

"I'll have to look back on it and see if I've been successful,'' he said. "St Louis -- that one worked pretty good. Yeah, probably."

His real conundrum is whether to add a new superstition — and throw of the dice — to the mix.

"I'm just trying to think if I should go shoot craps,'' he said. "I shot craps in Detroit [earlier this season], and we played pretty well against Michigan State. Shot craps in Reno and we won. And Tunica's 30 miles south of Memphis, so I've got to decide that. Somebody will say, 'Oh, you shouldn't be doing that.' But I don't sleep anyways, so I might as well do something."

Redick congratulates Hansbrough on record

CHAPEL HILL — Orlando Magic guard J.J. Redick called UNC's Tyler Hansbrough on Friday to congratulate the forward on breaking his ACC career scoring record.

"It was a little awkward, because I've never talked to J.J. very much; I don't really know him well,'' Hansbrough said. "But when you have a great college player like that who calls you, who's accomplished a lot, you just beat a record -- it just means a lot. And to just kind of push away the Duke-UNC thing, to try to get over that, it was a little difficult, but it was something you have to grow up and do sometimes."

Redick also told Hansbrough he figured before the season that the record would fall, and wished the senior the best of luck. The Tar Heels play Gonzaga in the NCAA regional semifinals on Friday.

— Robbi Pickeral

Duke, Villanova: Mirror images

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was asked Monday to name the team the Blue Devils have played that reminds him of NCAA regional semifinal opponent Villanova.

He thought for a moment, but couldn’t come up with anybody. That’s because Villanova resembles Duke more than any other team in the ACC.
“They are very similar in that they can score from all their positions,” Krzyzewski said. “They like to drive. They give their players the ability to make plays.”

The numbers for forwards Dante Cunningham (16.3 ppg, 7.3 ppg) of Villanova and Kyle Singler (16.5 ppg, 7.7 ppg) of Duke are almost eerily similar. So are the teams’ scoring averages (77.0 ppg for Villanova, 78.1 ppg for Duke) and defensive numbers (67.1 ppg for Villanova, 65.6 ppg for Duke).

The good thing for Duke in this matchup is that Villanova doesn’t appear to have a big post player who’s capable of dominating the game against the Blue Devils’ smallish front line. The bad news for Duke is that Villanova doesn’t appear to have a big post player whom the Blue Devils can draw away from the basket with a small lineup.

“They play the three or four guards just like we do,” said Duke guard Nolan Smith. “It will be a good matchup.”

There are subtle differences between the two teams. Villanova likes to run its offense through guard Scottie Reynolds while Duke turns to a small forward Gerald Henderson to penetrate and create.

Villanova also has two guys averaging about 10 points per game (guards Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes) coming off the bench. Duke’s bench is known more for its defense.

“Fisher and Stokes have really been scoring the ball well,” Krzyzewski said. “They’re deep and they’re really good. They’re just a hard team to defend.”

With so many similarities between the teams, coaching might make the difference Thursday night in Boston. That’s where Duke fans will have to hope Krzyzewski’s experience pulls their team through against Villanova’s Jay Wright, who’s one of the hottest young names in the business but doesn’t yet possess Krzyzewski’s pedigree. – Ken Tysiac

An offseason improvement plan for N.C. State

Now that Brandon Costner and Trevor Ferguson have decided not to return as seniors next season, it’s time for N.C. State to get to work without them and without 2008-09 seniors Ben McCauley and Courtney Fells.

The returning players have a lot to work on if N.C. State plans to improve on its 16-14 overall record and 6-10 ACC mark from 2008-09. Here is a brief offseason plan listing what should be the most important development priority for all the scholarship players on the roster, plus coach Sidney Lowe:

C Tracy Smith: A jump shot. If Smith can learn to score on 12- to 14-foot jumpers rather than just with his back to the basket, he will be much more effective in the post. He ought to particularly work on the same baseline shot McCauley developed last season.

F Dennis Horner: Nerves of steel. Horner was one of N.C. State’s best free throw shooters until the closing minutes of tight games. As a potential starter, he will be in position to shoot more key free throws next season.

G C.J. Williams: A pull-up jumper. Williams improved immensely as a catch-and-shoot scorer last season as a freshman. The next step will be to develop as a slasher, and a pull-up jump shot will help him do that.

F Johnny Thomas: A baseline game. Thomas, who’s N.C. State’s best athlete, has an opportunity to gain huge minutes next season and stands to benefit most from the departures of Costner and Ferguson. He isn’t much of a scorer, though, and could make a huge impact if he can score on baseline drives and jump shots.

G Javi Gonzalez, G Farnold Degand, G Julius Mays: Consistency. At their best, any one of these players is capable of being an ACC-caliber point guard. Problem is, not a single one of these guys stays at his best for any appreciable length of time. Coach Sidney Lowe would love for one of them to seize the reigns this summer.

G Lorenzo Brown, F Richard Howell, G Scott Wood, F Josh Davis: Maturity beyond their years. At least two of N.C. State’s freshmen are going to have to contribute immediately. Brown and Howell in particular need to be ready for vital roles if this team is to have any chance of reaching postseason play.

Coach Sidney Lowe: A new plan. Whatever success N.C. State had last season came as a result of Lowe’s introducing a big lineup with Smith, Costner and McCauley on the floor early in ACC play. The Wolfpack doesn’t have the bodies up front to play big anymore.

That would make a fast tempo a logical option, but with three shaky point guards that could lead to a lot of unforced errors. Then again, maybe N.C. State will be better off getting the ball out of the hands of those point guards quickly rather than waiting for them to make mistakes in a half-court offense.

Whatever the case, Lowe has his hands full coming up with a blueprint for success this summer. – Ken Tysiac

Losing Costner big blow to N.C. State

After Brandon Costner slumped at the end of last season, some N.C. State fans hinted that the team might have been better without him if he didn’t return as a senior.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Losing its leading scorer in addition to seniors Ben McCauley and Courtney Fells was a significant blow for a team that finished 16-14, and 6-10 in the ACC.

When you look at the roster the Wolfpack has returning, it’s impossible to deduce that the team will be better off without Costner and reserve guard Trevor Ferguson, who also is leaving.

In the frontcourt, Tracy Smith is developing into a strong low-post scorer and Dennis Horner demonstrated promise at the end of last season. But N.C. State will be counting on freshman Richard Howell to add depth as three players rotate in the two post positions. That’s just enough talent to get by, but still one injury away from a crisis.

At point guard and the wings, though, N.C. State won’t have anybody who’s averaged more than seven points a game in a college season. Sophomores C.J. Williams and Johnny Thomas will have to play small forward, perhaps with help from Howell. Athens Drive’s Josh Davis, who committed to N.C. State on Monday, might take a year or two to develop into a contributor in ACC play.

At point guard N.C. State will have the same players (Javi Gonzalez, Farnold Degand, Julius Mays) who struggled in 2007-08. Lorenzo Brown of Roswell, Ga., the top recruit in the Wolfpack’s class, might play both point guard and shooting guard. And freshman Scott Wood could get into the rotation at shooting guard, where Williams might also be a factor.

As a whole, this roster will not scare North Carolina when it gets off the bus next season at the Smith Center. Against the rest of the ACC, N.C. State might hold up OK because there is a lot of backcourt talent leaving from the traditional middle-of-the-pack schools.

Toney Douglas, Tyrese Rice and Jack McClinton all were seniors, and there’s no guarantee Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez will return for his senior season. But hoping the competition falls back to N.C. State’s level is not a where the Wolfpack hoped to be in Sidney Lowe’s fourth season.

Coach Sidney Lowe’s incoming recruiting class might turn out to be his best yet. But the members of his past classes will be sophomores and juniors next season comprising the bulk of N.C. State’s roster. Lowe’s initial difficulties gaining a foothold as a recruiter after coming to N.C. State from the NBA look like they will come home to roost next season. – Ken Tysiac

Krzyzewski: 'I'm so happy'

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s hand in front of his face told the whole story Saturday night.

While seated in front of the microphones at the Greensboro Coliseum, he was trying to hide his ear-to-ear grin as he watched Duke players Jon Scheyer, Gerald Henderson and Kyle Singler explain how it felt to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

Thursday’s 9:57 p.m. game against Villanova in Boston will be Duke’s first regional semifinal game since 2006. Krzyzewski, who has coached in 10 Final Fours in 28 previous seasons at Duke, is thrilled to see the current team’s joy at reaching a point that’s still two wins short of the Final Four.

“I’m just smiling because I’m so happy for these kids,” Krzyzewski said Monday, explaining his own feelings Saturday night. “Because that’s the first time they’ve been able to do that. And for me, that’s something I’ve gotten over the years watching Johnny Dawkins be able to do that. Or Grant Hill. Everyone thinks it’s, go to Duke, get that free pass. And it doesn’t work that way. It never works that way. And I love my team.”

Krzyzewski said Duke’s players aren’t trying to prove their critics wrong, and they’re not trying to measure up to the accomplishments of past Duke teams. Players on other Duke teams might have felt pressure to reach the Final Four, and they might have been satisfied with nothing less.

A short drive down Route 15/501 in Chapel Hill, Duke’s rivals at North Carolina probably won’t be happy if they don’t reach the Final Four. But these Duke players have been thrilled to get to the Sweet 16, and their coach is savoring their reaction.

“I think it’s a neat thing, because it’s refreshing,” Krzyzewski said. “It’s fun. Our kids were so happy the past two weekends. I mean, true happiness. I love it.” – Ken Tysiac

Davidson's season ends out west

Davidson's basketball season came to a disappointing end at St. Mary's College early Tuesday morning, the Wildcats falling not far from the San Francisco Bay as the clock ticked toward 2 a.m. back home.

The game was almost a microcosm of Davidson's frustrating final stretch, which saw the Wildcats lose five of their final 12 games after starting 20-3. All-American guard Stephen Curry finished with 26 points, but seemed to tire as the game progressed, and eventually shot less than 50 percent from the floor, making 11 of 27. He also had nine rebounds and six assists, but lost perhaps that many more assists when teammates could not convert, either outside or in the paint.

This was billed as a showdown between two great guards, Curry and the Gaels' Patty Mills. And while Mills was good with 23 points and 10 assists, he had considerably more help than Curry did. Most important was 6-foot-11, 265-pound center Omar Sanham, who overpowered the Wildcats inside, contributing 19 points and 10 rebounds.

Davidson finishes its season 27-8.

Now the big question is whether Curry, the catalyst on Davidson's run to the Elite Eight, will decide to return for his senior season next fall, or take the huge pile of first-round NBA bucks that are surely waiting. That's a discussion for another day, though; time to hit the rack.--Stan Olson

Athens Drive's Davis picks Pack

It didn’t take long for N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe to fill one of the empty roster spots created by the departures of Brandon Costner and Trevor Ferguson.

Josh Davis, a 6-foot-6, 210-pound forward, committed to N.C. State during a campus visit Monday according to Robert Clemons, who coaches Davis at Raleigh’s Athens Drive High.

Davis averaged 25.7 points and 12 rebounds per game this season as a senior. He had been considering UNC Wilmington and had scholarship offers from Gardner-Webb and High Point.
Seton Hall’s staff also wanted Davis to make a campus visit, Clemons said.

“He’s always wanted to go (to N.C. State),” Clemons said. “He always talked about N.C. State. That was his school. He worked hard enough, and was able to get an offer.”

Clemons said Davis can score on the block as a power forward and is skilled enough to play small forward. – Ken Tysiac

Costner, Ferguson leaving N.C. State

Brandon Costner, N.C. State's leading scorer this season, will not return to the basketball team for the 2009-10 season, N.C. State announced Monday. Reserve guard Trevor Ferguson will also forego his final season of eligibility.

Costner, a fourth-year junior, will graduate in May and go through the NBA Draft process. The forward averaged 13.3 points and 6.0 rebounds in 30 starts this past season.

"... I just feel like it is time to move on and pursue my dreams of playing professionally," Costner said in a statement released by the school.

State will also free up another scholarship with Ferguson's decision. Ferguson, a reserve guard, will earn his degree in the summer and move on with life, according to a statement provided by N.C. State on its web site.

Ferguson, a junior who started his career at Pittsburgh in 2005, appeared in 19 games, with eight starts, and averaged 5.5 points per game. -- J.P. Giglio

Davidson, Curry looking for a little help

If Davidson guard Stephen Curry doesn't get a little help, the Wildcats' stay in the NIT could be over tonight, when they play a second-round matchup at St. Mary's at 11:30 p.m. (ESPN2)

Specifically, Curry needs a some long-range support; no one else has been able to consistently hit from the perimeter. If someone does, that could loosen things up for post presence Andrew Lovedale and some backdoor cuts for other guys inside.

