Tar Heels

Tom Izzo saved a few tricks for his first matchup against his close friend and protégé. Nearly all of them came on defense. Raymar Morgan scored 8 of his 14 points during a dominating first half, and ninth-seeded Michigan State clamped down on eighth-seeded Marquette in a 61-49 win in the first round of the East Regional last night in Winston-Salem, N.C. Drew Neitzel and Marquise Gray added 12 points apiece for the Spartans (23-11),...

North Carolina's underclassmen decided they wouldn't put off their goal of playing in the NBA any longer. The school said Thursday that Harrison Barnes, John Henson, and Kendall Marshall will enter the draft, ending a two-year run in which the Tar Heels made deep NCAA Tournament runs only to fall a game short of the Final Four each time. The school didn't state whether the three planned to hire an agent in its release announcing the departures, though it appears they're in the draft to stay.

North Carolina might have lost its top seven scorers from its national championship team and entered the season unranked. The Tar Heels, however, still are capable of a big win. Led by a career-high 25 points from Reyshawn Terry, North Carolina upset No. 10 Kentucky 83-79 yesterday, giving the Tar Heels an emphatic victory on the road that ended the Wildcats' 11-game winning streak at Rupp Arena. This was a matchup of teams that rank 1-2 in NCAA Division 1 in overall wins, and North Carolina (4-1)

Exhaustion seemed to wash over the face of North Carolina coach Roy Williams. His voice kept catching, his lips quivering so much that he often had to stop mid-sentence. It's hard to lose deep in the NCAA tournament. Even harder to lose to Kansas. "There's no way to put into words the way we feel. There's no way to put into words the way I feel," Williams said finally. "It's the NCAA tournament. One team wins and one team loses. " Playing without injured point guard Kendall Marshall for the second straight game, top-seeded North Carolina was unable to contain Tyshawn...

Erlana Larkins and Cetera DeGraffenreid each scored 17 points yesterday to help second-ranked North Carolina beat No. 12 Duke, 86-73, in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship at Greensboro, N.C., giving the Tar Heels their fourth straight title while almost certainly locking up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Rashanda McCants and LaToya Pringle each added 16 points for top-seeded Carolina (30-2), which became the first school to win nine ACC tournament titles.

North Carolina knew this wouldn't be difficult, and it wasn't. The Tar Heels, the top seed in the Dallas Regional, made it look so effortless, so easy, that the other teams in the NCAA Tournament couldn't help but notice. The Tar Heels needed less than four minutes to open a 20-point lead and cruised after that behind 14 points each from Camille Little and Jessica Breland in a 95-38 first-round rout of Prairie View A&M yesterday in Pittsburgh. North Carolina (31-3) also got 13 points each from star Ivory Latta and Rashanda McCants in advancing to a second-round game tomorrow night...

Courtney Fells scored 21 points to lead North Carolina State to an 83-79 upset of No. 3 North Carolina yesterday in Raleigh, N.C., giving Sidney Lowe his first big win as the Wolfpack's coach. Ben McCauley had 17 points and Gavin Grant added 16 for N.C. State (13-8, 3-5 Atlantic Coast Conference), which led by 12 and then held off the Tar Heels' frantic comeback bid. N.C. State controlled most of the second half, three times pushing its lead into double figures. The last -- and biggest -- came when Fells's 3-pointer from the right wing made it 72-60 with just under seven minutes left.

North Carolina will get to play for another title after all. Deon Thompson had 16 points and 13 rebounds, and fourth-seeded North Carolina survived a frantic final few seconds to defeat Rhode Island, 68-67, in overtime last night and reach the NIT championship game at Madison Square Garden in New York. Will Graves added 14 points and Tyler Zeller 13 for the Tar Heels (20-16), who will try to make some bittersweet history tomorrow night against Dayton by becoming the first school to follow an NCAA title with an NIT title.

Playing on the road against the defending national champions before an energized sellout crowd, second-ranked North Carolina didn't flinch. Ivory Latta scored a season-high 32 points, and the unbeaten Tar Heels exacted a measure of revenge against No. 3 Maryland with an 84-71 victory last night in College Park, Md. The crowd of 17,950 was the largest to watch a women's basketball game in Atlantic Coast Conference history, surpassing the...

