UNC Tar Heels

In a game that was over, well, as soon as Team USA scored, Deon Thompson started the next stage of their overseas tour by destroying Finland 87 to 40. From what I have read on the official USA Basketball web site, and from the box score of the game, the final score might be closer than the game was...

As a Tar Heel watching Tyler Hansbrough going 13th in Thursday’s draft was a great moment (both for an ex Heel like me, the university and Hansbrough himself), even if the fans at Madison Square Garden chanted “overrated” as he made his way to the stage, I know different...

To all you Cavaliers fans that might be wondering who the heck your team took in the second round of Thursday’s NBA Draft, let me present to you Danny Green. He is a 6?6? swingman, who can light it up from beyond the three point line, can play some good defense, and (this is key) can be a fine contributor while not being acclaimed as one of the main pieces of a team...

Having watched the draft on ESPN, which I have to tell you with the exception of Jay Bilas everyone on that show did not save themselves (but that is another topic for another time), while chatting on two boards (a big thanks for hosting goes out to: A Stern Warning (Mookie) and College Hoops Net (Shawn)) and reading my Twitter I have to say that overall I am pretty happy about how things turned out for the four Tar Heels. Or should I say the five Tar Heels, as Vince Carter was traded to the vice champions Orlando Magic to bolster their roster for another shot at the title in 2009-10...

Since everyone has done it, and there are so many out there (including CHN), I am going to jump into the mix and give you my National Basketball Association mock draft. I think that everyone has the same player going first, but from there on the variations are unlimited, and maybe that is the way it should be, since this is supposed to be fun...

With the NBA Draft almost upon us (June 25th at 8:00 p.m. EST - televised by ESPN) this could be the last (or second to last) time that I do this post about what the bloggers are saying when it comes to the four players heading into the pro’s next season. To put this in perspective I found twelve mock drafts and have listed below what they said of the ex Tar Heels...

Another week and time for yet again a look at some of the mock drafts to see how they have the four Tar Heels. As you should know if you read The Fifth Corner Tyler Hansbrough has been getting some good feedback since the Chicago Pre Draft Camp. Will that hype move him up in the blogger’s eyes? Only way to find out is to check this post out...

As the NBA Draft crawls closer and closer more news about the ex Tar Heels working out are found. From what I found in this online article Wayne Ellington and Danny Green were both in Portland yesterday afternoon working out for the TrailBlazers, while in another story, Tyler Hansbrough is going to be in Charlotte to work out for the Bobcats today...

As I was doing my blog walk around today I uncovered plenty about Tyler Hansbrough and what the people from the Pre Draft Camp are saying about him. While not all was positive, the reality is a lot more was than wasn’t. A couple of days ago I took a look into what the people in the know were saying of his team mate Tywon Lawson and I was surprised to find out that much of the buzz was negative. This time I was surprised as well, but in a more positive way, since Hansbrough seems to be getting some good hype...

And once again it is time to check out what the NBA draft mocks say about the four players from Chapel Hill. As you have seen from the post I did a couple of days ago it seems that Tywon Lawson isn’t getting much love from scouts and GMs. Is this going to mean that he is also going to lose spots in the mock drafts?

Now that I’ve done the breakdown for Ty Lawson, it’s time to look at another player from Chapel Hill heading into this year’s National Basketball Association draft. This time I am going to focus on Tyler Hansbrough, the 6?9?/230 lb. power forward, who two years ago won the National Player of the Year and has been loved by Carolina like few players before...

When it was time for the Tar Heels to enter the draft a lot of the fans didn’t understand why Deon Thompson did not go and test the waters to be told what he needs to improve on so that next season he could become an NBA’er. Well, as I found out a couple of days ago (but only posting now due to RL things that has kept me away from this blog) there is a reason why the young man didn’t head to Chicago for the Pre Draft Camp and then to Group or personal workouts...

Another week and it’s once again time to check out what the many mock drafts are saying about the four young men from Chapel Hill. As usual I will check out the most recent drafts, as well as the ones that are friend with The Fifth Corner, and hopefully have in the neighborhood of fifteen drafts...

Well, now that the National Basketball Association has done it’s lottery pick show and we know how the picks are going to go this coming NBA draft I decided to get a hold of “Da Beat of N.Y.”, a good friend of this blog and ask him some questions regarding the four players from North Carolina. As we were getting ready to do the interview (we usually chit chat back and forth on YM) another good friend of this blog, The Southern Informer, also YM’ed me and so we did this as a double interview...

Since most of the pieces (aka recruits) are now in place with John Wall finally deciding his destination I thought I do my second pre season Top 25 for next year...

Now that the John Wall soap opera or saga or whatever else you want to call it let’s refocus on things to do with North Carolina. Head coach Roy Williams and his much different team will be starting their title defense on November 9th, when Carolina will face off against Alcorn State in the first round of the Coaches vs Cancer Classic...

I have decided that I’m going to do my own breakdown of each of the four players from North Carolina that are going into this year’s NBA Draft. I’m doing this because the more I roam around the internet (web boards/chats), the more I’m seeing who thinks this and that about any and all of these four players...

As I have been doing on a weekly basis for a while now here is once again what the mock drafts (15 in all this time) are saying about the four players from Chapel Hill...

I will be looking at some other point guards/combo guards to see what the mocks believe players at his position will go before him and who will go after...

Since it’s time to check up on the Fantastic Four from Chapel Hill I figured today I get as many mock drafts that I know of and that are pretty updated and got to twenty three altogether...

After having checked out Lawson and Ellington, time to see what fifteen mocks say about Tyler Hansbrough...