Davidson was clipping along nicely after 26 games, with an overall record of 23-3. Since then, the Wildcats have been 7-4, with the last of those losses knocking them out of the Southern Conference Tournament, an event they had been favored to win.

Curry has played in 10 of those last 11 games; he missed the loss to The Citadel with an injured ankle. Over that period, he has made 37 of 93 three-pointers, or 39.8 percent.

His fellow guards -- Bryant Barr, Max Paulhus Gosselin, Brendan McKillop and Will Archambault, with the occasional shot from reserve Can Civi -- have made 32 of 141 from beyond the arc, or 22.7 percent. Many of those shots have been open, as Curry draws defenders to him and then dishes.

And when Curry is off -- he hit 21.6 percent of his threes attempts in the three losses he played in--the Wildcats were in big trouble. The other guards made 19.7 percent of their long shots in the four defeats.

Those guys can shoot, but shooting is about confidence, and the group appears to have lost it at about the same time. Even in the NIT opening-round win at South Carolina, while Curry hit five-of-nine threes, his fellow guards were one-for-five.

Someone is due to heat up, and it couldn't happen at a better time than tonight. The game is late, but check this blog in the morning; I plan to watch it and blog at, say, 2 a.m.--Stan Olson

UNC, Duke: Road worries in NCAAs

Next year, Duke and North Carolina won’t have it so easy.

Coaches and players spent four days last week answering reporters’ questions about how playing in Greensboro Coliseum would affect the two in-state heavyweights in the first- and second-round games Thursday and Saturday.

The consensus opinion was that fans don’t win games, players do. Yet there was no denying that the home court was an advantage for both teams, particularly on Saturday.

If point guard Ty Lawson had any questions about how North Carolina’s fans feel about him, they should have been erased the moment he was introduced as part of the starting lineup against LSU. Up until that point, fans weren’t sure whether he would play because of his injured toe.

As Lawson waltzed onto the court, the roar was so loud that the Concorde could have passed through the arena and you wouldn’t have heard it.

Duke’s homecourt advantage wasn’t as significant because there were a lot of North Carolina fans cheering against the Blue Devils. But the Duke fans still drowned them out, and perhaps gave the team the energy it needed to make five huge hustle plays in the closing minutes to finish off Texas.

All week, the atmosphere was electric. Tyler Hansbrough drew a brief standing ovation from the crowd after making the free throw that broke J.J. Redick’s ACC career scoring record Thursday. Two days later, Texas football coach Mack Brown shook hands with reporters on press row who used to cover him when he was coaching the Tar Heels.

But the unfortunate thing for fans in North Carolina is that there isn’t an NCAA Tournament site anywhere near this state in 2010. First- and second-round games are set for New Orleans, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Providence, R.I.; San Jose, Calif.; Spokane, Wash.; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Jacksonville, Fla.

Regionals in 2010 will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah; Syracuse, N.Y.; Houston and St. Louis. So the Tar Heels and Blue Devils will have to find a way to advance outside the state, and that hasn’t been easy recently.

Over the last four seasons, North Carolina has advanced from first- and second-round sites in Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Greensboro. The Tar Heels won a regional in Charlotte.

Away from home, North Carolina lost in the second round in Dayton, Ohio; in a regional final in East Rutherford, N.J., and in the Final Four in San Antonio, Texas.

During that same period, Duke advanced from first- and second-round sites in Greensboro in both 2006 and 2009. The Blue Devils lost in the first round in Buffalo and in the second round in Washington, D.C., and were eliminated in a regional semifinal in Atlanta in 2006.

Combined, the schools were 6-0 advancing from sites inside the state, and 0-6 outside the state. That doesn’t bode well for next season.

Come to think of it, that’s not an encouraging sign as Duke (in Boston) and North Carolina (in Memphis) head to regionals outside the state this week. – Ken Tysiac

UNC in tough South Regional

Syracuse continued the Big East's dominance of the NCAA Tournament and ended Herb Sendek's return with a 78-67 win over Arizona State on Sunday to move on to the Sweet 16.

The Cuse (3) joins Oklahoma (2), UNC (1) and Gonzaga (4) in the chalky South Regional in Memphis, which starts on Friday. The Cuse faces Oklahoma and UNC gets Gonzaga. Strong regional, much stronger than the Louisville-Washington State-Tennessee pod from Charlotte last year.

UNC will have its hands full in the Final Eight, assuming it takes care of Gonzaga in the Round of 16, because Syracuse has some bigs to support guards Johnny Flynn and Eric Devendorf and shooter Andy Rautins gives the Orange a lot of perimeter options.

UNC should start working the Orange's 2-3 zone now. With their usual length on the baseline, the Cuse will make life awfully difficult for both Oklahoma's Blake Griffin and UNC's Tyler Hansbrough.

The last time Roy Williams saw Syracuse's zone in the tournament, it was in the 2003 championship game. Syracuse beat Kansas 81-78 in New Orleans in Williams' final game with Kansas.

With Syracuse's win Sunday, the Big East has three teams (Villanova, UConn) in the Sweet 16 with three more teams (Pitt, Louisville and Marquette) still with a chance to join them.

The Big East sent a record three teams to the Final Four in 1985. Given the way Syracuse is playing -- and UConn's performance on Saturday -- the Big East could take all four spots in Detroit in two weeks. -- J.P. Giglio

Pick Eight: Sunday's second round

Good basketball but nothing terribly out of the ordinary on Saturday, bracket-wise. Washington was the only better-seeded team that did not take care of business, and in a friendly environment no less.

Add Lorenzo Romar to the list of coaches I'll never pick again (it's growing by the day and I'm staring at you Leonard Hamilton).

First round: 24-8. Second round: 7-1.

On with the games:

Note: All games are on CBS

BOISE

Wisconsin (12) vs. Xavier (4)
Time: 2:20
Regional: East

Bo Ryan can't be good for more than win, can he? He was worth one win against Leonard Hamilton and a vastly superior (talent-wise) Florida State team. Ryan went 2-0 against the ACC this year (also beat Virginia Tech).

Sean Miller was in the ACC (an assistant at N.C. State) but seems to have figured out how to coach in March in anyway. The X-Men didn't even let Portland State in the game in Round 1. Pick: Xavier

Marquette (6) vs. Missouri (3)
Time: 4:50
Regional: West

Tempo should be fun, just about the opposite of Wisconsin-FSU. Marquette was able to squeeze out one win without Dominic James. Not two, not against a hot Mizzou team. Pick: Mizzou

MINNEAPOLIS

Dayton (11) vs. Kansas (3)
Time: 2:30
Regional: Midwest

Last chance for Kansas to prove to me it isn't the UNC '06 (overachieving team in the conference the year after the national title but not a tournament threat). If I'm right, Kansas will lose to Dayton. In '06, UNC lost to George Mason — in Dayton. Pick: Dayton

USC (10) vs. Michigan State (2)
Time: 5
Regional: South

Under the assumption that Tom Izzo will have his team ready for USC's junk defenses, Michigan State wins. If not, the Trojans certainly have the momentum, and NBA talent, to pull off the upset. Pick: Michigan State

MIAMI

Arizona State (6) vs. Syracuse (3)
Time: 12:10
Regional: South

Arizona State just doesn't have the parts to contain Syracuse point guard Johnny Flynn. And Syracuse, like ASU, plays a 2-3 zone. Teams that use a zone, know how to attack a zone. That should ultimately work in the Cuse's favor. Pick: Syracuse

Cleveland State (13) vs. Arizona (12)
Time: 2:40
Regional: Midwest

Cleveland State's no fluke, the Vikings won at Syracuse this season and beat Butler twice. The Vikings get another BCS team long on talent and short on coaching. Why not? Pick: Cleveland State

DAYTON

Oklahoma State (8) vs. Pittsburgh (1)
Time: 2:50
Regional: East

Pittsburgh, unlike UNC, doesn't bury teams by 40 points. It's just not in the defensive DNA of Jamie Dixon. But a 10-point win over a 16-seed? That's not a good sign.

OK State won't be the ones to knock out Pitt but it's coming in the regional. And then you can add Dixon to the No-Pick List. Pick: Pittsburgh

Siena (9) vs. Louisville (1)
Time: 5:20
Regional: Midwest

Justice is served because Louisville, the No. 1 seed in the entire tournament, did not deserve to play a road game against an eight seed (Ohio State). Siena took care of the Buckeyes in double-overtime and the Cards will take care of Siena. Pick: Louisville

-- J.P. Giglio

What we learned (Greensboro edition)

• UNC needed that test
• The ACC could use Rick Barnes
• Nothing wrong with healthy dislike

Since the Final Four loss to Kansas last year, you had to wonder how UNC would handle its next tournament challenge. The Tar Heels provided an emphatic answer on Saturday with their 84-70 win over eighth-seeded LSU.

Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson, two of the biggest reasons for UNC's loss to Kansas, simply would not let the Heels lose on Saturday. Down 54-49 with 12:24 left in the game, Ellington scored five of UNC's next seven points.

Lawson's reverse layup at 10:30 gave the Heels a 58-57 lead. They wouldn't trail again. Ellington's 3 on the next possession made it 61-57.

LSU, which deserved better than No. 8 seed, fought back to tie the game at 63. After a Tyler Hansbrough free throw, Lawson's driving three-point play made it 67-63.

Ellington's hustle and tip after a Danny Green missed 3-pointer, set up Green for another 3, this one he made and the tickets were set for Memphis.

Lawson's return from injury and his ability to take control of the game in the second half will carry the headlines but it was Ellington's timely scoring and willingness to take big shots that can't be ignored.

Lawson and Ellington combined to shoot 2-of-11 from 3-point range in the Kansas loss. They were 5-of-9 on Saturday.

Unlike last year, the Heels were tested before the Final Four and that can only be construed as a positive going into the regional. Whether Gonzaga and/or Oklahoma-Syracuse-Arizona State can offer another challenge before Detroit is debatable but what's not is the Heels passed their first real test of 2009.

And, more importantly, it wasn't the rock-steady Hansbrough (who was stronger in the first half) that saved them but the duo of Lawson and Ellington. The same duo that will ultimately decide if UNC wins a second national title in five years.

• The ACC could use Rick Barnes

There's a reason N.C. State threw a bunch of zeroes at Rick Barnes in 2006. The guy can coach. Yes, the Horns have parts, namely guard A.J. Abrams and forward Damion James, but this was far from Barnes' most talented team in Austin since he left Clemson in 1998.

The Horns gave Duke everything they wanted on Saturday in part because reserve guard Varez Ward got hot, scoring 16 points and erasing Duke's second-half 10-point lead, but also because Barnes pushed the right buttons.

Texas played man defense for better part of the game's first 30 minutes. Coaches like Mike Krzyzewski prepare for everything but the 2-3 zone has become Barnes' bread-and-butter. Barnes went man, in part because Duke is not the most athletic team, but also because it wasn't what Duke expected.

Once the game got close, in the final minutes, Barnes went back to his fastball, the zone. Good coaches make adjustments and then adjust to what the opposition does. Barnes did that Saturday and really made the game closer than it should have been, certainly after Duke stretched it out to 64-54.

Virginia would be smart to gauge Barnes' interest in its opening. A North Carolina native, Barnes is in his element in the ACC. You couldn't help but watch Saturday's game at the Greensboro Coliseum and not think of the 1995 ACC Tournament when Barnes went nose-to-nose with UNC's Dean Smith at the scorers' table.

The prospect of coaching Kevin Durant kept Barnes in Austin when State came calling '06. When you have a lottery ticket like Durant, you have to scratch it. With just a regular roster, by his standards, Barnes might be willing to leave a football-first school for a program like Virginia's. Either way, it can't hurt to ask.

• Nothing wrong with healthy dislike

The atmosphere in the final 2 minutes of the Duke-Texas game at the Greensboro Coliseum was better than anything in four days of the ACC Tournament in Atlanta.

Never mind the size of the crowd, it was the passion, perhaps misplaced, but still electric. UNC fans, those still in the building, were rooting against Duke as much as they had rooted for their team about four hours earlier.

That's what happens when the ACC Tournament is in Greensboro and that's what was missing in Atlanta. After your team plays, you root against the team you hate. Simple really.

The small swatch of Duke fans in Section 108 pulled against Carolina in the first game, even joining the LSU section from across the arena in a "Go Tigers!" rendition.

Forget conference congeniality, that's the way it should be.

Duke will welcome a true neutral site in Boston next weekend against Villanova.-- J.P. Giglio

Tudor's Take: Duke clears hurdle

GREENSBORO -- Duke’s lack of depth almost was too much to overcome in its 74-69 second-round NCAA win over Texas on Saturday in Greensboro.

