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I'd be curious to know how much attention the typical college basketball fan pays to postseason awards/honors voted on by media types, i.e. ACC player of the year, All-Americans, all-freshmen teams.

I know the fan interest is intense on matters that affect their teams -- BCS standings in football, NCAA tournament seedings in basketball -- but how long does an ACC player of the year stick in our memories? I know preseason POYs are quickly forgotten, unless it serves the purpose of illustrating how big a disappointment someone's season was. Take Raymond Felton last year or Chris Duhon the previous year.

These all-this-and-that teams are fun for debating purposes, at the least. It certainly is for sports writers, anyway. Neil Amato of the Herald-Sun and I racked our brains trying to come up with more than three players for the five-member ACC all-freshman team while in College Park on Sunday. After Marvin Williams, Sean Singletary and DeMarcus Nelson, we hit a wall.

Radio man Woody Durham pointed out to Roy Williams after UNC's win over the Terps how amazing it is that the Heels hadn't had an ACC player of the week all season -- that honor is bestowed by the league office, I believe. I'm not sure he was implying an anti-Carolina bias at Grandover, but he seemed a bit perturbed.

Well, that streak ended. Raymond Felton was POW after averaging 15.5 points, 8.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds in wins over N.C. State and Maryland. He hit the game-winning basket against the Terps.

In the office debates over ACC coach of the year, we haven't talked much about Roy Williams. It's gone from favoring Miami's Frank Haith to Va Tech's Seth Greenberg to Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, who normally can't be credited with overachieving. But what about Roy? Going from 19-11 and slightly dysfunctional to 24-3, No. 2 in the country and a title contender with the same group (and sometimes without Rashad McCants) is pretty impressive.

I get a vote, and I admit, I'm reconsidering.

Interesting piece on the MEAC on espn.com by Pat Forde.

Sadly, it covers familiar terrain, i.e. all the competitive disadvantages of being in the MEAC. The stuff about Butch Beard sitting there steaming on the sidelines as his Morgan State team gets crushed in another guarantee game was compelling.

The introduction of race in discussing how hard it is for coaches to move up out of the MEAC seemed a bit unnecessary. Forde uses the case of former Hampton coach Steve Merfeld, who is white, to illustrate that it might have been easier for a white coach to get a bigger, better job than one who is black.

Actually I think Merfeld's case just adds further evidence of the plight that all MEAC coaches - black, white or other - face. In 2001, Merfeld's No. 15 seed Hampton team pulled a shocking upset of Iowa State, the kind of victory that usually catapults a low/mid major coach to a new job in a higher conference with a fat paycheck. Instead, Merfeld got no job offers - at least none worth taking. The next year, Merfeld took Hampton back to the NCAA tournament, beating UNC during the regular season. His reward? A job at Evansville, a place that had just recently given serious consideration to killing off its basketball program. Gee, thanks guys.

However, I will say that Fang Mitchell's inability to move beyond Coppin State is one of the world's greatest mysteries. Perhaps race played a role in that injustice, but that doesn't mean it played a role in Merfeld's promotion, which was overdue and clearly deserved.

Okay, I've been taking an informal poll around here and nobody - I mean nobody - has any idea what happened during the on-court contest during a t.v. timeout.

I'll set the stage: First half of the UNC-Miami game.They bring on three kids onto the floor, along with the mascots for Miami and UNC and the NCAA mascot, J.J. Jumper. The PA announcer tells us it's going to be the ACC tournament version of Survivor.

I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to carry this out - and apparently neither was anyone running the contests. They started out by having the mascots run down the floor with each of the three contestants and pantomine a layup. The three kids looked at the mascots like they were from another planet, and then everyone returned to halfcourt. I think - this is my theory - they realized belatedly that they didn't have a basketball to use for the contest. So then they had a sprint down to the baseline and back to halfcourt, which they used to eliminate the last place kid.

Running out of time now - again, I'm just trying to theorize on what actually happened, since the mascots aren't talking, or can't talk - they then huddled around half-court and emerged holding the hand of one of the two remaining kids. Apparently, that kid one, although no one - including the kid - is sure why.

Here's hoping the rest of the tournament runs a tad more smoothly. Although there was a striking resemblance between the confusion during that contest and Carolina's offensive approach against Miami's 2-3 zone.

UNC coach Roy Williams said Monday that Rashad McCants would have to make it through "several" practices before he plays his next game. Before that, he wants him to work up a sweat in shootarounds early this week.

It doesn't appear likely McCants will be back for the Tar Heels' ACC quarterfinal against either Maryland or Clemson at noon Friday. They're 4-0 without him so far. We might find out if they can win three games in three days short their dynamic scorer.

Before Monday, McCants had done some casual shooting, before games and before practices. But they weren't exactly workouts.

