UNC Basketball Update News and game summaries from a life-long North Carolina Basketball fan(atic)

UNC 89, NC State 80   NC State showed a lot of heart and determination but it wasn't enough to hold off the deeper and more talented Carolina team. This is UNC's first ACC Championship since 1998. This should help make the case for UNC getting a #1 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tourney. State's Brandon Costner set an ACC record with 90 points in the ACC tourney including 28 against UNC. The red-shirt freshman was a monster and will be a handful next year. We also had a couple of freshmen that played extremely well. Brandan Wright scored 16 points on 7-11 shooting, Wayne Ellington had 16 on 6-8 shooting including 2-3 from beyond the arc. Ty Lawson did a great job leading the team and closed the game with a dunk! I believe that is his first dunk of the year :-) and it really got the bench going. As far as the upper class, Hansbrough had some trouble scoring from the low post, but that was partially because he got hacked so many times. He was 11-11 from the free throw line. Reyshawn Terry had an outstanding second half and nailed several critical shots down the stretch (he scored 8 straight at one point). That's the kind of senior leadership we've been needing out of him. A big difference in this game was free throws. We shot a remarkable 23-24! That is our best performance from the charity stripe in a long time. Bring on the NCAA Tourney! Second half notes: 0.56. 82-75. State missed the shot, Lawson got the rebound and was fouled. He made both! 1:14. 80-75. Ellington fouled and makes both! 1:28. 78-75. Wright has missed two from close range. We have the ball, it is ours to lose. 3:03. 78-75. To be honest, I don't think things look good for us. We look out of sorts. We just missed 2 point blank layups. 3:15. 78-74. F*ckin refs missed a charge against Costner and call it on Hansbrough (his 4th). 3:24. 78-72. Terry with a 3!! 4:25. 75-69. Terry has made a couple of clutch shots. 6:00. 68-65. This is starting to make me sick. State has climbed all the way back. 7:18. 66-58. We are letting State hang around. We don't want to go down to the wire with this team. They have the cinderella karma. 11:37. 56-48. State has scored 8 straight. 11:54. 56-47. Hansbrough picks up his 3rd foul. The paced has slowed down a lot. We need to pick it up again. 17:23. 50-36. Lawson with two straight buckets and State calls a timeout. 18:06. 46-34. We look pretty good to open the half. Hansbrough misses a shot but gets his 4th steal of the game. Posted by Robbie Allen @ 3/11/2007 03:09:00 PM Comments: Ty Lawson did a great job leading the team and closed the game with a dunk! I believe that is his first dunk of the year :-) and it really got the bench going. Typical classless Carolina move - showboating in an uncontested situation when the game is already over. Typical classless Carolina fan celebrating such trash behavior. It had been a great game up to that point and I would have otherwise commended Carolina on their performance. If only more players on that team were like Terry (quiet, lets his performance speak for itself) and less like the mouthy showboaters like Lawson and Hansbrough, people wouldn't hate the Tar Heels so much. Hansbrough ended up with a broken schnozz because of that unsportsmanlike, sore-winner approach. Winning well is even more important than losing well. # posted by  Anonymous : 6:07 PM   Dookies need to get use to losing... you and your goon can whine all the way home. # posted by  joe : 7:08 PM   Other ACC schools need to take note of the assignment of ACC officials (refs) to UNC games. The ACC has enough officials to avoid assigning the same refs to officiate consecutive games at one school. Officials Hess, Luckie, and Jones were assigned to the 3/4/07 UNC - Duke game (Jones called the intentional foul; although, not an intentional foul with excessive contact); Luckie seconded that call; Hess subsequently enhanced the call as a flagrant personal foul, assigning a one game suspension (the call was Luckie’s responsibility to make). These three officials were then assigned as follows for the ACC Tournament in FL: - Jones worked both the FS game and was the lead official the next day for the BC game (i.e. Jones worked the Duke, FS, and BC games consecutively) ??? - Luckie worked the UNC-BC game with Jones; he also worked the NCST-VA game (VA tied with UNC for regular season championship) ??? - Hess was the lead official for the championship game with NCST ??? Officiating assignments in the ACC have been suspect for a long time. This is old hat in the ACC, going back to SC’s Frank McGuire; SC is the only school that finally gave up and left the ACC after winning the ACC Tournament in 1971. (McGuire was the coach of UNC’s 1957 NCAA basketball championship team – he understood ACC officiating). The following excerpts from Adam Powell’s 2004 article are informative: “ACC Fans Crave More Consistent Officiating” ( or You can’t change the stripes on a zebra) By Adam Powell - ACCSports.com - February 25, 2004 - officials throughout the ACC have been called out in their own right, based on inconsistencies between crews and the manner in which they are scheduled for games. … the cries of foul on the part of ACC basketball fans seem to be more vocal and shared … - ACC … scheduling practices, at least in the case of certain officials, deserves a closer look. - officials who work multiple games with one or two schools will gain familiarity with those schools' players and coaches, along with their particular styles of play. - Officials should be no