Now, the Blue Devils will have to really sweat out the numbers game. In a third-round East Regional game on Thursday in Boston, the Devils (30-6) will face a 28-7 Villanova team that is among the deepest in the Big East.

In their second-round 89-69 win over UCLA, the Wildcats got 29 bench points, including 25 from guards Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes.

During much of the season, Villanova coach Jay Wright routinely used eight or nine players in his rotation.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski primarily goes with seven players, but got the most out of subs Nolan Smith (11 points, three assists) and Brian Zoubek (four rebounds) against the gritty Longhorns.

After leading 36-29 at halftime and by double digits in the second half, Duke ran into trouble when starters Lance Thomas and Kyle Singler fouled out. The Longhorns (23-12) eventually tied it at 69 with 1:07 left, but Smith bagged two free throws to push the Devils back ahead to stay with 47 seconds to go. Singler left with 17 points, but the Duke leader was Gerald Henderson with 24, plus six rebounds.

The good news for Duke in Boston is it finally gets to face an opponent its own size. Wright normally starts 6-8 Dante Cunningham, 6-6 Dwayne Anderson, 6-5 Shane Clark, 6-2 Scottie Reynolds and 6-4 Reggie Redding with the 6-1 Fisher and 6-5 Stokes first off the bench.

In the ACC Tournament championship win over Florida State, the Blue Devils easily overcame a size deficit. But in two losses to North Carolina and another at Wake Forest, taller lineups gave Duke trouble.

Whatever, Duke’s dramatic win was enough to put a happy face on a miserable weekend for its league. Seven ACC teams earned NCAA bids, but only Duke and Carolina are still standing. Four lost opening games and Maryland was roundly dismissed by Memphis earlier Saturday in the second round.

To add insult to injury, Miami and Virginia Tech made quick, ugly exits in the NIT. So, the ACC turned out to be a two-team league again. Why should we be surprised? -- Caulton Tudor, (Raleigh) News & Observer

Lawson's post-Duke remedy wasn't one

GREENSBORO -- There's been a lot of conjecture about why Ty Lawson's jammed right toe swelled up so badly after UNC's regular-season finale at Duke on March 8. The UNC point guard revealed one possible reason Saturday night: epsom salt.

"That was probably our fault,'' Lawson said after he scored 23 points during UNC's 84-79 victory over LSU. "My dad, he was like, 'Put it in hot water and Epsom salt.' It's an old remedy, old school, so I was like, 'All right, I'll try it. But then it swelled up real big, and I told the doctors, and they just looked at me like I was crazy. I won't do that again -- I'll just ice it from now on."

Lawson missed three games before returning for the second-round NCAA tournament game. He said he's confident his toe won't react as badly this time -- and that he'll stay away from those old-school remedies. -- Robbi Pickeral

Heels' halfcourt practice pays off

North Carolina's experience playing without Ty Lawson in Atlanta last weekend proved vital in Greensboro on Saturday.

Lawson was back in the lineup, but between his sore toe and LSU's defense, Carolina wasn't able to get moving in the first half and found itself mired in a halfcourt game.

It was exactly the kind of game the Tigers wanted, and the Heels ran past them anyway, 84-70.

Earlier in the season, that might have been a problem for Carolina without those easy fast-break buckets. After playing without Lawson in the ACC Tournament, the Tar Heels looked far more comfortable in a slower-paced game. Only 12 of their 84 points came in transition.

No player showed that development more than Wayne Ellington, who carried a large share of the offensive load for the Tar Heels in Atlanta and has again in the NCAA Tournament.

Even without the benefit of Lawson's quick-strike passes, Ellington continued to generate points, taking good shots from outside and getting to the rim on his own when possible.

When LSU made its run early in the second half, Lawson played a key role in the Heels' response, but they showed how much they learned during his absence before that. -- Luke DeCock, (Raleigh) News & Observer

UNC to start Lawson against LSU

GREENSBORO - North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson will start against LSU in the Tar Heels' second-round NCAA tournament game, which is scheduled to begin at 5:45 p.m., a school spokesman said Saturday.

Lawson has missed the past three games with a jammed right big toe.

- Ken Tysiac

Tudor's Take: ACC's high-profile coaches prove worth

Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage, a former member of the NCAA selection committee, would be smart to take a hint from the league’s first-round losses by Boston College, Clemson, Florida State and Wake Forest.

In each case, the schools made coaching hires beneath the national radar. Obviously, all four coaches had good-enough seasons to bag impressive wins and earn tournament at-large invitations.

On the other hand, it’s probably no accident that the three ACC first-round winners — Duke, Maryland and North Carolina — are led by high-profile coaches with long histories of postseason success.

Granted, Mike Krzyzewski was a no-name when Duke AD Tom Butters found him at Army. But Butters made the move only after then-Indiana coach Bob Knight guaranteed the Blue Devils they would be getting a winner for the ages. Plus, that was in 1980, a few years before the NCAA event
became such a dominating national happening.

At a time when the college game is constantly getting drained of talent by the NBA, coaching has become important than ever. Don’t believe it for a second when prominent coaches — West Virginia’s Bob Huggins, for one — contend that the regular season is ruled by the coaches while the postseason belongs to the players.

There’s a word for that sort of statement: Crutch. To put it another way, is there anyone out there who seriously believes Cleveland State’s personnel is 15 points better than Wake Forest?

As the candidates to succeed Dave Leitao are sized up, Littlepage would be smart to look for established March winners first. Anything can backfire, but aiming high is the safest way to go.

In other words, make Tubby Smith, Jeff Capel and Sean Miller tell you no before looking elsewhere.

• SI hits and misses

If your brackets are busted and you’re feeling a little dumb, take heart. There’s always comfort in company, and Sports Illustrated is right there with you.

In its preseason national look, SI had Notre Dame No. 6 in its poll, Tennessee No. 10, Davidson No. 18 and Miami No. 19.

On the plus side, SI’s top five teams — North Carolina, Connecticut, UCLA, Louisville and Purdue — were still hanging around at the start of Saturday’s second-round NCAA games. Another nice call — the magazine singled out Siena as a long-shot that would make a tournament splash. The Saints eliminated Ohio State in their opener.

• Network changes?

This is still on the back burner, but the NCAA has the option of finding a new television network after the 2009-10 Final Four in Indianapolis.

While the long association with CBS generally has been a success, ABC, NBC and Fox would dearly love to get the lucrative March rights. Some NCAA movers and shakers already
are expecting an all-out bidding war even in a tight economy.

But therein lies a golden lining for the NCAA. With people staying home more and pinching pennies whenever possible, TV ratings are increasing.

And if CBS happens to lose the tournament to ABC (parent of ESPN), don’t at all be surprised to see a courtside analysts lineup that includes Knight, Dick Vitale and — yes — Billy Packer among others.

Packer’s long run of postseason work began with NBC in the mid 1970s. He switched to CBS only because it landed NCAA rights, but he was never totally happy after the change. Odds are ABC/ESPN would offer him a deal he wouldn’t refuse. -- Caulton Tudor, (Raleigh) News & Observer

'Mocha Friday' for ACC

For those ACC fans not old enough to remember "Black Sunday," Wake Forest, Florida State and Boston College were kind enough to commemorate the 30th anniversary on Friday.

The ACC went 0-3 in the NCAA Tournament on "Mocha Friday" — not quite as dark as the twin losses by UNC and Duke on Black Sunday at Reynolds Coliseum in 1979, but a decaffeinated buzz-kill of a day for the conference nonetheless.

All three teams were the better-seeded team. Wake, the No. 4 in the Midwest Regional, got handled by 13th-seeded Cleveland State, 84-69.

Boston College, the seventh seed in the Midwest, also lost by double-digits, falling to No. 10 USC, 72-55.

Florida State, which just reached the ACC Tournament final for the first time, fell as the No. 5 seed in the East to 12th-seeded Wisconsin, 61-59 in overtime.

The most memorable "winless" opening day by the ACC happened in 1979, dubbed "Black Sunday." UNC, the No. 1 seed in the East, lost to ninth-seeded Penn, 72-71. Duke, the No. 2 seed in the East, lost to St. John's 80-78.

It's only the second time the ACC has had four teams (plus Clemson on Thursday) lose in the first round. Four of the six conference teams in the field lost in the first round in 1987. The ACC finished 5-6 that year, the only time it has had a losing record in the tournament since the NCAA allowed more than two teams per conference in the field in 1980.

With UNC, Duke and Maryland still alive, it's unlikely the ACC will finish the tournament with a losing record, but the league needs a big day, namely a Maryland upset of Memphis, to offset Friday's nightmare.

At 3-4, the ACC trails the Big East (6-1), Big 12 (6-0), Big Ten (4-3), Pac-10 (5-1). The only conference the ACC did better than in the first round was the SEC (1-2). -- J.P. Giglio

Coach K says he was only joking about Obama

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski wanted President Barack Obama to know he was joking when he said Obama should focus on the economy rather than picking an NCAA Tournament bracket.

So Krzyzewski's wife, Mickie, sent a text message to former Duke basketball player Reggie Love, who is Obama's personal assistant.

“Reggie texted back and said (Obama) wasn't offended,“ Krzyzewski said Friday. “Though some of the staff was concerned, because they always have to be concerned.”

Krzyzewski said he was misrepresented Wednesday on what he called a “throwaway line,” which he intended to be funny, on Obama picking North Carolina to win the NCAA Tournament in an ESPN.com bracket.

Krzyzewski said his wife and daughters were more upset than he was.

But Krzyzewski still sounded frustrated.

“People want at some times to create news, they don't want to report news,” Krzyzewski said Friday during his news conference to preview Duke's second-round NCAA Tournament game with Texas. “And in their zest to create, they tell quarter stories or tenth stories or 25 percent instead of telling the whole thing.”

Krzyzewski is known as a conservative politically and held a fundraiser for Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole in 2002. Nonetheless, on Wednesday he was complimentary of the president.

“I love the guy, and I think he's going to be great,” he said.

Many media outlets didn't include that quote. Krzyzewski was disappointed with that and frustrated because his throwaway line was portrayed as serious by news outlets. He said Love texted Mickie Krzyzewski back to say Obama thinks Mike Krzyzewski is all right.

“Then she texted back and said, ‘Thanks,“' Krzyzewski said. --Ken Tysiac

Barnes, Krzyzewski have long history

GREENSBORO – It’s well known that Duke’s fans applauded Texas coach Rick Barnes (right) for his public battles with North Carolina’s Dean Smith in the 1990s when Barnes was coaching Clemson.

Barnes’ long history with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski isn’t as well known. On Friday, a day before the Longhorns were scheduled to meet Duke in a second-round NCAA Tournament game, Barnes talked about a job interview he had at Duke in the early 1980s.

As an assistant coach at George Mason, Barnes often ran into Krzyzewski on the recruiting trail. This was early in Krzyzewski’s career, when it wasn’t clear whether he would sink or swim as Duke’s head coach.

Krzyzewski asked Barnes why he wanted to come to Duke because he was just starting to build the program and people were speculating that Krzyzewski would fail.

“I remember telling him, ‘I’ve watched what you do, and I believe in you.’ ” Barnes said. “Obviously I wanted the job. I said, ‘I believe in what you’ve done, and there is no doubt you’re going to get the job done.’ ”

Despite that praise, Barnes didn’t get the job. Krzyzewski hired Bob Bender instead.

Nonetheless, Barnes and Krzyzewski have remained friends.

“He understands like most of us in our game that the game’s bigger than all of us, and we just should do our part and get along and try to become the best we can be,” Krzyzewski said. – Ken Tysiac

LSU takes aim at another Tobacco Road power

GREENSBORO - Former Duke guard J.J. Redick telephoned Tyler Hansbrough on Thursday to congratulate him on breaking Redick’s ACC career scoring record.

“It meant a lot, just because. . .he knows what it feels like and it is a special moment when you do break that record,” Hansbrough said Friday.

One thing they didn’t discuss was LSU. No wonder.

The Tigers, who meet North Carolina in an NCAA Tournament second-round game today at the Greensboro Coliseum, knocked Duke out of the NCAA Tournament with a 62-54 regional semifinal decision in 2006 in Atlanta.

It was the last game of Redick’s college career. Guard Garrett Temple, an excellent defender who helped hold Redick to 3-for-18 from the field and 11 points in that game, now is a senior for LSU.

“It was just a great atmosphere,” Temple said Friday. “We just soaked it all up and came in playing with nothing to lose, expecting to win and playing great, and we were able to get that win. I feel like this team is going to come out (Saturday) and do the same thing.”

