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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > March > 29
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tar Heels withstand toughest test
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Charlotte — We celebrate the winners at this time of year, the players with the nets around their necks and the trophy in their hands. But here’s a word about a noble loser. Here’s a word about a Louisville team that played about as well as it could play — “We did exactly what we needed to do to win,” Rick Pitino would say — and lost simply because the other guys were a tad better.
Especially one other guy.
Louisville had North Carolina on its Tar Heels here Saturday night. Louisville had surged from 12 points down at halftime to tie the score with a little more than 10 minutes to go, and the roaring throng in Charlotte Bobcats Arena had developed a catch in its collective throat. But over the next nine minutes one Heel would score 11 of his team’s 16 points, and surely you know his name even before you see it written.
“Tyler Hansbrough made two shots you pray they’re going to take,” Pitino said. “I was following the ball on both of them, and he couldn’t even see the basket. But that’s what an All-American does — he makes those shots … Rarely have I seen a player who plays as hard as he does.”
Then this: “I’ve never seen one, actually.”
Carolina has been the best team in this tournament, but its first three games were a case of a splendid squad running free and easy. (Aggregate margin of victory in those three games: 91 points.) What unfolded in this frantic East Regional final was something different. It was a shining example of a really good opponent posing a series of difficult questions and great team having every single answer.
Said Marcus Ginyard, the Carolina forward: “When we need to dig deeper, to play harder, to play smarter, we always do.”
Said Pitino: “They were a little bit better. But our guys hung tough in a very difficult environment.”
Yes. Not many teams could have played Carolina so well in this city. Of the 19,902 on hand, surely 18,092 came wearing powder blue. Not since March 1 — nine games ago — have the Heels played a game beyond the state border, and familiarity has bred such confidence that it seemed unthinkable they could lose here.
But then it was 59-all and the unthinkable was becoming a distinct possibility. And then Hansbrough, who finished with 28 points and 13 rebounds, seized the ball and the game and flung his team all the way to San Antonio.
He scored underneath. He hit from the perimeter. He made three free throws. He hit a long jumper with his team ahead by five inside the final three minutes. He hit a longer one 55 seconds later. Said Roy Williams, Hansbrough’s coach: “He made those shots because he’s made them hundreds of times [in practice].”
Said Hansbrough: “Marcus said something walking over here [to the news conference]: ‘It feels like we did something big, but we can do something bigger.’ “
A year ago Carolina had carried a fat lead into the waning minutes of the East Regional against Georgetown, only to lose in overtime. “That was in the back of a lot of our minds,” Hansbrough said. “The difference this year is that we handled that [opposing] run better.”
We know now that Carolina, which has scarcely been challenged over the past month, can hit back when somebody does happen to land a blow. We know now that a team with Tyler Hansbrough is a team with an asset nobody else can match. We know now that, no matter who else shows up in San Antonio, the Heels will have as much going for them as anybody.
And we wouldn’t have known all that without the contribution of a game band of Cardinals. Said Pitino, proud in defeat: “We don’t like to lose, but we’ve got to give credit to a great basketball player.”
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