If one needed help summing up North Carolina basketball, seek no further than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who speaks the god-honest truth.
“Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.”
Chapel Hill is Hollywood to college basketball. It’s Tobacco Road that has conjured up some of the best.
Fame is Tar Heel baby blue.
This year is no different.
There’s no Vince, no Worthy, no Jamison8212;there’s most certainly no Michael.
It doesn’t matter.
This year’s Tar Heels squad is the best team in the nation, with the best coach in the nation.
Anyone beg to differ? My partner in crime, Tony Pizza, can’t get enough of Tom Izzo lately for some reason8212;there’s the potential thought process that he might think Jim Boylen might be, in fact, Izzo reincarnate here in Salt Lake City.
He could be, but this is now, not the future.
The Heels are now and they always have been.
Poll the nation and ask who’s the best point guard in the country. Yeah, folks in upstate New York will plead for Jonny Flynn and his epic Big East Tournament.
Scottie Reynolds resurrected famed coast-to-coast endings, and A.J. Price provides the lethal injection when left open behind the arc.
Amateurs. Well, at least compared to the only game-changing player in college basketball this season.
Ty Lawson (2009 ACC Player of the Year) seems to hit 40 mph on fast breaks. The Heel’s point man has enough vision, pace and swagger to disrupt anyone.
With the obvious being Lawson’s unmatchable impact on big games, there’s America’s least favorite National Player of the Year.
The most awkward, hardworking player in the nation has more hate for him nationally than Chris Brown right now.
Tyler Hansbrough (2008 ACC Player of the Year) is the dirty guy.
He is akin to Paul Millsap or Leon Powe, but with much more fire and intensity, and he easily possesses the poutiest face in college basketball.
His moping mug has been a constant during his past four years at UNC, and he has the pristine ability to crawl underneath the skin of any opponent.
Nevermind the fact that Roy Williams, the most talented and likable coach in the nation, continually scrapes up exemplary recruits and morphs them into stars like it’s a second-rate hobby.
Williams has the talent coming out his ears.
Forget Lawson and Hansbrough.
Wayne Ellington hasn’t been stopped for the past three months. He is the most complete wing player in the country right now and is the perfect complement to the blurred speed of Lawson.
Danny Green is a 6-foot-6 wing that is one of the purest shooters in the nation and has no qualms silencing the opposing team with his knack for nailing 3-pointers from 25-plus feet out.
Deon Thompson? Ed Davis?
Two athletic towers that no one in college basketball can match. Sure, UConn’s Hasheem Thabeet is 7-foot-3-inches, but it would be similar to Yao Ming guarding Amar’e Stoudemire.
Although the Tar Heels are continually stacked with talent, it’s their experience that will trump all others.
Lawson, Green, Hansbrough and point guard Bobby Frasor are all seniors.
They also play under Williams, who knows success and potential when he sees it and strikes.
And to think the Heels are where they are now without their most explosive offensive threat, Marcus Ginyard.
It’s a broken record to pick a school and program as prestigious as UNC, but what can I say?
When it comes to college basketball, pick safely and go with the program that gave us the best player in the history of professional sports.