Basketball Pellets: Hansbrough Bleeds for the "W"

Pardon me for the quick hitter, but it's late and I'm a touch exhausted. This is the "Bullets Lite" version. And for those uncertain about the gist, it's my swing through the College Hoops scene in a quick re-cap, generally delivered once a week. All things considered, I'm now fully engaged in this season of College Hoops and you should be as well. I'll move on from there...

ACC Wednesday's are a long lasting staple of mine. And I should note, that I'm not gonna lie...I miss Dick Vitale. Never once did I imagine those words popping out of my mouth or for all practical purposes being typed. Tonight's double feature was the love and hate couple of Duke and North Carolina. Isolated of course, pitted in their own ACC road battles.

I picked up the 2nd half of the Duke game and thus, I'll be brief. For a moment I fully believed in karma taking over and somehow by my spiritual influence Duke was going to lose. Then I again, I like to trace a lot of Duke's shortcomings in any given year to the influence of my deeply religious and somewhat insane negative rooting. Have I told you lately that I hate Duke? Anyhow, that makes me just another number or statistic in the lenghty line of hate.

Long and short of my rambling point is that on this night, my powers were rendered useless. Duke trumped Florida State on the road and was never really in jeopardy of losing the game. The lone consolation prize was seeing Greg Paulus getting "inadvertently" punched in the face. However, for me that's like cheering for some other dude getting to bang a hot chick. Without getting graphic, you should get my point...I wish that was my hand that punched Paulus.

Onto the North Carolina/Georgia Tech game. The Tar Heels never seem to play well at Georgia Tech. Factual evidence proves my point, as coming into tonight's game the Heels hadn't won there since 2001. So it should come as no surprise that the Yellow Jackets played out of their asses and probably should've snuck one by a North Carolina team that didn't quite look to be on all cylinders.

For Carolina the defense is lurking it's ugly head as an issue once again and the lazy effort on the boards shouldn't go un-mentioned. However, the Tar Heels are certainly not as deep as we once imagined, which is of greater concern. Bobby Frasor is sorely missed as the back-up point guard. And for as great as Hansbrough is and can be, he can't do it alone. Tonight was another example of the rest of the team standing, kind of watching, and hoping he was going to rear back and buck down the victory.

In essence, that is exactly what Hansbrough eventually did, but it came with a price. He shoved, pushed and punched all night long and wore the battle scars on his face. At one point in the game he had to leave, because he was bleeding. In the end the rest of the crew opted to join the party, but Carolina is simply not good enough to pull off the lazy, one trick pony act. Of course, that being said...get ready for a mercy in their next game, as they'll probably look to pour out another one of those "statement" games. In any event, end result Tar Heels snag a tough road victory in the ACC to keep pace with B.C.

And for now, that's it for the pellets.