Yesterday we checked out fifteen mock drafts about Ty Lawson. This morning we did the same for his backcourt partner, Wayne Ellington. The junior shooting guard seem to have a bit more of a range when it comes to where he will land that Lawson did...

As of right now I have found that both Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington have hired an agent, while the two seniors from last season’s national championship team, Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green, have not...

(Plenty of links to other articles about the players and their agents)

Another week and another look at the NBA Mock Drafts, for this week we check 15 different ones. We begin with speedy junior point guard Ty Lawson, where his stock seems to be getting better and better with each passing week...

After having checked out the two juniors heading to the NBA Draft from Chapel Hill it is now time to look at the two seniors. The first one is going to be the big man in the middle, Tyler Hansbrough, who will be coming back to the Dean Dome in the fall to have his jersey placed in the rafters...

Yesterday afternoon I checked out Ty Lawson’s status against ten mock drafts. Today it’s time to do the rest of the players from North Carolina going into the National Basketball Association Draft. I am going to begin with Lawson’s partner in the back court, Wayne Ellington, the other junior of the bunch...

Once again it’s time to check and see how the four players from North Carolina are doing in the mock drafts around the internet. As I did last week I am going to check on each player individually, so that the post doesn’t get too long and boring. First off it’s speedy point guard Ty Lawson, where in this post I check with ten drafts and see his status...

What we all expected, heck, what we all knew but didn’t want to face, happened a couple of hours ago. In a news conference that final finished the wait, or in some case, agony it is now possible to say “it’s over”...

The wait is over. Today, actually to be more precise, in a couple of hours, there will be a news conference where most people are speculating that junior point guard Ty Lawson and junior shooting guard Wayne Ellington will announce that they are entering this year’s NBA draft...

Going against what my one and only source I have ever made inside of the world leader in sports told me, it is sounding more and more likely that junior guard shooting guard Wayne Ellington will forego his last year of elegibitly at Chapel Hill and jump into this year’s National Basketball Association draft...

This week I am doing the posts about where the players from North Carolina might be going a bit different. I looked into a lot more mock drafts and so to just put it all in one post would be way too big. Here is Lawson’s standing with these drafts (15 of them altogether). As you will see the dates of the mocks do chance, but none are older than eight days...

As I have promised I would do on a regular basis, I am here once again going over the NBA mock drafts to see what they are saying when it comes to Tyler Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green. In this week’s edition I checked the six most recent mock drafts (some have both rounds and a couple just have the 1st round only)...

Usually I start the recap of the games with the two teams and the scores. Not this time, not this game, today I am going to begin by saying the following: Ladies & Gentlemen let me introduce you to this season’s national champions, the North Carolina Tar Heels. You can not understand, unless you are a diehard Tar Heel as me that saying those words felt so good! Watching the UNC win against MSU felt so good! Staying through thick and thin during the season makes it all feel so much better...

After 37 games it has finally arrived, the NCAA final, with top seed North Carolina (33-4) taking on Michigan State (31-6) tonight at 9:21 p.m. EST on CBS. For the Heels, they’ve finally arrived at the game that most of the so called experts had them in at the beginning of the season but then got off their bandwagon, and now are mostly back to liking Carolina. But that doesn’t matter truly, the media and experts are paid to talk about what they believe/see, but in the game of college basketball the win/loss comes on the court, and that’s that. So, the reality of all of this is pretty simple, after close to 40 games by head coach Roy Williams and his squad they now have 40 minutes to finish this journey in a way that will cap off a great four year span...

Watching Tyler Hansbrough stand with the ball in his hands as the last seconds ticked away, I thought about how this team would be playing for it all Monday night. In a game that wasn’t perfect top seed North Carolina (33-4) took care of Villanova (30-7) by the final of 83 to 69, and once again I have to say that the final score doesn’t do much justice to the way the Tar Heels controlled the game/tempo for most of the night. Sure, for the ABC’ers and haters, there is plenty of material out there today, like the below average free throw shooting or the couple of lapses that the team had where they let ‘Nova back into the game, but for all of that, there was plenty of good as well...

Tonight's game between top seeded North Carolina (32-4) and third seed Villanova (30-7), tip off time approximately at 8:47 p.m. EST on CBS, is so much more than just fourty minutes of basketball. It's where everyone that is called an analyst or an expert believed to see UNC when the season came down to the Final Four (and talking of that, it will be Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg calling this game). It's where all of the Tar Heel fan base were hoping to see them as the Big Dance drew to an end. It's the first game (of hopefully two) where this squad will prove itself once more to the rest of the basketball world, and maybe, to themselves as well.

Blake Griffin is probably going to win the National Player of the Year, but today's game between top seed North Carolina (32-4) and second seed Oklahoma (30-6) showed us all that if you are a team you can beat any one player. That is why UNC beat OU by the final of 72 to 60, and make no mistake the score doesn't tell you how dominant the Tar Heels were, especially in the second half. The key to this game was simple, Oklahoma tried to make it a "big man versus big man" game, Carolina didn't bite and made it into a 5 vs. 5 game, and they triumphed.

Tomorrow it’s going to be top seed North Carolina (31-4), who arrived at this game by defeating #16 Radford 101-58 (Rnd 1), defeating #8 LSU 84-70 (Rnd 2), defeating #4 Gonzaga 98-77 (Sweet 16), taking on second seeded Oklahoma (29-5), which beat the following teams in order to be here: defeating #15 Morgan State 82-54 (Rnd 1), defeating #10 Michigan 73-63 (Rnd 2), defeating #3 Syracuse 84-71 (Sweet 16). The winner of this game is going to be heading to Detroit, to Ford Field, the Final Four...