Greivis Vasquez did something no Maryland player had done since 1987, and the Terrapins pulled off an upset that was almost as remarkable. Vasquez had a career-high 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists - Maryland's first triple-double in 22 years - and the Terrapins rallied from a 16-point deficit to shock No. 3 North Carolina, 88-85, in overtime yesterday in College Park, Md., ending the Tar Heels' 10-game winning streak. "I've played big-time games at Maryland, but I put that game on the top," said Vasquez.

Kendall Marshall figures he would have been ready for the Final Four. Now that North Carolina's season is over, though, the injured point guard won't get the chance to find out. "There was no doubt in my mind that once we won this game I was going to be ready to go next weekend," Marshall said after the Tar Heels' 80-67 loss to Kansas in the Midwest Regional final Sunday. "But Kansas is going to the Final Four. " Marshall was in street clothes for the second straight game, his broken right wrist wrapped in a brace.

The last of the little guys gave North Carolina a massive scare. Harrison Barnes scored five of his 12 points in overtime and the top-seeded Tar Heels escaped a huge upset with a 73-65 victory over No. 13 seed Ohio on Friday night in the Midwest Regional semifinals. Ohio, trying to become the first team seeded 13th or worse to make the regional finals since the NCAA tournament expanded in 1985, had a chance to convert a three-point play that would have given the Bobcats the lead with 25 seconds left in regulation.

North Carolina's path to another Final Four runs right through Roy Williams' old neighborhood. Williams and his current team, the top-seeded Tar Heels, will face his old team Kansas in the Midwest Regional finals Sunday. It's been almost nine years since Williams left the Jayhawks to return "home," and whatever bad feelings there might have been about his departure have long since subsided. But it sure does make for another juicy storyline in a tournament that seems to be filled with them.

Welcome to the all-Carolina-most-of-the-time edition of Bracket Racket, your one-stop shopping for all things NCAA on tournament game days. It's been said that "God is a Tar Heel. " Discuss. CELEBRITY ALUM The opposing argument is presented by NBC "Today" show host Matt Lauer. His Ohio University Bobcats meet North Carolina in St. Louis. "I'm not very good at this, so I'm going with my heart," Lauer said. "Ummm, 57-52 Bobcats. " Not very good? Lauer didn't pick his beloved Bobcats to win even one game, let alone...

North Carolina will have to do without dazzling point guard Kendall Marshall for Friday night's Midwest Regional semifinal against Ohio. The top-seeded Tar Heels announced about 90 minutes before the game that Marshall will not play because of a broken right wrist. Freshman Stilman White, who has played a total of 136 minutes in 36 games, replaced Marshall in the starting lineup. "We are still Carolina Basketball," Marshall said on Twitter, adding the hash tag "RiseAsOne.

Doug McDermott and Creighton are comfortable playing a quick pace with plenty of shots. The Bluejays just couldn't keep up with North Carolina's fast start. The top-seeded Tar Heels hit 14 of 19 shots to open the game and build a double-digit lead in an 87-73 win in the third round of the NCAA tournament. North Carolina led by 15 in the first half and pushed it to 19 after halftime, then never let Creighton string together enough baskets to make it a game again. "That's what good teams do — they just never let us back in it," McDermott said.

Top-ranked North Carolina avoided an early-season upset. Just barely. Wayne Ellington scored 20 points and made key plays late to help the Tar Heels avoid a major scare and a subpar second half from Tyler Hansbrough as they beat Davidson, 72-68, last night in Charlotte, N.C. Trailing for much of the second half, North Carolina (1-0) closed the game strong. Ellington's free throw with 3:44 left put the Tar Heels ahead to stay. His jumper with just over a minute left made it a 3-point game.

Reserve Brittany Rountree scored 14 points to lead five players in double figures and No. 19 North Carolina routed UNC Greensboro 91-35 Wednesday night. Chay Shegog added 13 points, and Krista Gross and Danielle Butts had 12 each for the Tar Heels (3-0), who have won their first three games by an average of 52.7 points. Laura Broomfield chipped in with 11 points and 14 rebounds — her third double-double of the season. Jarae Savage scored 10 points as the Spartans fell to 0-2 under first-year coach Wendy Palmer.

North Carolina was supposed to enjoy a comfortable two-game stop in the NCAA tournament about an hour from campus, get John Henson back from a wrist injury and move on to the round of 16. Instead, the Tar Heels left Greensboro in worse shape than when they arrived now that Kendall Marshall has a broken bone in his right wrist. Marshall was hurt when he was knocked to the floor on a drive to the basket in the second half of Sunday's 87-73 win against Creighton in the third round of the Midwest Regional.