Appaulused

Last night, the Duke Blue Devils played the North Carolina Tar Heels in a game that always lives up to its hype. A game where the referees let the players play, a lot of non-calls upset a lot of crazies including me. There was a breakaway - three on one - for the Heels, and Ty Lawson was coming head on with Greg Paulus and steamrolled him to a monster dunk. Paulus made a specific effort to put his hands in front of him and cement his feet into the floor and drew the non-call charge. Everyone in Durham wanted a charge called. Then to a more important part of the game, John Scheyer was obviously fouled by Tyler Hansbrough on a three pointer attempt that could have put Duke back into the game, but no such foul was called. Three free throws would have put Duke behind by three with 34 seconds left, time enough to possibly tie the game.
In another aspect, this was a great game from Speedo Guy to Dick Vitale to the outstanding defensive effort by both teams. The Duke Crazies (Crazy fans) kept putting fear into North Carolina and Speedo Guy kept forcing missed free throws for Carolina by dancing around behind the basket in nothing but a speedo. Plus Greg Paulus would keep putting hope into Coach K court, then the unbelievable Hansbrough would shut that momentum down. The game was started by the rather sad moment of silence for Eve Carson, UNC student body president who was killed on March 6. Then the game started and UNC was up 12 early, then Duke went on a 11-5 run, then Carolina went on a 13-8 run to get back up by 11 to end the first half. In the second half, Duke kept making shots and slowly but surely, they were back into the game. Then with 9:45 left in the game, Scheyer made a three to draw even. Then North Carolina would hit a series of shots, only for every shot to be matched on the other end by Duke. But then at a fateful point in the game, Scheyer broke away from the 66-66 tie with a layup with 5:47 to go. Unfortunately, those would be the last points Duke would score. It took nearly three minutes for the Heels to score, but they finally drew even with 3:04 to go with a Wayne Ellington layup. Finally, fate was sealed when a foul wasn't called on Hansbrough on a Scheyler three that would have cut Carolina's lead in half. Ginyard rebounded, and passed up-court, and a series of fantastic passing ended with a Danny Green jam to put the Heels up six with 30 ticks left to silence the Crazies for the rest of the night. This game has undoubtedly sealed a number one seed in the Big Dance for Carolina, and has officially won the regular season Atlantic Coastal Conference (ACC) championship.