Temple’s defense will be a key against guard Wayne Ellington, who scored a team-high 25 points in the Tar Heels’ tournament-opening defeat of Radford on Thursday.

“I love playing against guys that get up into you and want to challenge you,” Ellington said. “I think it will be a lot of fun.” – Ken Tysiac

Different Sendek, same first-round result

You can't write about Herb Sendek without the comments section turning into a referendum on either N.C. State fans and how they supposedly ran Sendek out of town or the News & Observer and how we supposedly mistreated Sendek.

This is an attempt to just talk basketball and Sendek. That's it.

There was nothing surprising about Arizona State's 66-57 win over Temple in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Preparation has always been Sendek's calling card and that is evident in Sendek's opening-round record in all tournaments.

He improved to 6-1 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament — winning once with Miami, Ohio in 1995, four times with N.C. State and in his first trip with ASU today.

Sendek's also 5-2 in the first round of the NIT and 12-4 in the first round of conference tournaments (two of those losses with Arizona State).

What was remarkable was watching a basketball game between Temple and a Herb Sendek-coached team and Temple was playing man defense and Sendek a 2-3 zone. I shook my head, changed the awkward four-digit cable channel and then flipped back to make sure I was watching the right game (State Fans Nation has noticed the same changes).

Since leaving Raleigh after the 2006 NCAA Tournament, Sendek has adjusted his coaching methodology. Like Mike Krzyzewski, Sendek insisted on playing man-to-man defense in 10 seasons in Raleigh, regardless of the level of talent on the roster.

Unlike Krzyzewski, Sendek never increased his overall talent level to the point where he could play 40 minutes of man-to-man, regardless of the opponent or situation.

Then there's Sendek's choice of offense. You could write a book about the "Prince-State" offense and its successes and failures (notably in the second half and end-game situations). At first, Sendek needed the offense, brought in by then-assistant coach Larry Hunter after missing the NCAA Tournament Sendek's first five seasons in Raleigh. It actually saved Sendek's job.

But by the end of his tenure, he had better talent — notably a first-round pick in Cedric Simmons in the post — and he never adjusted.

Once in Tempe, and with a fresh start on all levels after a disappointing 2005-06 season in Raleigh, Sendek implemented a 2-3 zone defense. He also ditched the methodical offense in favor of the flex cuts, like those favored by Maryland.

After one losing season at ASU, Sendek added top recruit James Harden, who'll likely be a lottery pick in the next draft. Instead of cramming Harden into an offensive system, he tailored the offense for Harden.

The zone defense and the flexible offense are all good moves by Sendek, who no one disputes is a good coach. They have paid off for a program that had previously made three NCAA Tournament trips since 1981 and was best known for a point-shaver named Hedake (appropriately pronounced "headache").

Harden (eight points) wasn't great Friday but Sendek found another way to win, another sign of good coaching.

Syracuse, and its famous 2-3 zone, is next for Sendek. As good as Sendek has been in the first round, he's 1-5 in the second with at least one infamous missed step — against Vanderbilt in 2004. That record is also telling about Sendek's inability to adjust, either within a game or a weekend.

Two things are certain:

1) Sendek will need more from Harden to beat the Orange and improve to 2-5;

2) If ASU does win, it won't be the final words written about Sendek on this blog.

With one more win each, ASU will be in the same regional as UNC. If that happens, then we can talk about who was mistreated and how it all ended. -- J.P. Giglio

Texas center gets lesson in Duke-Carolina rivalry

Texas center Dexter Pittman got a first-hand lesson in ACC fandom after the Longhorns beat Minnesota on Thursday, setting up tomorrow's second-round matchup with Duke.

"I kind of find it funny," Pittman said. "We were walking back to our locker room after the game and all the North Carolina fans were telling us, 'Give it to the Blue Devils.' I thought (Texas) A&M fans were worse, but they're worse here."

Carolina fans do face an interesting no-win dilemma tomorrow night. Rooting against Duke means rooting for Texas coach Rick Barnes, whose running feud and 1995 Greensboro tete-a-tete with Dean Smith made him permanent persona non grata in his home state.

"Oh they love me," Barnes said Wednesday. "Both of those fans love me." -- Luke DeCock, (Raleigh) News & Observer

Lawson a game-time decision for LSU

GREENSBORO - North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson will be a game-time decision for Saturday's second-round NCAA Tournament game with Louisiana State, coach Roy Williams said Friday afternoon.

Lawson, has missed the last three games with a jammed right big toe.

Williams said he planned to have Lawson practice some on Friday afternoon, then evaluate the toe afterward and again at 11:30 p.m. If it's decided that Lawson will play, he will start the game, Williams said, rather than starting off on the bench and risking that the toe will stiffen after warm-ups.

Although Lawson cautioned that he hadn't run on the toe yet during Friday's media availability, he sounded hopeful.

"I think I'm probably going to play Saturday," he said.

Game time is 5:45 p.m. – Ken Tysiac

Duke coach no fan of Obama's brackets

Former Duke basketball player Reggie Love is on President Obama’s staff, but he couldn't sway his bracket.

Obama picked North Carolina to win the national title in his bracket for ESPN, with Duke losing in the East Regional final.

"Somebody said we're not in President Obama’s Final Four," Krzyzewski said Wednesday. "As much as I respect what he's done, really, the economy is something he should focus on, probably more than the brackets."

Said Duke forward Kyle Singler: "I have Duke winning in mine." -- Ken Tysiac

-- UPDATE: Coach K says he was only kidding; Obama says he understands

Lawson, Williams differ on toe outlook

GREENSBORO - North Carolina coach Roy Williams said Thursday that he has no idea whether point guard Ty Lawson will play in a second-round NCAA Tournament game Saturday against Louisiana State.

Lawson has missed three straight games with a jammed right big toe.

“If he’s able to practice (Friday) and do some things in practice, I’ll probably play him,” Williams said. “But if he’s like he was (Wednesday), then I’m not going to play him.”

After watching Thursday’s 101-58 defeat of Radford from the bench, Lawson said he expects to play Saturday.

“It’s feeling better – a lot better,” he said. “I was out there running around, laying the ball up and just doing little things like that. I was actually walking on all five of my toes, so I think it will be a good possibility that I play on Saturday.” - Ken Tysiac and Robbi Pickeral

What we learned (afternoon sessions)

The NCAA Tournament tipped off shortly after noon and judging by CBS' crowd shots from Greensboro, Philadelphia and Kansas City, Mo. the fans were on an extended lunch break.

The pod system was adopted in 2002 to keep teams closer to home and sell more tickets. Mission accomplished for the UNC-Radford game in Greensboro.

But LSU-Butler, which preceded UNC's game, looked like a Carolina Hurricanes game circa the 1997-98 season. The only thing that was missing was the Black Curtain of Doom.

One of the unintended consequences of the pods has been the empty seats for the games without the anchor teams. And really, you can't blame UNC fans. What would you rather do — watch LSU-Butler or tailgate an extra hour?

That's a no-brainer and it's a no-win for the NCAA. There's no competitive alternative, unless you bring back to the John-Wooden- regional-railroad days when geography tilted 10 titles, and annual weak draws, in the Wizard of Westwood's favor.

Under the old, eight-teams-per-site days, ticket sales lagged because they couldn't break up the four-team pods to keep more teams local. With the flexibility of the pod, Greensboro can guarantee two full seatings — the UNC and Duke games — but not in between.

Too bad the fans in Kansas City decided to show up late for its opener between Memphis and Cal State-Northridge. They missed a competitive 2-15 game.

Cal finishes in the red

Where in the NCAA bylaws is Cal contractually-obligated to play a red-and-white ACC team, in a random Midwestern city, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament?

The Bears lost to Maryland 84-71 in Kansas City, Mo. on Thursday. Cal's last two trips to the NCAA Tournament both started against N.C. State in 2006 (in Dallas) and 2003 (in Oklahoma City).

I had to double-check the box score but I was able to confirm that Cal's Richard Midgley has finally exhausted his eligibility. It was Midgely's 3 that ousted State in '03 and he also played in Cal's loss to the Wolfpack in '06.

Memphis in trouble?

Sometimes power teams turn an early close call into the Final Four. Ohio State (against Xavier) did it in 2007, Florida (against Butler) in 2000 and UCLA — the ultimate example — in 1995 with Tyus Edney's beat-the-clock sprint against Missouri.

Memphis, No. 2 seed in the West and finalist in 2008, may well do that after Thursday's close-call with Cal State-Northridge but my guess is the Tigers will graduate 80 percent of their players before that happens.

The Tigers trailed Northridge 62-56 in the second half before finding a closing kick and basically a fluke in reserve guard Roburt (yes, that's how he spells it) Sallie.

Sallie scored 35 points, and hit 10 3-pointers, against the Matadors. He hadn't scored 35 points in the previous eight games combined.

Memphis had a perfect team for John Calipari in 2008, just big and athletic up-and-down the roster. But no matter the methods, dubious or otherwise, to Calipari's recruiting success, it's almost impossible to replace talent like Derrick Rose (the No. 1 overall pick in the '08 NBA Draft) and Chris Douglas-Roberts and stay at the same elite level.

Maryland might not have the ammunition to get the Tigers on Saturday but anyone who followed Barack Obama's bracket and put the Tigers in Detroit will need a bailout the first weekend of April.

- J.P. Giglio

UNC hammers Radford 101-58

GREENSBORO – Fans at the Greensboro Coliseum got exactly what they expected Thursday afternoon.

North Carolina senior Tyler Hansbrough broke the ACC scoring record. Ty Lawson, the Tar Heels’ point guard, didn’t play because of an injured right big toe.

And top-seeded North Carolina rolled to a 101-58 defeat of No. 16 seed Radford in a first-round NCAA Tournament game. The only real suspense was the method by which Hansbrough would score the points to break the ACC career scoring record of 2,769 points set in 2006 by former Duke guard J.J. Redick.

Hansbrough, who entered the game needing three points to surpass the record, passed Redick on the first of two free throws with 15 minutes, 43 seconds remaining in the first half. A 22-point effort had Hansbrough at 2,789 for his career after the game.

Although Hansbrough shot just 5-for-16 from the field, he made all 12 of his free throw attempts.

Without Lawson, North Carolina (29-4) still raced to 25 fast-break points as guard Wayne Ellington led the way with 25 points on 11-for-16 from the field.

Forward Danny Green, who was coming off a 3-for-25 effort from the field over three games in the ACC Tournament, shot 6-for-14 and finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

- Ken Tysiac

UNC 81, Radford 44

GREENSBORO – Now we know why CBS didn’t put the North Carolina-Radford game in prime time.

Aside from Tyler Hansbrough’s breaking of the ACC scoring record on the first of two free throws with 4 minutes, 17 seconds elapsed, this hasn’t been must-see TV.

Even without injured starting point guard Ty Lawson, who’s nursing an injured right big toe, top-seeded North Carolina has run out to an 81-46 lead over the No. 16 seeded Highlanders with 10:33 remaining in the second half.

Hansbrough has absorbed his typical assortment of fouls in the lane to score 18 points. The most serious blow came with 17:29 left in the game, when Joey Lynch-Flohr grabbed Hansbrough on the shoulder to prevent a fast-break basket.

As Hansbrough stumbled to the floor, referees signaled an intentional foul. Hansbrough made both free throws, then went to the bench just six seconds later.

Guard Wayne Ellington’s 23 points on 10-for-15 from the field led North Carolina.

- Ken Tysiac

UNC 81, Radford 44

GREENSBORO – Now we know why CBS didn’t put the North Carolina-Radford game in prime time.

Aside from Tyler Hansbrough’s breaking of the ACC scoring record on the first of two free throws with 4 minutes, 17 seconds elapsed, this hasn’t been must-see TV.

Even without injured starting point guard Ty Lawson, who’s nursing an injured right big toe, top-seeded North Carolina has run out to an 81-46 lead over the No. 16 seeded Highlanders with 10:33 remaining in the second half.

Hansbrough has absorbed his typical assortment of fouls in the lane to score 18 points. The most serious blow came with 17:29 left in the game, when Joey Lynch-Flohr grabbed Hansbrough on the shoulder to prevent a fast-break basket.

As Hansbrough stumbled to the floor, referees signaled an intentional foul. Hansbrough made both free throws, then went to the bench just six seconds later.

Guard Wayne Ellington’s 23 points on 10-for-15 from the field led North Carolina.

UNC 53, Radford 34 (half)

This Tyler Hansbrough free throw gave him the ACC's all-time scoring record, putting him past Duke's J.J. Redick.

