UNC forward John Henson on his wrist injury, playing status

All North Carolina junior forward John Henson could do was brace himself and hope for the best.

With about 15 minutes to play in the first half of the Tar Heels’ 85-69 victory against Maryland on Friday in the ACC tournament semifinals, Henson collided in the air with the Terrapins’ Ashton Pankey.

The collision came after Henson had secured a rebound, and he was attempting a follow shot when Pankey’s contact sent Henson tumbling. He lost his balance – and his footing – and used his left hand to break his fall. A media timeout provided Henson a brief reprieve, but he motioned to be taken out of the game after attempting a free throw.

When he left the game, he walked past the Tar Heels’ bench and straight towards their locker room. Henson later returned and played for 40 seconds before leaving the game again – this time permanently. An x-ray on his left wrist, conducted at halftime, came back negative.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Henson will play on Saturday when the Tar Heels face N.C. State in the ACC tournament semifinals at 1 p.m. at Philips Arena. Henson left the arena on Friday wearing a brace on his left wrist, and whether he plays Saturday won’t be decided until the hours or minutes before the game.

“I don’t know,” Henson said when asked whether he’d play against N.C. State. “We’ll see and, you know, we’ll know tomorrow morning probably before the game.”

Henson wanted to come back against Maryland.

“I tried to go a couple of times,” he said. “I was back here with a manager catching and passing and trying to dribble, and I just couldn’t. I don’t think I would have helped the team if I was out there.”

Henson described his wrist injury as a “sprain.” When he stepped to the free throw line in the moments after suffering the injury, he knew something was wrong as soon as he felt the ball hit his hands.

“It hurt so much to hold the ball,” he said. “And that’s when I knew I probably couldn’t go.”
And so he didn’t. The question now, of course, is whether Henson will on Saturday.

- Andrew Carter

Charlotte to pursue hosting ACC tournament

The ACC is expected to send out an RFP (request for proposal) this spring to sites interested in hosting the men's basketball tournament in the future and Charlotte plans to pursue the event.

The ACC tournament will be played in the Greensboro Coliseum in 2013 through 2015. After that, no sites have been determined.

Charlotte has not hosted the event since 2008. With approximately 20,000 seats available in Time Warner Cable Arena, the building fits the paramaters league officials want for future sites.

"The (Charlotte) building works for us size-wise in today's market," ACC commissioner John Swofford said. "The last experience in Charlotte was outstanding in every respect and the feedback we got from schools and fans was extremely positive."

Mike Crum, chief financial officer and vice president for business development with the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, said the group is already planning a proposal to the ACC.

"With the experience people had in 2008 and the additional improvements we've made to Charlotte as a travel and tourist destination, when we have the opportunity to tell our story, we'll have a great story to tell," Crum said.

Swofford said the traditional success of the tournament in Greensboro and Charlotte will likely keep the event based in North Carolina with occasional visits to other areas, perhaps Atlanta or Washington, D.C.

"My sense is the schools want to continue to bounce it out of North Carolina periodically but they understand the success of the tournament has been built largely in North Carolina," Swofford said.

-- Ron Green Jr.

Video: Update on injury to UNC's John Henson

North Carolina coach Roy Williams gives an update on Tar Heels forward John Henson's wrist injury and the chance he'll play in Saturday's ACC tournament semifinals.

Tyler Zeller receives 2012 Skip Prosser Award

ATLANTA — Tyler Zeller, the North Carolina senior forward who recently was named the ACC Player of the Year, added another honor on Friday when the ACC named him the recipient of the annual Skip Prosser Award. It’s the second consecutive season that Zeller has received the honor.

The award, named after the former Wake Forest basketball coach, is given annually to the top men’s basketball scholar-athlete in the conference. Zeller, a four-time member of the all-ACC academic team in basketball, also earned academic all-American honors in each of the past two years. He was recently named the men’s basketball academic all-American of the year by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Zeller carries a 3.62 cumulative GPA in UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He has made the dean’s list six times.

Zeller has excelled on the court, too. While leading the Tar Heels to the ACC regular-season championship, Zeller averaged 16.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game.

-Andrew Carter

VIDEO: Can Maryland beat top-seeded Tar Heels? It won't be easy, but here's how Terps could do it

ACC reporter Andrew Carter previews today's ACC quarterfinal matchup between top-seeded North Carolina and eighth-seeded Maryland, with Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun and Cinesport's Noah Coslov. The key for North Carolina: Push the pace. The key for Maryland: Rebound to slow the game.

VIDEO: N.C. State survives Boston College

J.P. Giglio talks about N.C. State's first-round win over Boston College in the ACC tournament with Cinesport's Noah Coslov, and updates the Wolfpack's NCAA tournament chances:

Referee Karl Hess is not working the ACC tournament

ATLANTA — Veteran ACC official Karl Hess will not work any games at the ACC tournament, ACC head of officials John Clougherty said Thursday.

Hess was invited to work at the tournament but declined because he did not want to be a distraction, Clougherty said. Hess is working the Big East tournament instead.

Hess' absence is not a form of punishment for the incident at the N.C. State-Florida State game on Feb. 18, Clougherty said, but the three officials who worked the first game on Thursday —Jamie Luckie, Mike Eades and Bernard Clinton— each wore a small piece of white tape on their left sneaker with the initials "KH."

