North Carolina

Seniors Tyler Hansbrough, Danny Green, Bobby Frasor, and Mike Copeland closed out the regular season with a bang when The North Carolina Tarheels beat the Duke Blue Devils 79-71, for their sixth win in their college careers, and third straight regular season title.

Hansbrough put 17 points on the score board for North Carolina. He had two treys and eight rebounds before he fouled out in the last 15 seconds. Danny Green recorded a record breaking 116 victories, while adding 12 points to the score. Bobby Frasor only played for 17 minutes but added 3 points. Mike Copeland, who had been on the bench due to injury, was allowed in the game for two minutes for Senior day.

“I think it’s very important for seniors to go out on a good note, and have a good memory going on their home floor,” said Green. “… And to go out with a winning record against Duke, that’s a great feeling.”

Ty Lawson, added 13 points, 8 rebounds and nine assists, Wayne Ellington went 7 for 10 shooting, adding 16 points, and Dean Thompson scored 14, to guarantee the seniors had a positive last game. “It makes it a whole lot easier when everybody is contributing on the offensive end of the floor. It makes us a lot more effective as a team. Guys can’t just focus on one player; they have to stop on all five of us. It just makes us a much better team.”

After a slow start at 0-2, UNC has won 13 of 14, recorded their ninth season with 13 wins or more, three in the last five years, and recorded the 27th ACC regular season championship.

“I am extremely proud of our team, we started off 0-2 and a lot of people were abandoning ship and criticizing our team a great deal and I told our team at Wake Forest that it was a long year and that we had to play today but we still have chances and I think that was the important thing and since those two games I think Ty Lawson was sensational,” UNC coach Roy Williams said.

Duke didn’t make it an easy win. Coming in on a five game winning streak, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler put 24 and 23 points up for Duke, respectively. Duke led at the half 39-38 in large part to 15 points by Singler, and cut the lead to one field goal several times in the game.

But during the second half, Duke was held to only 32 percent shooting and never caught up after a three pointer by Green with 17:45 left.

“Duke is a big time basketball team; we really had trouble guarding them particularly in the first half,” Williams said. “In the second half we got a little bit better but they also missed some shots. I think we always have to understand that when they miss some shots its not just our defense and we were very fortunate then. Our work on the backboards was big for us.

Marlon Davis is a writer for LeatherBeltStore check out his North Carolina Belts – North Carolina Wallets or his Fathers Day Gifts