GREENSBORO – Even without injured point guard Ty Lawson, North Carolina had its fast break in high gear in the first half of its NCAA Tournament opener Thursday afternoon at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The No. 1-seeded Tar Heels raced to 53 first-half points and a 53-34 halftime lead against No. 16 seed Radford. North Carolina scored 12 fast-break points even though Lawson, the speedy catalyst for its running game, missed the half with an injured right toe.

Tyler Hansbrough, who broke J.J. Redick’s ACC career scoring record on the first of two free throws with 15:43 remaining in the first half, scored 14 first-half points and made three steals.

Guard Wayne Ellington shared the team lead with 14 points. Guard Kenny Thomas’ 10 points led Radford, but the Highlanders committed 12 turnovers that led to 15 North Carolina points.

- Ken Tysiac

Lawson out, UNC up 12 early

GREENSBORO – With starting point guard Ty Lawson on the bench Thursday afternoon, North Carolina struggled for about seven minutes before moving out to a double-digit lead on Radford in a first-round NCAA Tournament game at the Greensboro Coliseum.

No. 1 seed North Carolina led just 17-14 early but used 10 points from Wayne Ellington and eight from Tyler Hansbrough to lead 34-22 with 6:46 remaining in the first half.

Radford, the No. 16 seed, has gotten eight points from guard Amir Johnson.

Hansbrough broke the ACC career scoring record on the first of two free throws with 15:43 remaining in the first half.

Duke’s J.J. Redick set the previous record from 2002 to 2006.

Lawson, who was doubtful for Thursday’s game, has an injured right big toe. He missed the entire ACC Tournament with the injury.

For Davidson, SC, the NIT is plenty intense

Everyone who assumes there is no basketball life after the NCAA selection committee says no should have been at the Davidson-South Carolina NIT opener in Columbia Wednesday night. The game was remarkably physical, and that almost carried over into the Colonial Life Arena stands, as arguments and near-fights broke out in several areas.

One female Davidson supporter, sitting near Gamecocks fans, was cursed at, and Wildcats athletic director Jim Murphy, seeing the commotion from his seat by the court, went up into the stands to help calm things down.

The thumping and banging on the floor was worthy of the NCAAs. At one point, as Davidson raced off on a fast break, Wildcats guard Brendan McKillop crashed to the floor, tangled up with South Carolina's Sam Muldrow. The officials stopped the break and brought the ball back.

Davidson coach Bob McKillop was yelling, "flop, flop, flop!" concerning Muldrow, who did appear to have dragged the younger McKillop to the floor. Coach McKillop zeroed in on one official, shouting, "I've seen it on tape after tape (while scouting SC). I don't know why the SEC puts up with his bullcrap."--Stan Olson

Heels jamming: On with the show

GREENSBORO - Tyler Hansbrough waved his arms to incite a spirited crowd that filled about two-thirds of the seats in the lower bowl at the Greensboro Coliseum.

During open practice for the NCAA Tournament on Wednesday afternoon, North Carolina’s players had been showing off their best dunks to a crowd of more than 6,000.

In the past, coach Roy Williams has referred to the open practices as a dog and pony show that are a waste of time for the teams playing in the NCAA Tournament. The sessions are so short – 40 minutes – that teams usually schedule serious practices at another site in the host city.

But for the fans – especially those who can’t afford costly tickets – open practices are a treat. And to Williams’ credit, he lets his players put on a heck of a show.

Forwards Danny Green and Ed Davis can dunk with the best of them. (Green missed a couple Wednesday, but Williams said he is practicing better after a 3-for-25 performance from the field in the ACC Tournament).

It was up to Hansbrough to close the show. He galloped left to right along the baseline for a spinning, 360-degree dunk that brought the crowd to its feet.

The NCAA Tournament doesn’t start until Thursday. After seeing the energy in the Greensboro Coliseum for practice, it’s sure to be a great show. – Ken Tysiac

Lawson unlikely to play Thursday

GREENSBORO - North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson is unlikely to play in Thursday’s NCAA Tournament opener against Radford because of his jammed right big toe, coach Roy Williams said Wednesday.

“There’s a huge, huge probability that Ty will not play,” Williams said.

Lawson, who was held out of the ACC Tournament last week because of the injury, did not do any live drills during practice on Tuesday and wasn’t scheduled for live drills Wednesday.

“I didn’t do too many five-on-five things or anything like that,” Lawson said. “I was just running up and down the court, trying to get my foot loose and things like that.”

Lawson said he has steel plates in his shoes and a gel pad on the side of his foot, but that hasn’t made him comfortable enough to play.

Williams said he doesn’t think the injury will keep Lawson out long-term in the tournament, but said he’s surprised by how long the injury has lingered already.

Citing injuries to Lawson, Marcus Ginyard, Tyler Hansbrough and Tyler Zeller, Williams said he has never had so many health problems with players in one season.

“It’s been the most frustrating year I’ve ever had in 21 years as a head coach,” Williams said.

– Ken Tysiac

For Davidson, A Lesson Learned

Not every class taught at Davidson requires a classroom.
That was the essence of coach Bob McKillop’s message to his Wildcats before they embarked on their NIT experience this week.
Having dealt with the deep disappointment of missing the NCAA tournament a year after their mesmerizing Elite Eight run, McKillop understood his team needed to shift its focus off its frustration.
“I told them this will be the greatest classroom they’ll have in their four years at Davidson,” McKillop said after the Wildcats’ Tuesday night win at South Carolina. “They had gotten worn down. We didn’t live up to the expectations and we didn’t know how to handle that.
“This experience will teach them about leadership, about adversity and about handling success. I told them they need to learn from it.”
Based on the South Carolina game, it appears the Wildcats have redirected their attention to the present rather than the past.
After attending Stephen Curry’s birthday party Friday night, the team went to a Japanese steakhouse together Saturday night, another moment that helped refocus the team.
“It wasn’t going to a restaurant that changed things,” Max Paulhus Gosselin said. “It was a change in our mindset and the way we see the games.”
-- Ron Green Jr.

Davidson to play St. Mary's in NIT

Davidson (27-7) will face St. Mary's (27-6) in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament.

The second-seeded Gaels beat Washington State 68-57 late Tuesday night in Moraga, Calif., hours after the Wildcats had upset South Carolina 70-63 in Columbia.

Davidson will travel to Moraga - which is near San Francisco - for the game. It will be played Monday at 11:30 p.m. (EST), and televised on ESPN2.

St. Mary's is led by guard Patty Mills, who scored 27 points against Washington State. Diamon Simpson added 18 and 12 rebounds.

- Stan Olson

Duke braces for boos

It happened in 2005.

It probably will happen again.

When Duke and North Carolina played first- and second-round games in the NCAA Tournament in Charlotte four years ago, the crowd was overwhelmingly in favor of the Tar Heels.

Duke’s players say they are prepared for more of the same this week in the first- and second-round NCAA games in Greensboro.

“Whether it’s people cheering or people booing, at least people will be there,” said Duke guard Jon Scheyer. “That gets us excited to play. So no matter what it is, having a full stadium, a fun crowd, that’s fine. The one thing, we’re used to being booed. So that’s not really a big deal for us.”

The unbalanced crowd is a natural product of the Duke-North Carolina rivalry. In the 1990s, the Blue Devils built a national following that equaled and might have surpassed that of their in-state rival.

But Duke’s alumni are vastly outnumbered within the state because Duke is a smaller university whose in-state enrollment is dwarfed by North Carolina’s. That means in-state “neutral” sites are likely to have a larger Tar Heel following.

“There’s so many Carolina fans around here,” said Duke center Brian Zoubek. “But I think we feed off of that. We like it. We play in environments like that all the time. And we hear that all the time.”

For much of the season, there was a lot of speculation that the Blue Devils would prefer to play in Philadelphia if the Tar Heels were going to be in Greensboro.

But on Sunday, coach Mike Krzyzewski said Duke had “earned” the right to play at the in-state location, as if it were a good thing. Despite the possibly unfriendly crowd, Zoubek explained that ease of travel to Greensboro is a plus.

Zoubek said it will be nice to get on a bus for a short drive rather than bothering with the difficulties of air travel. And guard Nolan Smith said Duke has experience turning the crowd in its favor after winning the ACC Tournament in Atlanta.

“Right now I don’t think anybody on my team is worried about the fans,” Smith said. “We’re going to have great fan support in Greensboro, and the Carolina fans, they stayed even after Carolina lost, trying to see us lose. But that didn’t matter. We played our game, and eventually I think the whole Georgia Dome was on our side.” – Ken Tysiac

Lawson's status still unclear

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina coach Roy Williams reiterated that point guard Ty Lawson needs to be able to practice today and Wednesday in order to play in Thursday’s NCAA first round game against Radford.

But even if he does, the speedy junior won’t be 100 percent.

“I don't know if I'd say the rest of the tournament, but there's no way guys he's going to be 100 pct [Thursday],’’ Williams said.

“Absolutely no way. He hasn't played basketball ... in nine days. He hasn't broken a sweat in nine days. There's no way. It just does not happen. Guys can miss two or three days, Michael Jordan can have the flu, but nobody misses that amount of time and comes back 100 percent. ... His foot is not healthy. It's a pretty easy deal. It's frustrating for us to say the least.”

Lawson jammed his right big toe on March 6th, started the Duke game on March 8, then missed both games of the ACC tournament. The junior said then that he could have played had then been NCAA tournament games, but only if the toe was numbed. Lawson said Saturday he would “definitely” be ready to play Thursday, but Williams is not so sure.

“Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I really expected it to respond quicker than it has,’’ Williams said. “And after he had played against Duke, I didn't really expect … that much swelling to happen.

"That’s what really set everything backward. I guess I've been a little surprised at the severity of it. I've just been thinking it every day, ‘it's going to get better, it's going to get better,’ but I'm probably as discouraged right now at this moment as I have been since it happened. It's not coming as quickly as we'd like for it to come.”

A UNC spokesman said there would not be an update on Lawson after today’s practice.

— Robbi Pickeral

Catching up with Stephen Curry

A few quick thoughts from Stephen Curry as Davidson prepares for its NIT opener at South Carolina tonight:

At least you guys are still playing ...

"Yeah, you can't complain about that, having more games, another opportunity to finish off our season on a good note. It's not what we wanted; we wanted to be in the (NCAA) tournament. But the NIT is not that bad. We've just got to go and take the opportunity and play well."

Did you watch the selection show?

"I watched every minute of it, from start to finish. We didn't want to get our hopes up, but just in case a miracle happened, we wanted to be there to watch it. When it was over, we weren't shocked that we didn't get in, just a little disappointed. But you have to move on."

Did you watch the show with anybody?

"We had six or seven of our teammates over at our apartment, had some chips and dip and had some fun and watched it."

Did you see yourself in the background pictures on the show?

(Smiles) "Actually, we were joking. The first segment, in the background I saw one of my celebrations from the Madison Square Garden game (versus West Virginia). I thought it was an omen that we were going to sneak in there."

What has the past week been like?

"Really confusing. Since I've been here, we haven't been in this situation before, not knowing what we were doing after our conference tournament. Just having to wait it out and see what happens, so it's been a different situation. Practice has been fun, though; really competitive, just trying to keep our flow and staying in that competitive spirit, just waiting to see what we'd do. It's been a crazy week."

Were you disappointed after the Southern Conference tournament loss?

"Yeah, we came back on Monday and had some time to think about it, what we didn't do right to win that game against Charleston. Practice has been a chance for us to forget about it and keep on playing and get ready for (South Carolina)."

What are your thoughts on the Gamecocks?

"I know (guard) Devan Downey's a great player; I played with him last summer at a couple camps, and he'll be a tough matchup. I know they're a very athletic team. It's going to be a great challenge to go down to their place and get a win."

Have you played one-on-one with Downey at camps?

"I guarded him a couple times at Chris Paul's camp, but no straight one-on-one matchups. We just had some fun."

Coach Bob McKillop called still playing now a gift ...

"A lot of teams are not playing, not having practice and can't have an opportunity to have fun again. It's not what our goal was coming into the season, but you have to be happy to play another game and try to extend the season as far as you can."

Are you looking forward to playing at South Carolina?

"I've been down there once to see a game when I was in high school. I guess it's going to be a different experience for us. I know a lot of SoCon teams have played down there this year, so we get a chance to see what's that like."

Now you have a chance to win five games and cut down the nets in New York ...

"That's our goal. We have to be able to generate a lot of excitement coming from that kind of disappointing emotion we had all week, of not knowing and seeing our chances go down to the wire when we had the selection show. We have to find a way to get excited, get some momentum and go from there. So we're excited."

Do you think people around the country are disappointed Davidson is not in the NCAA field?

