University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heel Rundown: March 25
March 25, 2014 | General
Basketball
One last detail from Sunday night: the video from the team's return to Chapel Hill, with full comments from Roy Williams and Marcus Paige, is very impressive:
This being 2014, the big news of Monday came not by a press release or a story, but by Twitter. First, Paige tweeted this:
Time to move on and focus on improving this offseason. Next year has a chance to be special!
— Marcus Paige (@marcuspaige5) March 25, 2014
Which led to a response from incoming freshman Theo Pinson, which led to this from Paige:
@tpinsonn I never even thought of leaving, we got work to do fam
— Marcus Paige (@marcuspaige5) March 25, 2014
Needless to say, that's very good news. By the way, if you're wondering how Paige turned out the way he did, check this tweet from his mother in the wake of Sunday night's difficult loss:
This to shall pass & in the scheme of things the most important realization is that a game never defines you, your character does! #5proud
— SGPaige (@SGPaige24) March 24, 2014
Mike DeCourcy has some very good points about how the NCAA seeds the tournament. Apparently some matchups are made for television--who could have guessed?...
Tar Heels in the NBA
Ed Davis got a rare opportunity for Memphis and responded with 12 points and seven rebounds...25 points and seven assists for Ty Lawson...11 points and seven rebounds for Marvin Williams...10 points and seven rebounds for John Henson.
Football
Ryan Switzer is trying to become more than just a special teams threat...
Olympic sports
Baseball closer Chris McCue underwent a procedure to treat a blood clot and is sidelined indefinitely...Haley Watts qualified for the NCAA all-around championships in gymnastics...
Today's games
Women's tennis hosts Northwestern at 3:30...Men's golf is in Awendaw, S.C. at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Invitational...Women's basketball faces Michigan State today at 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
Today in Tar Heel history
March 25, 1995: In one of the most satisfying Tar Heel NCAA tournament wins in history, Carolina went into SEC-friendly Birmingham and throttled Kentucky, 74-61, in the Southeast Regional final. This is the famous game when Rick Pitino's Wildcat team had already planned their postgame victory celebration, but were undone by Dean Smith out-gameplanning Pitino and allowing the Wildcats to shoot themselves out of the game (28 percent from the field and a miserable 19.4% on 36--yes, 36--three-point attempts) by bombing away from the perimeter.
The Tar Heels were paced by 18 points from Jerry Stackhouse. Oh, and this happened involving Rasheed Wallace:
Which led to a tremendous quote from Wallace: "I'm allowed that first step," he said after the game. "That's my offensive space. It just so happened his face was there."
Long read
The NCAA provides charter planes for travel by participating NCAA tournament teams and it doesn't always go smoothly. It's interesting to see so many of these teams that want to go home the day after the game. Carolina always goes home immediately after the game. In fact, they had the opposite problem from the one described in this story, and had to sit around and wait a couple hours after the Iowa State game for the plane to arrive and pick them up in San Antonio.