more knowledgeable about one particular team in the league than any other, but when one referee works a disproportionate amount of games played by one school, he could be more likely to officiate into that team's style because of his enhanced familiarity with their system … - This familiarity also gives coaches a psychological advantage, as they become more aware of what buttons to push on the official than a coach who has not been around that particular referee … - they (refs) shouldn't work as many as four road games played by any single (UNC) conference member … - The ACC also needs to do a better job of rotating the crews, so that every school in the conference is getting an arbiter who has no more knowledge about any one team than another. # posted by  Anonymous : 7:51 PM   Re: Hansbrough ended up with a broken schnozz because of that unsportsmanlike, sore-winner approach When the heck has Hansbrough ever shown unsportsmanlike behavior? What is classlass is to blame Hansbrough for his "broken schnozz". Yeah. # posted by  Robbie Allen : 9:28 PM   I get tired of this stuff. It was a well officiated game. Ty Lawson made a joyful dunk. It was 2 points. Get over it. I am getting tired of this refrain from the Wake, Duke and State teams. You play your game and let's us decide how we play ours. When you are playing 12 guys, you tell us how hard it is to find minutes for everybody. People pay money to see 20 minutes a half; quit griping and saying that less should be played. One thing we aren't worried about is making State and Duke mad. It's not like you could hate us any more than you already do. # posted by  Tire : 10:37 PM   Re: "When the heck has Hansbrough ever shown unsportsmanlike behavior? What is classlass is to blame Hansbrough for his "broken schnozz". Yeah." Answer: When he took a closed fist swing at an opponent and received a technical foul 2/3/7 at NCST(this was a "combative confrontation" - "fighting" - and per NCAA Rules he should have received a flagrant personal foul, ejection, and suspension for the next game which was on 2/7/7/with Duke). His dad is quoted as saying that Tyler is "... a 6-9, 245-pound kid who could really shove people around." # posted by  Anonymous : 4:43 PM   He never took a "closed fist swing". I watched the replay and it was clear he wasn't trying to hit anyone with a closed fist. If he intended to do that, someone would have gotten hurt. Kind of like in the Henderson situation (where there was intent). Your quote from Tyler's dad adds nothing to this. It is a true statement. Any 6'9", 245lb kid could shove people around.. # posted by  Robbie Allen : 4:49 PM   People pay money to see 20 minutes a half Duke students don't pay any money to see a game. Typical Carolina myopia. And so what you knuckledraggers want to see is guys dunking basketballs after the other people on the court have resigned themselves to the fact the contest was well-fought and is now done? Of course you like that (when Carolina's the one doing it) - that's what makes you a lowbrow Tarhole. # posted by  Anonymous : 5:43 PM   Nope. I like seeing it when you guys do it to us. I enjoy the athleticism. Why would I care one whit whether we lose by 7 or 9? How could that possibly make a difference to any rational person, unless they are a gambler. Next time you beat us, please, dunk it at the end. I will applaud it and say congratulations and it won't bother me a bit and I bet the other Carolina fans feel the same way. Unlike you State people, we are not always looking for something to gripe about. # posted by  State Whiners : 12:27 AM   Nope. I like seeing it when you guys do it to us. I enjoy the athleticism. Why would I care one whit whether we lose by 7 or 9? How could that possibly make a difference to any rational person, unless they are a gambler. Next time you beat us, please, dunk it at the end. I will applaud it and say congratulations and it won't bother me a bit and I bet the other Carolina fans feel the same way. Unlike you State people, we are not always looking for something to gripe about. # posted by  State Whiners : 12:31 AM   RE: "He never took a "closed fist swing"... it was clear he wasn't trying to hit anyone with a closed fist." It was a blantant, self evident action; no replay required. Standard UNC / ACC ref myopia - suppose he was just fanning himself? Why did the ref call a tech foul (flagrant by definition) if he made no contact and he wasn't trying to hit anyone? Strange. Even though, it was seen as a girly-man effort .... HA! His dad's comment does indicate that he is a latent bully (see NBA's Bill Lambeer for precedent). Many larger NCAA players do not carry the "psycho" persona. Tyler's a nice guy; but, in the gym he is an intentional "bully /bruiser." # posted by  Anonymous : 6:11 PM   Tyler is the fartherest thing from a bully as you'll find. You obviously don't watch him much. Pretty much every game Tyler gets mugged repeatedly (often without fouls being called) and he rarely reacts. He takes a beating with a smile. No other player in the ACC takes as much punishment and Tyler definitely does not give what he gets. Many Carolina fans wish he would start giving back more. His dad's comment has nothing to do with Tyler being a bully. Tyler is called PsychoT because of how he acts in the weight room, not on the court. I'd stop making assertions about a player you obviously know very little about. That would be like me saying that NC State has a bunch of thugs on their team that couldn't make good enough grades to get into Carolina. But I would never say that ;-) # posted by  Robbie Allen : 9:58 PM   Post a Comment << Home