Clougherty had no comment about the apparent tribute to Hess.

No referee worked more ACC games during the regular season than Hess, who officiated 19. Hess was publicly reprimanded by the league after he ejected former N.C. State players Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta in the second half of the Wolfpack's 76-62 loss to FSU at the RBC Center on Feb. 18.

Corchiani and Gugliotta "incited the crowd" with their "excessive demonstration," according to Hess, but Hess did not follow the proper protocol in having the famous former players removed from their seats behind the scorers' table.

Hess has worked the ACC championship game nine times and the Final Four three times. In February, commissioner John Swofford called him "one of the best" officials in college basketball.

--J.P. Giglio

Duke's Ryan Kelly to miss ACC tournament

DURHAM – Duke forward Ryan Kelly sprained his right foot in practice on Tuesday and will miss the ACC Tournament.

Kelly is averaging 11.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game this season. The junior will be monitored over the week and re-evaluated Monday.

The Blue Devils open the ACC tournament on Friday against the winner of the Virginia Tech-Clemson game.

-- Jack Daly

Krzyzewski: Offensive struggles affected defense vs. UNC

After Duke’s players indicated that they thought their offensive struggles in the first half against North Carolina affected their defense on Saturday, Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said Monday that he’s not sure it won’t happen again this season.

“That’s just who we are,” Krzyzewski said during the ACC teleconference. “You can tell them not to do that, but I tell ‘em to block out and they don’t always block out. It’s going to happen. It’s reoccurred through the season and hopefully during this postseason, we can eliminate that.”

The Blue Devils shot 26.5 percent in the first half on Saturday against the Tar Heels while UNC shot 52.6 percent on the other end. The discrepancy helped the Tar Heels build a 24-point halftime advantage.

While Duke is prone to defensive lapses from time to time, Krzyzewski stressed that he isn’t any less confident in his team as it prepares to open the ACC tournament on Friday night at 7 p.m. against the winner of the Virginia Tech-Clemson game.

“Who they are is they’re a bunch of human beings who are 19-22 (years old),” he said. “They’re 26-5. They’ve had a helluva year. I’m confident in who we are – I wish we were faster, I wish I had bigger wings. They’re a bunch of things you can wish for, but who we are has been very good. I mean, it’s been really good.

"More people can beat this team than some of my teams in the past. But on 31 occasions, on 26 of them, these kids have won. They’ve proven that they can win. I’m confident that they’ll have that type of attitude going forward.”

-- Jack Daly

Duke an 'empty box' in loss to UNC

DURHAM -- About five minutes after North Carolina put the finishing touches on its 88-70 win over Duke on Saturday night, the Blue Devils players made their way back onto the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Miles Plumlee addressed the remaining crowd, thanking the Duke students for their support during his career. He then said the Blue Devils would make amends for its disappointing performance against the Tar Heels by reaching the Final Four.

Such a promise required a bit of a leap of faith after Duke’s miserable effort in the first half against UNC. But if the fourth-ranked Blue Devils (26-5, 13-3) have shown nothing else this season, it’s that they have the ability to defy expectations in both directions.

“It’s like a surprise gift,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said when asked if he had a feel beforehand that Saturday's game wasn’t going to be the Blue Devils’ night.

“You open it up – for the most part, it’s been a nice surprise. I never have any idea of what is in the present. Today there was nothing. It was an empty box.”

While there were many reasons Duke was an empty box on Saturday night – UNC outrebounded the Blue Devils by 17, for one – the Blue Devils’ most obvious problem was their shooting.

After Plumlee scored on Duke’s first two possessions, the Blue Devils missed 15 straight shots, allowing UNC to build a 22-5 lead by the time the game was eight minutes old.

When Duke looked like it might wiggle its way back into the game in the second half, cutting UNC’s lead to 11 points, Seth Curry missed a wide-open look from the wing that could have brought the Blue Devils within eight.

In all, Duke hit 28.6 percent of its 3-point attempts, making only six of 21 attempts. Ryan Kelly and Austin Rivers, two Duke shooters who entered the game hitting 43 percent and 39.3 percent of their 3-pointers on the season, combined to miss 10 of their 11 attempts from beyond the arc.

“I did think we had good looks, though,” Krzyzewski said. “When you base, like we do, a lot of your offense on 3-point shooting – maybe someone will say, ‘Don’t,’ but that’s who we are, man. So that’s who we are. If we’re not hitting them, we have a much greater chance to lose.”

Krzyzewski thought the gravity of the moment may have unsettled his team. From Miles Plumlee’s senior day to the implications for the ACC regular season championship to the hoopla always associated with Duke-UNC games, there was a lot for the Blue Devils to digest.

Then Duke started missing its shots, which Curry said led to the team becoming demoralized.

“It was a horrible first half for us,” Krzyzewski said.

With the ACC and NCAA tournaments beckoning, the Blue Devils don’t have to dwell on what went wrong.

The Blue Devils seemed to be in a similar position when it lost to Miami at home in early February, and Duke responded by winning seven in a row. A similar response would serve the Blue Devils well now.

“Now, everyone is zero and zero again,” Krzyzewski said. “We got to regroup and learn from the 31 games and try to get refreshed this week to go down to Atlanta and win some more games before the ACC tournament.”

--Jack Daly