"I think so; I remember the excitement that we brought last year, and maybe people were looking forward to seeing if we could make another run at it. But it didn't work out that way, so somebody else is going to have to make that story now. I'm pretty sure that something will happen."

--Stan Olson

Four coaches Virginia should consider

Dave Leitao’s ouster as Virginia’s coach on Monday caught a lot of people off guard because it doesn’t seem to make sense to pay $2.1 million to buy out a coach in such a difficult economy.

But Leitao’s departure serves as a warning to other coaches with long-term contracts who think their buyouts will save them. Athletics directors are just as eager to preserve their revenue streams as they are to cut costs.

In this case, there wasn’t much confidence that Leitao could generate excitement next season in Virginia’s gorgeous and almost-brand-new arena. Aside from guard Sylven Landesberg, Leitao’s Cavaliers were almost devoid of ACC-level talent.

Leitao’s rotation was so unpredictable that his players’ confidence seemed shattered. And let’s face it, his gruff personality didn’t win him many supporters.

So two years after being named ACC coach of the year, Leitao is being paid not to coach. Funny how these things turn out.

Here’s a list of four current Division I head coaches that Virginia should consider:

1. Jeff Capel, Oklahoma. This would be the dream candidate. The former Duke player knows the ACC well and has done a great job overcoming NCAA sanctions to make Oklahoma a top-10 team. But it might be difficult to get him. It’s a lot easier to win at Oklahoma than it is at Virginia.

2. Bob McKillop, Davidson. If McKillop were ever to leave Davidson, it would have to be for a job at a highly principled academic institution like Virginia. But again, it wouldn’t be easy to convince him to leave, even for an ACC job. Davidson is a wonderful place to coach and live.

3. Anthony Grant, Virginia Commonwealth. Former Florida assistant has Virginia Commonwealth back in the NCAA Tournament and poised for a possible upset of UCLA. He isn’t a proven head coach at the BCS conference level, but he’s a rising star like VCU predecessor Capel was a few years ago.

4. Duggar Baucom, VMI. This is a wild card choice. It is a huge leap from the Big South to the ACC. But Baucom somehow found a way to turn a law enforcement career in Charlotte into a Division I head coaching job. He runs the fastest-paced offense in the nation and coached VMI to a win at Kentucky, for goodness’ sake. Just interview him, Craig Littlepage. You will love him. - Ken Tysiac

Odds for Davidson in

According to oddsmakers Keith Glantz and Russell Culver, Davidson has a 1-in-20 chance of winning the 2009 NIT.

South Carolina's odds are slightly less, at 25-1.

Full odds, released today, are posted below.

What do you think? Do these odds sound about right to you? Post your thoughts in the comments below.

To help you out, here's a link to a bracket and pairings.

Odds to Win 2009 NIT Basketball Championship

Florida 3-1

San Diego St. 5-1

Auburn 6-1

Saint Mary's, Calif. 8-1

Notre Dame 10-1

Creighton 12-1

Kentucky 15-1

Baylor 20-1

Davidson 20-1

Georgetown 20-1

Virginia Tech 20-1

South Carolina 25-1

Miami 30-1

Providence 30-1

Penn St. 35-1

New Mexico 40-1

Rhode Island 40-1

UNLV 40-1

Kansas St. 50-1

Nebraska 50-1

Niagara 50-1

Tulsa 50-1

Washington St. 55-1

Illinois St. 60-1

Northwestern 60-1

George Mason 65-1

Duquesne 75-1

UAB 75-1

Bowling Green 100-1

Tenn.-Martin 100-1

Weber St. 100-1

Jacksonville 500-1

-- Staff reports

Lawson's status depends on practice

North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson (above) "has to practice half the practice Tuesday and all the practice Wednesday or I'm not going to play him on Thursday" when the Tar Heels face Radford in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, coach Roy Williams said on the Dan Patrick radio show Monday.

Lawson missed UNC's two ACC tournament games because of a jammed right big toe; the junior said after Saturday's loss to Florida State he "definitely" planned to play Thursday. But he hasn't practiced since he played against Duke more than a week ago; the injured toe was numbed at the time.

Williams said on the radio show that Lawson would have played in the ACC tournament if it was the Final Four, but the speedy guard still wouldn't have been 100 percent. Williams said he didn't know if Lawson would be back to 100 percent before the end of the tournament.

-- Robbi Pickeral

Deacons focusing on the positives

With his fourth-seeded Wake Forest team looking at a Friday night NCAA tournament opener against Cleveland State in Miami, Deacons coach Dino Gaudio is focusing squarely on the positives rather than his team’s flat performance against Maryland in the ACC tournament.

Gaudio gave the Deacons two days off to rest their legs and clear their minds after the ACC tournament and refused to let his team practice when they requested an organized workout after the NCAA pairings were announced Sunday evening.

The second-year Wake Forest coach said he watched Cleveland State tape until nearly midnight Sunday with his assistants. When he left, he noticed lights were on in the team’s practice gym and assumed some of the players were still there.

“We’ve done a terrific job this season,” Gaudio said on a teleconference Monday. “We were 6-1 against top-50 teams. We were 3-1 against top-10 teams. I don’t know if anybody was 6-1 against the top 50. I think it’s a confident group. They’re really excited to play.”

After reviewing the Deacons’ 75-64 loss to Maryland, Gaudio said his team was “a little tight” and had trouble shooting against Maryland’s 3-2 zone defense.

“We had good looks,” Gaudio said. “We missed 52 shots. That’s hard to do. We only had nine turnovers.”

Against Cleveland State, the Deacons will face a team making its first NCAA appearance since 1986. The Vikings won the Horizon League championship in a season in which they won at Syracuse and Butler.

“They are a hard-nosed, man-to-man defensive team,” Gaudio said. “They press at times. We saw a couple of tapes where they played some ‘junk’ defenses. We’ve seen those on Jeff (Teague) and James (Johnson)."

-- Ron Green Jr.

Tickets still available for Greensboro

Ticket books are still available for the 2009 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum. Ticket books include two sessions on Thursday, March 19 (four games) and one session on Saturday, March 21 (two games) are on sale now at www.ticketmaster.com.

The schedule:

12:20 pm – No. 8 LSU vs. No. 9 Butler

30 minutes after conclusion of LSU/Butler game – No. 1 North Carolina vs. No. 16 Radford

7:10 pm – No. 7 Texas vs. No. 10 Minnesota

30 minutes after conclusion of Texas/Minnesota – No. 2 Duke vs. No. 15 Binghamton

McKillop watches the season...and remembers

As Davidson prepares for what might be its final game of the season -- its NIT first-round game at South Carolina Tuesday night -- Wildcats coach Bob McKillop is doing his best to savor the moments of this time and of this team.

"Sometimes it goes by so quickly that you don't get a chance to soak it in and smell the roses," he said not long ago. "I've tried more recently to do that. I talked to the team about being a kid and going to Coney Island in Brooklyn. I used to love to go on the Cyclone, which is the great roller coaster ride there.

"I'd spend the whole day thinking about going on the Cyclone. And all of a sudden, I'd be on the Cyclone -- I'd spent the whole week thinking about it -- and the Cyclone ride was over.

"And I told the team, 'Fellas, I'm on a Cyclone right now and I'm not going to let this ride be over. This is a time period that I'm going to relish every second I'm with you. I'm going to enjoy every moment, because this team will never be this team again.

"At the end of this year, we are not going to be the same team; we're going to go our different ways with our three seniors leaving. This is the Cyclone for me, and it hasn't been a roller coaster ride at all. It's been one that I've really enjoyed.

"I've looked at the scenery and looked out on the Verezzano Bridge and seen the parachute jump in the background and the steeplechase, saw a couple of Nathan's hotdogs stands."

McKillop, in other words, is savoring moments that won't come again.

--Stan Olson

Davidson out; Ben-Eze has torn ligament

The news hasn't been great for Davidson lately. The Wildcats--as expected--were ignored by the NCAA tournament selection committee and now await the National Invitation Tournament's 9 p.m. selection show.

Davidson also has the results of a knee injury suffered by talented 6-foot-9 freshman Frank Ben-Eze, who was injured during last week's Southern Conference tournament. He has a torn ligament in his right knee. Ben-Eze had suffered a left knee ligament tear last May, in his high school senior year.

He is expected to fully recover by next season, when he should be a key to the Wildcats' inside game.--Stan Olson

N.C. State recruit reopens search

Lisa Leslie has confirmed that her son, Word of God Christian Academy basketball player C.J. Leslie, has withdrawn the verbal commitment he made to N.C. State as a high school freshman, while making clear that she still likes NCSU and her son is still considering playing for Wolfpack coach Sidney Lowe.

"He just wanted to expand his visits to other schools," said Lisa Leslie, who added that she and her son had decided Saturday night to open the search again.

Mitch Summerfield, Word of God's chief operating officer and son of founder Dr. Frank Summerfield, confirmed that Memphis is among the other schools that the 6-foot-9 junior would like to visit but would not specify where else he might look. Memphis and N.C. State are also on the list of Leslie's Word of God teammate, John Wall, a senior point guard who intends to turn pro after his freshman year in college.

Leslie, ranked as the No. 4 power forward nationally by the recruiting web site scout.com, "really hasn't thought that whole process through yet," Summerfield said.

"I'm in N.C. State's corner, of course," he added. "I'm pushing [N.C. State]."

Summerfield said that the chances are "still very strong" that Leslie will wind up at State. "He actually talked to Sidney Lowe directly to let him know they are still on his list," Summerfield said. "He just wants to make sure he's not hurting his chances of being ranked and all of the things that go along with his summer this year."

T.J. Jones, coach of the Lake Norman Wizards, a 16-and-under traveling team based in the Charlotte area, said Leslie would play for his team for the first time this summer.

Summerfield said Leslie basically felt he had committed too early — before he had progressed athletically and academically in the past two years. Summerfield would not specify the student's grade-point average but said it was above the minimum 2.4 that Word of God requires for athletes to be eligible to compete. -- Roger van der Horst, (Raleigh) News & Observer

Tudor's Take: Duke could go far

Duke hasn't won three games in an NCAA Tournament since 2004, but that should change during the next two weeks.

En route to a 79-69 win over Florida State for the ACC championship Sunday, the Blue Devils left the Atlanta Georgia Dome with all the markings of a national contender.

Mike Krzyzewski doesn't have a tall roster and there's little muscle. But with Nolan Smith back in the rotation and contributing important minutes, Duke again has enough depth, talent, accurate outside shooters, defensive tenacity and lineup options to reach a regional final and maybe a Final Four.

The team that shut down Boston College, Maryland and the Seminoles over the weekend was the fruition of much tinkering and patience by Krzyzewski since early February.

When the Devils lost by 27 at Clemson, by 14 in Durham to North Carolina and by six to Boston College during a four-game stretch at the outset of February, there was no reason to envision a 17th league championship for the program.

But Krzyzewski pulled strings, inserted freshman Elliot Williams into the lineup, moved Jon Scheyer to the point and put the leadership onus on Gerald Henderson. Once Smith eventually recovered from a head injury suffered in that Feb. 15 loss at Boston, the Blue Devils emerged with a tougher, more productive playing style.

Against a hot opponent and with much of Dome audience rooting for the underdog Seminoles, Duke on Sunday looked a lot like the Duke of old. -- Caulton Tudor, (Raleigh) News & Observer

ACC likely to send 7 teams to NCAA

North Carolina. Duke. Wake Forest. Florida State. Clemson. Boston College. Maryland.

That's seven -- again.

The ACC only had four teams in the NCAA Tournament last year, a year after tying a record-high with seven, but it looks like the league will get seven bids tonight.

Maryland, Miami and Virginia Tech were the league's bubble teams coming into the tournament, with Boston College possibly at risk as well.

BC trounced Virginia and gave Duke a battle Friday night, which should be enough. Virginia Tech needed to beat North Carolina but didn't, which should make the Hokies one of the last few teams out again this year. Miami needed a couple wins, but didn't get any. And if Maryland wasn't in already, the wins over N.C. State and Wake Forest should ensure it.

"It changes hour-to-hour, who's on the bubble," Maryland coach Gary Williams said. "I like what we've done in the best conference in the country, in terms of the RPI. We came in here as the No. 7 seed and didn't do anything to hurt that. Hopefully that will help us."

Not that everyone would be happy with even seven bids, anyway. If there's one constant at the ACC Tournament, it's that everyone deserves to go. Duke's Mike Krzyzewski made the league's case after Saturday's win over Maryland.

"I love the Big Ten, but I can't believe people are saying seven or eight teams (from the Big Ten) and they're not saying nine or 10 teams from our conference," Krzyzewski said. "In our conference, count how many teams have been ranked in the top 10. There are four in the top 10 at some time, and three of them have been No. 1. The Big East has that, but no other conference does.

