rdewald's Journal: NCAA Men's BB: The Tar Heels in New York City

For the sake of transparency, let me declare that I am a University of North Carolina Tar Heels Basketball fan. I became one because of Dean Smith, but Roy Williams walks with beauty with his legacy.

I attended the Final Four of the Pre-Season National Invitational Tournament at Madison Square Garden. The Tar Heels won their bracket and along with Gonzaga, Butler and Tennessee, attended the double elimination two by two. I had court-side seats. Not great ones for the semi-finals, but really good seats for the third-place and Championship games.

The Tar Heels played Gonzaga in the semi-finals. Roy made a dizzying number of substitutions. When the Heels got up 8 in the second half, Roy benched his talented forwards Frazor and Lawson and played Quentin "we love this kid's potential" Thomas. Normally dead-eye three-point shooter Wes Miller couldn't hit the broad side of a City bus.

Oustanding play from true freshmen Brandon Wright and Wayne Ellington wasn't enough to win the game. Tyler Hansbrough, who is probably the most exciting sophomore to play at UNC since Jordan, played hard but he also made some serious mistakes. It didn't help that Gonzaga had a center Godzilla named Heytvelt who essentially gave Tyler a beating here and there over 2 and a half hours. Tyler was at the line for 15 free throws.

Gonzaga was embarrassed by Butler two nights later in the championship game. They were never seriously in the game with Butler.

In the consolation game, the two ranked teams, UNC and Tennessee, were mismatched. UNC didn't play all that well, particularly in the second half, and Tyler received an intentional, flagrant, automatic ejection from the game foul while going for a transition layup/dunk. It was right in front of me. I saw the whole thing, it was vicious. Whomever the idiot from Tennessee was, he punched Tyler above the eye with the heel of one hand and took him to the floor with a half-nelson with his other hand.

He was thrown out, Tyler got two shots alone on the half-court and UNC got the ball back. I worried for a moment that this might invigorate Tennessee, who actually has a top 10 team, but it never materialized.

What did materialize was some pretty lousy play while UNC ran away with the score. That's right, UNC scored a lot of points while playing badly. Their pre-season #2 ranking is too high. This UNC team, *my* team (as a fan), isn't there yet. They are not the second best team in the country.

But, there's plenty of basketball to be played between now and March.

Butler earned that Championship. They are a mid-major, but they were hot, and they are well coached. Watch them. They'll get a number of upsets this season, if your team plays them, watch out.

Gonazaga is where Gonzaga usually is. That is, they are a mid-major school, but they have an elite basketball program. They've got game. They'll be in it again this year.

UNC plays Ohio State next Wednesday. That will be an important test. No rest for the weary.