You put the No. 1 seed in, you knock the No. 8 seed out

Well, I'm supposed to be court-side at the ACC tournament in Atlanta, Ga., but I'm not. So instead of bringing you anything cool, I'm just gonna regurgitate the stuff all of you have already seen. North Carolina's win wasn't pretty, but I didn't expect it to be in the team's first game without Ty Lawson. I heard an interesting fact on the radio here in Virginia. No team in NCAA history has ever lost the first game of its conference tournament and gone on to win the NCAA championship. Also, today marked the first time in ACC history that the tourney did not feature the conference player of the year.

UNC did itself some good on both of those fronts. I thought before the tournament started that the best decision for the Tar Heels was to sit Lawson. There are various theories regarding conference tournaments as necessary warm-ups to the big dance, but the way I look at it is that if you haven't figured it out in the first 30 games, then you just ain't going to. Resting Lawson gives the back-up guys a chance to get into a rhythm and Lawson an extra week of rest. In theory, I would argue that you have to consider even sitting Lawson to open the NCAA tourney if that foot is still iffy. You're not going to lose to the No. 16 seed. And if you think that you can get through Round 2, then all of the sudden he's had a whole extra week to rest, and should give the team a huge confidence boost heading down the stretch. But Roy knows (and gets paid) a heckuva lot more than I do, so I'll leave such decisions to him.

I didn't really care who won the Va. Tech/Miami match-up on Thursday, although I was disappointed to see Jack McClinton struggle the way he did. He's been a huge asset to the ACC both on the court and off, evidenced by the Skip Prosser Award he won for being a scholar athlete. I would have to think that he'll wind up in the NBA, but you wish a guy like that would get a shot to make some noise in the next round.

For now, it's Boston College entering the second half up 29-22 on Duke. The Blue Devils are the biggest flop since Vlade Divac. Not sure I'm going to give this game much more of my time...

Ty Game

Though the path was rocky at times, North Carolina capped off its ACC season with a win at home against Duke to give the Tar Heels the conference title that everyone expected would be theirs when the year began. Thirty games into the nation's third-toughest schedule, Carolina stands at 27-3 with the regular season ACC title under its belt, but the Tar Heels certainly do not stand alone in terms of favorites to win it all. That said, I think we've learned a lot about UNC this season. My sharpest recollection of the Tar Heels' title run in 2005 is the manner in which they dominated the competition in the ACC. North Carolina's 15 in-conference regular-season wins in '05 came by an average of 20.4 points per game. If you think about it, that's staggering. To put that number in perspective, this year's 13 wins came by an average of 14.5.

I still consider the Tar Heels to be the favorite to win it all, don't get me wrong. But there are far more threats posed to this year's team than the previous championship squad. That really speaks of the parity we currently find in college basketball. Regardless of what happens from here, though, today's game was one to remember, as always. A win against Duke is really the only fitting end to Tyler Hansbrough's career at the University. His speech after the game was moving, and proved that though he appears aloof on the court, there are some wheels turning inside that head of his. It was good to see him get a chance to share his feelings and a show that he understands of what he has meant to the program and what the program has meant to him.

But even though Hansbrough has been great and leads UNC in points and rebounds, it is Ty Lawson who would get my vote of ACC Player of the Year. The award is an MVP of sorts, usually reserved for the best player on the best team. So, it's a no-brainer that a Tar Heel will wind up with the hardware this year, given the team's success. But it's Lawson who proved himself to be the most valuable player on the team, if not in the country. I would have a hard time overlooking Blake Griffin of Oklahoma for the NCAA POY award, but I feel that Lawson has to receive strong consideration. Whether he wins the award or not, Lawson should have silenced any remaining critics this afternoon when he nearly netted a triple-double with a sprained toe.

Henson in town for big game

Ran into North Carolina commit John Henson today. Nice kid. Very tall. The kid's got the look of a star. I introduced myself and found him to be a genuine kid in the few minutes that we talked. I got the impression that he's pretty well-rounded and intellectual. Obviously he can ball, so it will be exciting to see how he pans out. Next to Ed Davis I had a hard time seeing the ceiling, so I can only imagine what it is going to be like for opponents to find the basket in the paint next season. Yes, losing Hansbrough is going to hurt, but rolling in another recruit like Henson has made the Tar Heel faithful very, very happy.

Lawson to have injection prior to tip-off Sunday

There have been recent rumors swirling about whether or not Ty Lawson will play tomorrow when North Carolina hosts Duke at 4 p.m. As of now, he will play. But he will receive an injection prior to game time in an effort to ease pain in his ailing right foot. He injured the foot in practice yesterday, as has widely been the report of message boards all over the place.