"Maryland has played seven games against teams ranked No. 1 at some point this year. No one has played that kind of schedule. They're 20-13 and five of those 13 losses have come to the No. 1 team in the country at some point in the year. …

"Virginia Tech's record goes right up against anyone from the major conferences. It just does. This has been out best league in this decade, player-wise and team-wise. There is no easy out in this league. Georgia Tech showed that by how they played in this tournament."

The real news may be the seedings. North Carolina is a No. 1 seed; Duke could possibly grab a No. 1 seed with a big win over Florida State and the Seminoles may be in line for a No. 3 seed after Wake Forest's flameout. -- Luke DeCock, (Raleigh) News & Observer

5 things to watch in ACC final

Five things to watch in Sunday’s ACC championship game as Duke seeks its 17th title and Florida State plays in its first final:

1. Gerald Henderson’s mid-range game. During Duke’s 84-81 win on March 3, Henderson had difficulty scoring in the lane over 7-foot-1 Solomon Alabi and the rest of the Florida State’s huge front line.
Henderson ultimately won the game for the Blue Devils by making a big 3-pointer, getting fouled and scoring in transition in the closing minutes. But in this game, he will most likely need to hurt Florida State where it’s vulnerable – outside the lane but inside the 3-point arc.
And Henderson, who was 3-for-14 from the field Saturday against Maryland, hasn’t been making many of those shots lately.

2. Florida State on the boards. In the teams’ two previous meetings, both won by Duke, Florida State has been plus-9 and plus-3 in the rebounding margin.
Considering Florida State’s significant size advantage, that’s as it should be. Each time they have played the Seminoles, Duke’s players have talked about having to fight and claw for every rebound, because they understand how important it is.
The larger the rebound differential gets in Florida State’s favor, the more likely the Blue Devils are to lose.

3. Forcing Toney Douglas right. Florida State first-team All-ACC guard Toney Douglas is unlike many right handed players in that he prefers to work on the left side of the floor.
For some reason he is most dangerous when he drives on the left wing and pulls up for a jump shot there. As counterintuitive as it sounds, Duke’s best bet to control Douglas might be to force him to the right side of the floor and his strong hand.

4. Duke’s fast-break points. On March 3, Florida State outscored Duke 16-2 on the fast break.
That shouldn’t happen when you consider that the Blue Devils have a smaller, quicker team. During the Jan. 10 meeting at Florida State, Duke opened up a double-digit advantage by pushing the ball up the floor for easy baskets with point guard Nolan Smith.
Smith might be asked to reprise his earlier role after recovering from a concussion that kept him out of the game the second time these teams met.

5. Jon Scheyer’s new role. When Smith is in the game, Jon Scheyer can move over from his point guard spot to the wing and get some 3-point shooting opportunities that have eluded him recently.
That’s good news for Duke, because Scheyer has been hot recently. It might be a good idea for Florida State to keep ACC defensive player of the year Douglas glued to Scheyer instead of using him to harass Smith at the point when Smith is in the game.

- Ken Tysiac

Duke has tall order against FSU

ATLANTA – Without an overnight growth spurt, there’s no way Duke can match Florida State’s size in the ACC final Sunday at the Georgia Dome.

“You guys can do that (grow) if you want,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said, teasing point guard Jon Scheyer and forward Dave McClure. “I’d be happy, Jon, if you’re 6-10, as long as you can still handle and shoot and you don’t get a big-guy disease.”

The challenge in the 1 p.m. final today will be vastly different from what No. 3 seed Duke faced in a 67-61 semifinal defeat of Maryland on Saturday at the Georgia Dome. Maryland doesn’t start anybody taller than 6-foot-7.

Florida State has 7-foot-1 center Solomon Alabi patrolling the lane along with 6-9 forwards Uche Echefu and Chris Singleton.

Duke’s tallest starters are Kyle Singler and Lance Thomas at 6-8. Scheyer, whose 22 points led the Blue Devils (27-6) over Maryland,

“It’s a different game where you need to know when to attack and be smart, because they do have a lot of shot blockers,” Scheyer said.

- Ken Tysiac

Lawson: I'll be ready for NCAA

ATLANTA — UNC point guard Ty Lawson, who sat out his second straight game Saturday because of a jammed right big toe, said he will "definitely" be ready to play when his team opens NCAA play — likely as No. 1 seed in Greensboro on Thursday.

"It feels a lot better," said Lawson, who injured the toe seven days ago when he collided with a basket support in practice. "I've been walking in a regular shoe now, and I was shooting today on it; I wasn't really jumping on it. But it's been a lot better in the last few days."

Lawson was in uniform on the bench, again wearing a protective open- toed shoe, during UNC's 73-70 semifinal loss to Florida State in the ACC semifinals. He said it was tough not being able to contribute, "but Florida State knocked down big shots. Even if I was in there, they probably would have knocked down big shots."

After the game, he was icing his foot; when he took it out of the ice bath, his toe appeared not to be discolored or swollen.

— Robbi Pickeral

Duke-Fla. State pregame capsule

ACC TOURNAMENT FINAL

MATCHUP: No.3 seed Duke vs. No.4 seed Florida State


WHEN: 1 p.m.
WHERE: Georgia Dome, Atlanta
TV: WBTV, Ch. 3
Observation
-This will mark Duke’s second match-up in the month with the Seminoles. On March 3, the Blue Devils beat Florida State 84-81.

-Florida State has never won two games in a row in the ACC tournament, much less played for the title. “I think that we’re still hungry,’’ star guard Toney Douglas said. “We never end up being satisfied.”

Projected starters

DUKE (27-6)
F Gerald Henderson 16.8, 7.8
F Lance Thomas 5.2, 3.3
F Kyle Singler 16.8, 7.8
G Jon Scheyer 14.5, 3.7
G Elliot Williams 4.2, 2.2

FLORIDA STATE (25-8)
F Derwin Kitchen 8.3, 4.4
F Solomon Alabi 8.5, 5.7
F Uche Echefu 8.6, 5.4
G Chris Singleton 7.7, 4.8
G Toney Douglas 21.2, 4.0

— Robbi Pickeral

Hansbrough sets rebound record

ATLANTA — North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough set yet another record Saturday – this time, passing Sam Perkins as the school’s top career rebounder. But after losing 73-70 for Florida State in the ACC tournament semifinals, his entire team must rebound, too.

“There’s no tomorrow now,’’ said coach Roy Williams. “The next time you feel this way at the end of the game, you’re done."

Playing without point guard Ty Lawson, who sat out his second straight game with a jammed right big toe, the game came down to the final possession. But both Wayne Ellington (24 points, 8-for-17 shooting) and Danny Green (four points, 1-12) missed three-point attempts, sending the fourth-seeded Seminoles (25-8) to their first ACC title game. FSU will play Duke at 1 p.m. today.

The loss means the Tar Heels (28-4) get another day of rest as they await Sunday's official NCAA bracket announcement. They almost certainly have wrapped up a No. 1 seed, and are expected to open NCAA tournament play on Thursday in Greensboro.

Lawson, whose toe looked a normal size when he took it out of an ice bath after the game, said he will be ready play. And the next game should mark yet another milestone for Hansbrough, who scored 22 points against the Noles: He now needs only a three-point play to set the ACC’s all-time career scoring mark, currently held by former Duke guard J.J. Redick.

-Robbi Pickeral

Game's TV signal was out 3 minutes

ATLANTA - A problem with a High Definition close captioning decoder caused a malfunction and interruption in Raycom Sports' signal during the first half of North Carolina's 73-70 ACC semifinal loss to Florida State on Saturday.

Raycom president and CEO Ken Haines said video was lost from the feed for 3 minutes, 17 seconds. He said the problem was quickly repaired.

"It pales into comparison to last year, when we had a tornado (at the SEC Tournament in Atlanta)," Haines said.

The Dome had its own technical problem when a bank of lights went out around 3 p.m., during the second half of the semifinal. According to ACC spokesman Brian Morrison, coaches Roy Williams of North Carolina and Leonard Hamilton of Florida State said they wanted to play on despite the problem.

It wasn't long before the lights were back on, and there were plenty of other lights in the dome to prevent disruption in play.

– Ken Tysiac

5 things to watch in the ACC semifinals

Five things to watch in today’s ACC quarterfinals:


1. Nolan Smith vs. Dave Neal. On Feb. 25, Maryland forward Neal blindsided Duke guard Smith with a screen that Smith’s teammates said was legal, but nonetheless angered them.
Smith missed the next three games with a concussion before returning in Friday night’s quarterfinals. Now he gets another chance to play against Maryland and Neal in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament.
“I just hope he doesn’t set another full-court ball screen on me,” Smith said. “But I’ll see it coming this time.”

2. Tyler Hansbrough vs. Solomon Alabi. There’s a reason Hansbrough was held to eight points during North Carolina’s 80-77 win on Jan. 28 at Florida State.
Alabi, Florida State’s 7-foot-1 center, is huge. He’s not a great shot blocker, but he moves his feet well so it’s difficult to get the ball up over him.
If point guard Ty Lawson doesn’t play because of his injured toe, the Tar Heels will need to get it into the post more than ever to create shot opportunities. It won’t be easy for Hansbrough and Deon Thompson to convert those shots over Alabi and 6-foot-9 forwards Uche Echefu and Chris Singleton.

3. Maryland’s defense. A well-played 3-2 zone has helped Maryland win its first two games in the ACC Tournament and possibly earn an NCAA Tournament bid.
The zone has helped the Terrapins compensate for their lack of height by making it difficult for opponents to pass into the post. Problem is, when they used it briefly against Duke on Jan. 25, the Blue Devils made four 3-pointers in four minutes.
Does Maryland coach Gary Williams keep going with what’s working, or change his strategy based on the opponent? Here’s guessing he plays Duke mostly man to man.

4. North Carolina’s bench. The Tar Heels got valuable minutes from Tyler Zeller, Ed Davis and even Justin Watts during Friday’s quarterfinal win over Virginia Tech.
Coach Roy Williams even joked that if he were a smart coach, he would have played Zeller more after he had four points and three rebounds in four minutes. A lot of coaches wish they had that kind of bench at this time of year.

5. Weary legs. Duke’s Kyle Singler played 40 minutes on Friday.
North Carolina’s Bobby Frasor, who’s ordinarily a backup at point guard, played 37 minutes and admitted to being winded early in the game. Maryland is playing is third game in three days.
This is the time when all the wind sprints the players did last summer come in handy. This is not the time to get tired. – Ken Tysiac

Fitting end for hard-luck Hokies

ATLANTA — Poor Virginia Tech.

The Hokies' season ostensibly started in November with Xavier banking in a halfcourt prayer to beat them in Puerto Rico. Their ACC season ended Friday in Atlanta with A.D. Vassallo's 3-pointer glancing off the rim.

If their season ends in the NIT, and not the NCAA Tournament, the Hokies can thank Tyler Hansbrough and the officials (although not because of the last no-call).

Or they can rewind to other close losses to Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida State and Boston College during this season or go back to the loss in last year's tournament to UNC. (Or Sean Dockery's 3-pointer from 2005, if you want to get historical).

Either way, ends the same for Virginia Tech: another game on the wrong side of a close call.

Hansbrough scored 28 points, including four in the final 36 seconds, and led the Heels to a 79-76 win without Ty Lawson in the lineup.

His sidewinding, initiate-the-contact scoop of a shot with 36.3 seconds left was vintage Psycho T. His defensive help on J.T. Thompson with 5.2 seconds left was more out of character.

Down 77-76, VT had the ball and a chance to win, but when Malcolm Delaney left his feet, he couldn't find A.D. Vassallo, who kept pace with Hansbrough with 26 points. The ball ended up in J.T. Thompson's hands. Thompson bobbled it on the first shot attempt. On the second attempt, Hansbrough tied up Thompson for a jumpball.

There were bad calls in Friday's game, mostly by Brian Dorsey, but that no-call was not one of them.

That Virginia Tech ended up with one more free-throw attempt (11) than Hansbrough (10) was not lost on Hokies coach Seth Greenberg.

"I guess we foul and they don't," Greenberg said.

UNC finished the game with 21 attempts from the free-throw line (hitting 15), while VT finished 8 of 11. It's not like VT took a ton of 3s and the totals were skewed by shot selection.

UNC and VT each took 19 3s.

And don't confuse me here, I'm not saying UNC won because of the officials. Hansbrough was great — actually it was one of his five best games — but the selective enforcement of the contact did affect Tech.

