I was never formally introduced to Jason Ray. But I met him several times. I have even probably taken pictures with him, slapped his hand and patted him on the back. In a world in which we put so much stock into which way a ball bounces, his accident and situation bring us all back down to Earth, and help us understand what's truly important in life.

Jason didn't have his last name on the back of his jersey. He entertained us all without ever showing us his face. But he was an integral part of the game day experience, and he will be missed.

I'm sorry I'm not more eloquent.

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And I coached 6 to 8 year olds. What kind of play call was that? Tie game, 24 seconds left, and we settle for a contested Ellington three? Give me a break. Why not drive Lawson and get him to the line? The most talented team we've had in a long time and we can't buy a basket for the last 12 minutes. RIDICULOUS.

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First I want to send my condolences to Roy Williams and his family with the loss of his older sister, his family is in our prayers.

With 12:33 left to play in the first half Tyler came off the bench without his mask. Some would think he would not want to play too aggressively well they're wrong he was in the paint for the first play and got a very tough offensive board and was fouled. So how did he do without the mask? Try a season best 33 points and 9 rebounds. Help came from Lawson with a quiet (if you want to call it that) 20 points 8 assists and 5 boards. Wright only had three points, but was in mostly for defense.

I read somewhere that Marcus Ginyard should have a theme song, like closer pitchers have in the MLB. My suggestion would be "Shut 'Em Down" by Onyx and DMX. That is just what Ginyard does.

Well, the pairings are out. The Heels got the second overall #1 seed and will begin the tournament in Winston-Salem against Eastern Kentucky on Thursday, with the winner of Marquette/Michigan State to face the UNC/EKU winner on Thursday.

Tough draw for the Heels, though, with both Texas and Georgetown in the East region. I had Texas as a #3 when it looked like they were going to win the Big 12 championship, but they fell just short. But you're going to have to beat the best to be the best, so you might as well knock them off early.

I've set up a bracket group on Yahoo! Sports, so come join us.

Log on to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com

ID# is 96817, password 'tylersmask'

Make your picks!

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March 12-15 1998 The Heels led mostly by Antawn Jamison,Vince Carter, Shammond Williams, and Ed Cota went into the Greensboro Coliseum to take on NC State, Maryland and Duke. Against State the Heels won: 73 to 46 then beat Maryland: 83 73, then beat down Duke: 83 68. That gave them the then ACC record of 15 titles and Jamison was the MVP of the Tourney. So much has gone down since, Carolina had up and down seasons then had a great season in 04- 05  to win it all.

With a classic battle for the ACC Tourney title it was true ACC no crazy BC vs. VT(their good teams, but these two are two of the originals) to quote my brother: "With Roy in Blue(well close to Blue) and Sidney wearing Red THIS was ACC" it was close at points it was a blowout at others, Carolina lead by as much as 16 then State cut the lead but could not keep up. With huge 8 straight points scored by Terry, showing his senior leadership as the Heels won: 89 80. Brandan Wright was named MVP of the Tourney.

Hansbrough is getting the hang of the mask. This time around he had close to a double-double with 9 points and 13 rebounds, contributions came from Wright: 20 points 5 boards, Ellington: 10 points and Lawson: 10 points. The first game it looked like Carolina was going to need to ride Wright the entire tourney, but in this game Hansbrough was INTENSE on the glass. Good thing he was still wearing the mask, because he was hit in the face.

The Heels take on State for the 3rd time after a split earlier this season. I would have liked to take on VT for a third time we need to get our revenge on them oh well there is next year. Now that it is State vs UNC we have rematch from 1997, which the Heels won.  If the Heels win, then they will have 16 ACC Tourney titles, a tie with that other school 8 miles away for the most.

So what did the mask do to Hansbrough? Affect good or bad? It was bad. With the mask on he only had 6 points, only 4 boards, no assists and fouled out. However he's just  going to have to get a hang of it. Now looking at this you would think it was ugly for Carolina, false Carolina did not trail the whole game. Great support from the freshmen: Ellington had 18 points, Lawson had 14 points and Wright put up 11 points as the Heels finished off FSU 73 58............. This year is going to be different now that Duke is done early. Miami with the huge upset over Maryland Wake beat GT in a crazy double OT game. 

The ACC tournament starts tomorrow, and it looks like a great lineup.

8 Clemson v. 9 Florida State, Noon, winner plays 1 North Carolina noon Friday
5 Maryland v. 12 Miami, 2 p.m., winner plays 4 Boston College 2 p.m. Friday
7 Duke v. 10 N.C. State, 7 p.m., winner plays 2 Virginia 7 p.m. Friday
6 Georgia Tech v. 11 Wake Forest, 9 p.m., winner plays 3 Virginia Tech 9 p.m. Friday

With the parity we've seen in the league, I wouldn't be surprised to see any combination of four teams come out of Thursday's games. And it certainly won't be a cakewalk after that either.

But I'll say: Florida State, Maryland, N.C. State and Georgia Tech win Thursday.

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Okay, we've almost reached burnout mode, but here's one last look at the foul frame-by-frame.

Props to Tar Heel Fan.

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I want to put a plug in for my new site, TurnOnSports. It's another blog, but it gives me a chance to discuss other happenings in the sports world. In other words, it's not UNC-specific. TurnOnSports is a Blogger site, so the format will look a little different.

My idea is to take one sports story a day, Sunday-Thursday, and react to it with my own words. Obviously this won't happen every week, but I'm going to give it a shot. It's only got two entries, and the first is copied from here because UNC was the national news story on Monday. But I hope to be able to keep it up.

Note that this is in addition to HeelsBlog, not instead of. So check it out and tell your friends. TurnOnSports.Com

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