Say It Ain't T.O.

Lord. Can we get this guy off the news? Full disclosure here: I'm a huge Terrell Owens fan. I don't know, I just tend to pull for the misunderstood, as the phrasing often goes. That said, T.O. is in some deep do-do. The Randy Moss parallels shouldn't even exist. Randy was 30. Owens is 35 and coming off a season in which his statistics took a major hit. Sixty-five yards per game? That's good enough for 15th in the NFL. If you've ever read this blog, you know I'm a Redskins fan. ESPN's Christ Mortensen says that the 'Skins are absolutely out of the question. I guess I can understand that. But the way I see it, we've got a cast of bums as wideouts. Part of me wishes that Snyder would trade some of those chumps for some line help on either side of the ball and sign T.O. I think about it this way. Things are always great in the beginning. Owens comes in, makes his promises and minds his manners in hopes of showing up whichever team just gave up on him. Trade some of these goons, sign T.O. and draft my man Hakeem Nicks out of the University of North Carolina with your first-round pick. You'll get the most out of T.O. in the first year because he's going to be hell-bent of proving the Cowboys wrong. What better way to do so than with a rival that makes up half of one of the fiercest rivalries in all of sports?

Then, while everyone is still thinking, "Hey, this T.O. thing just might work," you dump him. Dump him before he has a chance to dump you. Then you've got help on the line, a potential playmaker with a season under his belt in which he had a chance to learn from one of the best and no chance of a headache. Hey, nothing else has worked since 1992. Why not?

Hope you brought your umbrella

I'm sure all five of my readers will be delighted to know that I showed signs of athleticism tonight. I managed to score for the first time in five games in my recreational basketball league, pouring in five 3's and adding a sweet drive to the basket for a dun ... I mean, lay-in, giving me a nice, round total of 17 points. The best part? That was all in the first half! My teammates sent me into exile in the second, leaving me a mere 0-for-2 from beyond the arc. Still, it was an infinitely better performance than my other two on the season. We've played four games, but I've missed two. One for the UNC/Duke game, and the other to visit my grandmother.

The downside is that we lost. That puts us at 4-1 on the year. It is a four-on-four league at the Cary YMCA. We have a dude that is 6-foot-11 and another that is 6-foot-9, so we generally dominate. But our two big men weren't there tonight, leaving four mortals - all standing below about 6'2" to deal with a pretty good team. We kept it close until about midway through the second half, when we all ran out of steam. Still, with four games to go in the regular season, I think we're the odds on favorite. Especially if I can continue to shoot like a white boy.

I'll keep you posted as I know you'll all be dying for updates.

LeBron vs. Michael

I never thought I'd say this about anybody:

LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan.


Now, I know you probably think I'm crazy to say that a kid who is younger than me, and has yet to log five years in his NBA career, is better than the greatest player of all time. And I know that the argument persists that LeBron isn't even the best player in the league right now. LeBron has never won a national championship, an NBA championship, never won even an MVP outright. He didn't score 81, or even 63 in the playoffs. My argument to that is simple. Who cares? Hank Aaron never hit 50 home runs in a season. But the fact that he hit more than 20 for 20 straight years is staggering. That is what LeBron is doing right now. He scored 40+ last night against the Miami Heat, giving him seven such games on the year. Combine his point totals (second-highest PPG in the league at 28.5 a game) with the fact that he averages more than seven rebounds per game, is 10th in the NBA in assists, and that he's doing all of this while playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and you've got the greatest player of all-time - already.

His team is terrible. The teams in contention in his conference and in the West all have more than one star. The Celtics have three, the Magic have a couple, the Nuggets, Spurs, Lakers ... they're all loaded. LeBron made Mo Williams an all-star. Mo Williams? Kobe would've demanded out of Cleveland a long, long time ago had the front office waited this long to make a move. Kobe complained about wanting another threat after he forced Shaq out of town. LeBron would like to have Joe Smith. That's laughable. James just needs four other competent mammals on the floor, to get within a game of two consecutive Eastern Conference titles.

Look at his bio. This guy is the youngest to do everything. He is the first athlete to rival the marketability of Jordan, to whom a comparison cannot exist in terms of marketing, since Michael is the reason all of it exists in the first place. Yes, Michael set the stage for someone else to come along and blow our minds. Well, that someone is here. And we are all witnesses.