Vassallo's second foul, about 22 feet from the basket on a touch foul defending Bobby Frasor, was questionable at best. Vassallo had to sit out the final 8:19 of the first half after that foul.

That's a long chunk of the game to go without your best player, especially on a team that's a three-man show.

Cue the "Joe hates Carolina" comments. -- J.P. Giglio

Tudor's Take: FSU a threat to Heels

In 17 previous attempts, Florida State never has won two games in a single ACC Tournament.

That drought could -- maybe should -- end Saturday if league player of the year Ty Lawson is unable to give it a go for top-seed North Carolina in the semifinals at Atlanta's Georgia Dome.

On paper and in flesh, the 4th-seeded Seminoles have the goods to take out a Carolina without Lawson (injured toe) at point guard.

Here's the checklist:

-- Toney Douglas: Other than perhaps forward Danny Green, the Heels don't have a good defensive option to use against the Seminole star guard. Bobby Frasor is too slow and Larry Drew is too small. Wayne Ellington has the size and decent speed, but his defensive intensity and consistency can be unpredictable.

-- Inside size. Although FSU usually starts three guards, no team in the league has more size and quickness on the interior. Freshmen Chris Singleton and Solomon Alabi combined to block seven shots in Friday's 64-62 second-round escape against Georgia Tech.
If Seminole coach Leonard Hamilton so desires, he could use a rotation of Alabi (7-feet-1), Ryan Reid (6-9), Xavier Gibson (6-11), Singleton (6-9) and Uche Echefu (6-9) against Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough.

Hamilton used 10 players for at least eight minutes each Friday.

-- Motivation: With Pitt, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Kansas having lost in league tournaments on Thursday, Carolina may not need another victory to lock up the overall No. 1 seed in next week's NCAA Tournament beginning.

There's definitely no reason for UNC coach Roy Williams to rush Lawson back into the lineup.
FSU, on the other hand, would improve to 25-8 with a win and move into the conversation for a No. 2 regional seed.

It's not that the Seminoles were issue-free in the win over Georgia Tech. They committed 19 turnovers and needed Douglas on the floor for too many minutes (39) in order to dodge a ringing embarrassment. Late in the game, Douglas came up limping slightly after banging knees with the Jackets' Iman Shumpert.

FSU also surrendered seven 3-pointers to Tech's Lewis Clinch, which could be a good omen for Ellington on the wings.

But the Heels struggled all the way in a 79-76 win Friday over Virginia Tech, and there's no question that FSU is a better team than the Hokies. -- Caulton Tudor, (Raleigh) News & Observer

Photos of Hansbrough jump ball call

Heels not pretty without Lawson

Ty Lawson was in uniform on the bench, his ailing right big toe encased in a protective boot, so it’s not like North Carolina would have moved very fast with him in the game clunking down the court.

But with Bobby Frasor and Larry Drew II running the offense, the Heels certainly weren’t moving much faster.

North Carolina survived to advance to Saturday’s semifinals behind Tyler Hansbrough’s 28 points and a questionable jump-ball call with five seconds to go to hold off Virginia Tech 79-76, but it wasn’t the kind of basketball that makes Carolina so dangerous. It was really only half of it.

It didn’t matter Friday that Carolina couldn’t (or wouldn’t) push the ball up the floor, but it may matter Saturday if Florida State can beat Georgia Tech this afternoon and Lawson remains out — he’s “unlikely” to play tomorrow, Carolina coach Roy Williams said.

The Heels had only five fast-break points and only once tried to run off a made basket in the first half, with Danny Green missing a quick three-pointer. Carolina generated a mere 10 points off only seven Virginia turnovers.

Frasor did have only one turnover in a career-high 37 minutes, but he admits he just can’t do what Lawson does.

“No one can fill Ty’s shoes,” Frasor said. “He’s the ACC player of the year and an all-American guard. He gets us so many points just by raw speed. I can’t duplicate that.”

The inside offense of Hansbrough, Deon Thompson and Ed Davis was good enough to carry the Heels against Virginia Tech (despite some solid defensive work by Jeff Allen and Cheick Diakite), and A.D. Vassallo’s foul trouble helped keep him off the court in the first half — good news for Carolina, considering he finished with 26 points.

“It was an ugly game, but I’m real proud of us that we were able to win ugly,” Williams said.

But it will be a different equation tomorrow if Florida State is the opponent. At one point Friday, Carolina had three tips at a Hansbrough miss before Danny Green converted. That will not happen as easily against Solomon Alabi, Chris Singleton, Uche Echefu and Ryan Reid.

With those guys, the Seminoles can bring as much height inside as any team in the conference, an attribute which gave the Heels a ton of trouble in Tallahassee, holding a foul-plagued Hansbrough to eight points. And that was with Toney Douglas harassing Lawson instead of Frasor and Drew.

Lawson bailed out the Heels that night in January with his last-second game-winner. It doesn’t look like he’ll be around to help Saturday.

-- Luke DeCock

Tar Heels point guards, past, present, future

ATLANTA — There's no doubt North Carolina will miss ACC Player of the Year Ty Lawson, who will sit out today's quarterfinal match-up with Virginia Tech.

But it could also give Tar Heel fans an opportunity to appreciate its past, and anticipate its future.

The past is senior Bobby Frasor, the oft-injured shooting guard who started his career as UNC's ballhandler. As a freshman in 2005-06, he surprised many with his steady stats (6.4 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 136 assists), and didn't give up his starting job for good until he had to sit out with a foot injury his sophomore season. Since then, he's played mostly at off-guard, becoming one of the team's best defensive stoppers when healthy. An ACL tear last year severely shortened his junior season, and he's only started two games since his freshman campaign. But while he's not as fast Lawson and has struggled with his shot this season, what he really needs to provide today is the same poise he did three years ago, when his bread and butter was finding a way to get the ball to the likes of Tyler Hansbrough, David Noel and Reyshawn Terry.

The future, meanwhile, is Larry Drew II, who will be the last point guard left on the roster once Frasor graduates and if Lawson turns pro early (as expected). The freshman has averaged 1.5 points, 9.7 minutes and doled out 61 assists, and seemed flummoxed at times in big-game situations. But there's not much better on-the-job training than the ACC tournament; and against the Hokies, his job will be to limit mistakes rather than make big plays. How he fares will gives coaches and fans a preview of what he'll need to work on this summer — and perhaps help determine if redshirt senior Marcus Ginyard, who has played four positions in the past, should concentrate on his ballhandling skills during the offseason.

Frasor will likely start — but expect both to get plenty of minutes. With the present sidelined, it will be interesting to see if a blast from the the past and foreshadow to the future can combine for a victory. Or two or three.

-- Robbi Pickeral

Tar Heels rule Lawson out for today

ATLANTA — North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson will not play against Virginia Tech today, a team spokesman said, but he has not been ruled out for the rest of the tournament should UNC advance.

The ACC Player of the Year jammed his right big toe last Friday during practice. Although he played Sunday in a victory at Duke, the toe swelled, forcing him to miss practice and hobble around on crutches.

The quarterfinal matchup against the Hokies tips off at noon; the starting lineup has not been announced, but senior Bobby Frasor will likely start in place of Lawson.

— Robbi Pickeral

Q&A: UNC radio analyst Eric Montross

ATLANTA — North Carolina may have earned a first-day bye in the ACC Tournament by virtue of earning the top seed, but the team's color analyst, Eric Montross, didn't.

The former Tar Heel big man was on the airwaves for all four games Thursday, and took a break in the middle to answer questions about his fourth straight season analying the tourney for theTar Heel Sports Network, his favorite tournament memories as a player, and his thoughts about UNC's noon match-up against No. 8 seed Virginia Tech.

Q: What's more draining in the ACC Tournament -- playing, or doing color commentary?

A: Doing this. Sitting right here on media row is tougher than being on the court ... because you can't get up and stretch. [Laughter.] It's been a lot of fun; both of them have their challenges. Now I can watch all the games; as a player, you don't get to watch all the games, but you miss the humanistic side of things. Now you sit to get here and watch all the great plays that develop, and the players that have the tournaments of their careers. You get to watch performances like [Georgia Tech's] Lewis Clinch had this afternoon, the second game. It was great fun. The first game, you could barely keep your eyes open, but now you look forward to the evening. You watch these teams all year long, and it's fun to see them all come together -- some of them playing for the third time; some of them for just a second. But it's a treat.

Q: A lot of people might not know that you cover all the games -- meaning four Thursday and four Friday. How do you prepare for that, and what is it like?

A: The fun thing I have, I'm literally watching these games, and it's easy to comment on something. There's a lot of preparation, just statistically speaking, primarily. Most of what I do is commenting what's going on currently, but you have to know a certain amount of statistical data to back up what you say. Woody [Durham, the voice of the Tar Heels] has been doing this for so long, he's such a pro at it, that I just fall in line and be careful not to fall on his shadow.

Q: How do you think you are different and better at this job than you were the first year?

A: You probably have to ask Woody that question, and I'm not sure I want to hear the answer. It's like anything, there are nuances when you're starting something new in your career, a new project, and the longer you work on it, the better and more fluid you are in your commentary. One of the things that's hardest for me is fitting comments into a small window, and knowing that people listening on the radio -- sure, some turn down the sound and listen to us, but the majority of them don't have a picture to associate with what we're saying, so they've got to hear play-by-play. If I tell them something from an analyst standpoint, I've got to do it efficiently and paint the picture well enough that I can get in and out in four or five seconds. That's something I'm not always good at, but I have fun trying.

Q: In your four years of doing this, do you have a comment you regretted, and/or a comment you wish you would have made?

A: No, I pretty much speak my mind. My only regret would be if I thought I was overly partisan. My goal, and it may be hard for a Wolfpack fan or a Wake Forest an to believe, but my goal is if someone turns on the radio, that they not know I'm a Tar Heel broadcaster. Because I think that's what the majority of the listeners want to hear. It's nice to be able to fall over into the light blue category whenever I want to, and get away with it -- fine, that's who we're supposed to be positive for. I love the game, so I feel like if you don't call the game as you see it, then you're doing the game a disservice.

Q: What was your favorite ACC Tournament moment as a player?

A: The snowstorm in Charlotte and the lights going out [in 1993], at least that's the one so many people talk about. I think, certainly our victory over Duke my freshman or sophomore year, when we won by 22 points or something like that, that was the beginning of me really living the Duke-Carolina rivalry. And it was in Charlotte, and it was great fun. ... It's a great rivalry-filled tournament, so the ones you remember, at least for me, are beating your biggest rivals.

Q: You're thoughts on UNC's first game here, against Virginia Tech?

A: Certainly, being up in Blacksburg just a week and a half ago, we're all aware of what they can do. And certainly, [A.D.] Vassallo has a lot of history across the ACC; he's a great player. He didn't shoot lights-out today, and ... [Malcolm] Delaney, he hit what, 1 of 10 from the field? My guess is that he'll get right back to his average of 40 percent tomorrow -- go on a run, hit 6 for 10, or something like that. Jeff Allen is another guy who really impresses me for Virginia Tech; he's got a lot of tricky moves, he's got pretty good awareness on the court, makes a lot of plays that you've got to be on your toes for. So they've got three really legitimate threats, and anyone else they bring in the mix is a bonus. So maybe they don't have the number of guys who can score a big number of points, but they've got a very capable team.

It's time to get down to business

Now we can start.

Thursday at the ACC Tournament was nice in a chicken salad kind of way. Not too heavy.

Nothing to get all excited about. Nothing memorable.

Today is about steak and potatoes. And throw in a wedge of lettuce covered with really chunky blue cheese dressing.

The tournament’s first day didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. N.C. State’s 16-14 record fits like a leotard and Clemson has mastered the art of turning ACC tournament weekend into a one-day trip.

Today, the Tar Heels arrive. And Duke. And Wake Forest.

And the buzz.

It won’t be screaming loud in the Georgia Dome. Unless Duke or the Tar Heels are about to lose, tournament crowds are more reserved than on-campus crowds. But there’s a feeling to the tournament that separates it.

One nice thing about this tournament – there’s plenty of room to spread out. The league wanted to sell 36,000 tickets and came up about 9,000 short, the economy being what it is.

That means in the same basketball season, Clemson beat Duke by 27 points and tournament tickets went on public sale. Don’t you wish you bet that exacta?

There’s intrigue today.

How will North Carolina play without Ty Lawson, who I’m guessing won’t get out of street shoes this weekend.

Is Florida State better than most of us realize?

Can Wake Forest live up to the undercurrent of sentiment that this tournament is set up for the Deacons to win?

Then there’s Duke. The Blue Devils are almost under the radar, if such a thing is possible.

It’s Friday, the 13th. Our lucky day.