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Ty and Tyler Steal the Show

Posted on March 22, 2007March 23, 2007 by Staff

By Frank Heath
Sports Columnist

If it’s mid-March and people around Carrboro aren’t thinking about basketball, something is wrong. But folks around this sleepy mill town are thinking about hoops, which can mean but one thing — the UNC men’s basketball team is still in the NCAA Tournament, so all is right.

This truth comes courtesy of what I’ve taken to referring to as the “Ty and Tyler Show,” named for Carolina’s sizzling inside-outside duo of Tywon Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough.

Ty Lawson is the freshman point guard who gradually, as the season has progressed, has wrestled control of this UNC basketball team’s personality — albeit at times by fits and starts. A six-foot jet who can get up and down the court faster than practically any player we’ve seen (well, outside of Raymond Felton or Kenny Smith), Lawson possesses the infrequently encountered combination of being able to play the game at breakneck pace and still remain under control.

When the ball is in Ty’s hands, it’s unlikely an opponent is going to get to it before something good happens for the Tar Heels. In Saturday’s NCAA second-round win over Michigan State, Lawson was relentless in bringing the game straight at the Spartans’ nails-tough defense all game long, and still had but one turnover against eight assists.

Ty not only ran his Carolina team like a wizard and tirelessly dogged Michigan State main scorer Drew Neitzel defensively across a nearly endless mountain range of bruising screens, he also delivered something that can be even more precious coming from a point guard: points, and clutch points at that.

On Saturday, when Carolina was in need of a dagger late in the game following Marcus Ginyard’s nifty theft from Neitzel, Lawson delivered it in the nicely wrapped form of a long-range 3-point basket off a pass from fellow freshman extraordinaire Brandan Wright.

(Speaking of whom … please don’t even get me started on that fellow’s skills. Brandan had been having a tough game against MSU, getting bounced around a good bit by the Spartan’s post players — whose on-court style could best be described as “football mentality” — but he maintained focus well enough to make a couple of huge plays, including a skyscraper blocked shot that helped turn the momentum when things were still tight at the end.)

Lawson’s three put the Tar Heels ahead by six and lit the fire of the final push that delivered UNC a Sweet 16 date for this Friday night. Ty also calmly dropped in some important free throws to keep MSU at arm’s length as time began to run thin on the Spartans.

Now for Part II — and certainly not the lesser part — of Carolina’s Ty & Tyler tag-team: Tyler Hansbrough. It’s difficult not to love the Tyler Hansbrough one sees on a basketball court. If the ball’s loose on the floor amidst a tangle of knees and elbows, Tyler H. is the one most likely to get hold of it, regardless of any perceived peril to life or limb. If there are four defenders between this guy and the basket, leave it to Tyler H. to detect the optimal path to points for the Tar Heels — and then will it to happen.

As was demonstrated in the bloody finish to Carolina’s regular season finale against Duke, there is seemingly no sacrifice too large for this sophomore from Missouri to make in the name of the Carolina Blue. Hansbrough, in averaging over 18 points per game during his two seasons at UNC, has reached the 1,000-career-points plateau faster than any other Tar Heel who’s played as a freshman. That list would include guys like Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Antawn Jamison, Phil Ford, Joseph Forte, J.R. Reid, Brad Daugherty … you get the picture.

Tyler’s 33-point, nine-rebound monster game in the win over Michigan State — while playing with a nose broken by a Blue Devil five games previous — has elevated him from being a simple ho-hum garden-variety All-American, national-player-of-the-year candidate into the vicinity of the more rarified-air territory of folk hero, Jordan/“The Shot”-type legend.

As with the Jordans, the Fords, the Feltons, the Charles Scotts, it’s a treat just to watch the effort that Hansbrough brings each moment he’s on the court and the joy he takes in playing the game. Tyler’s place in the same conversation with these other UNC basketball gods is already all but solidified; his No. 50 jersey will be hanging high one day in Blue Heaven. Any talk of something more than that would of course have to wait until at least, say, the first week of April 2009.

The best thing about this Ty and Tyler show, though, is that it’s not just about two guys, but about a team chock full of talented players —Wright, for instance, will probably be among the first four names called in this year’s NBA draft — who all seem to be finally coming together around the twin axes of Tyler and Ty to play their best as a team here at the end of a long season.

It’s been a season already filled with challenges, some of them unexpected, and there remains much work to be done before this North Carolina basketball team can lay claim to fulfilling its destiny. But from Carrburritos on the Eastern edge of town, all the way down Main Street to the Carrboro Plaza ABC Store in the west, folks will salute these Tar Heels as they battle for the privilege to remain in the “conversation” for longer than just another week or two.

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