TOBACCO OWED

Hansbrough’s heels outwit, outplay, and outlast Dukies

As all in attendance wore baby-blue ribbons in memory of slain Chapel Hill student Eve Marie Carson, the greatest rivalry in the collegiate ranks took center stage in the sports world on Saturday as the Heels landed eight miles from home and into Cameron Indoor Stadium to finish their regular season against the Blue Devils on Senior Night. Ex-Dukies Jay Williams, Chris Duhon, and Christian Laetttner looked on, as well as Peyton and Eli Manning. Hines Ward and Deion Branch could not make it due to scheduling conflicts.

Any meeting always raises the intensity on Tobacco Road and frequently sparks crowd fist-fights, but here’s to throwing fuel on that humid fire: the Heels are ranked #1, Duke is ranked #5, the ACC regular-season title comes down to this game, and the winner can almost assuredly pencil themselves in as the top seed in the East Region (which would allow them to skateboard to their first four tournaments games this year held in Raleigh and Charlotte).

With the possible exceptions of Tyler, Ty Lawson, and DeMarcus Nelson, Saturday night’s contest was a veritable showcase of talented players who will soon be gracing NBA benches with their warm buttocks or lighting up scoreboards in eastern Europe (anyone know what Sheldon Williams and Sean May have been up to lately?).

Carolina quickly jumped out into the lead and built up a double-digit advantage in the first half, but Greg Paulus and those gigantic bags under his eyes rainbowed in triple after triple to keep the Devils within striking range. Fighting back in the latter half after a thorough verbal bombardment in the locker room from Coach K (which probably sounds funny), Duke took a 68-66 lead with just over five minutes left in the ball game. However, Duke’s small run-and-gun lineup ran out of gas and was kept off the scoreboard to the final buzzer, succumbing to the Heels, 76-68.

All-American Tyler Hansbrough finished with 16 points and 15 boards despite his night-long absence from the stripe (shocking because of all the crotch-grabbing that goes on in the low post). Duke’s lack of significant inside presence will become a major (and possibly decisive) factor in two weeks if they keep shooting 33% from the floor. Or another options is to call Elton Brand or Carlos Boozer and see if either of them has a little brother or something.

Also making headlines in amateur ball on Saturday:

• Winthrop, Austin Peay, and Belmont joined Cornell and officially punched their tickets to the NCAA after winning their respective conference tournaments. Sadly, all four failed to flip their tickets over to find “good for one first-round trouncing” written on the back.
• UCLA’s Josh Shipp plays H.O.R.S.E. with 2 seconds left against Cal by dropping in a game-winning tear-drop bucket that was shot from behind and soared over the outer edge of the backboard. There’s only one thing: that’s an illegal shot.
• With a loss to Arizona State, Oregon State became the first Pac-10 team to pull a Yuc-caneers and go winless in conference play. Safe to say their bubble has officially burst.