"When we have a shooting practice, at the end of it, everybody's sweating," Williams said Friday. "He sweated about as much as Humpty Dumpty out there. ... He has not had a shooting workout, a rebounding workout, a ball-handling workout."

Speaking of working up a sweat, Williams almost worked himself into a lather on his radio call-in show Monday night over the ejection of his son, Scott, from Sunday's game against Duke. He's "ticked" about it.

At the end of the first half, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski overheard a fan _ the UNC coach's son, it turns out _ yelling at him: "You've got (official Larry) Rose in your pocket!" He didn't take kindly to it and reportedly had a security guard eject the fan/coach's son from the Dean Dome.

I suspect the Roy-Coach K relationship has taken a turn for the worse.

I'm not going to lie to you. I really, really want Old Dominion to be assigned to the same subregional site as UNC, which I'll be covering in the NCAAs. The Monarchs (28-5) are a fun team and a mid-major with upset potential.

Most importantly, they have Drew Williamson, a player gifted beyond the obvious statistical measures. He just does whatever is needed to win. It's what he did at Cummings High in Burlington, when he led the Cavaliers to state titles in basketball AND football. And he's doing it now as an ODU sophomore. The Monarchs' point guard had zero turnovers in 91 minutes in the CAA tournament, which they won Monday with an overtime win over VCU. No worries about at-large bubbles now.

"We needed to win," he told ESPN.com's Pat Forde. "We didn't want to leave it up to anybody."

Carlton beat me to the punch on the Williamson entry. It's a weird feeling to turn on ESPN and say, "Hey, I covered that guy when he was playing against Reidsville!" Really glad to see him do well. Too bad ODU doesn't have a football team. Then again, given the way other QB-PGs in the past have done, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

But I digress. What I really wanted to share with you is a joke that Coach K shared with the media today.

"When they heard about this incident between State and Wake, it went to the commisioner's office, and then the commissioner came down and said, 'Yep, we’re going to suspend Daniel Ewing.' It wasn't my joke. I'm just passing it on. But I did get a good laugh out of it."

Then Krzyzewski paused for a moment and added ... "Actually I said, 'Did that happen?'"

For those of you who don't get it, here's the context. Mild-mannered Ewing - at least that's what Duke believes - has been whistled for four techs this season. That's at least two more than the volatile Dantay Jones got during his time in Durham. It's gotten to the point now where the Blue Devils just laugh and shake their heads when Ewing gets T'ed up.

K later added this one-liner as well:

"I'm sure no North Carolina fan, after seeing me coach in Chapel Hill, would say I have a sense of humor, but I do have one."

Those of you who have hung with me during my various hotel travails will be happy to know that my accomodations for the ACC tournament are more than up to snuf. Except the slightly strange post-modern artwork on the walls, and the really bad local ale at the lobby sports bar, the Rennaissance Marriott will do quite nicely, thank you.
Most impressive? The spacious fitness center they have on the third floor. And yes, there are some journalists who do work out. Although, we took a press shuttle to go the one block from the hotel to the MC Center. Some things never change.

More later on the colossus that is the MCI Center.

The media room here at the MCI Center is ... huge. They've put rows and rows of tables and cords on what is usually the Bullets - er, Wizards - practice floor. It's this massive open space, sort of like the ones that you always used to see in those old James Bond movies. You know, the inside of the volcano, or the offshore oil rig. The only thing that's missing is a bald guy stroknig a cat and an East German guy on a microphone doing the missile launch countdown.

This whole building is just enormous. After they let us in the building, we went down a flight of stairs, around a corner, around another corner, down a long hallway and then finally to the media room. All the while, I don't think I ever came anywhere close to the court. It's like they hired the same folks who designed the Pentagon to put this place together. I'm amazed I'm even getting one bar of cell phone reception under all this concrete.

I've always felt there should be certain rules set in stone when it comes to NCAA tournament. For example, lose at home to Fordham, and you're out. Lost to a team from the SWAC - if you're from a power conference - you're out. Get swept by Oregon State, you're out.

For the ACC, that historically has applied to Clemson. Get swept by the Tigers, no NCAA tourney bid for you.

Which raises the question - what should the fallout be for Maryland which - now trailing by 12 with 6:14 to go - is danger of losing to Clemson for the third time in the same season?

There's no other option. Ban the Terps from the 2006 NCAA tourney as well.

Seriously, as much as this reflects poorly Maryland, it also tells you something about the Tigers. They're basically playing a second road game against the Terps. They fell behind by 10, 16-6. And they're pulling in a way in a game that Maryland desperately needs to have. I wrote before in my Clemson preview that this team has made steady progress under Oliver Purnell and they're making me look smart today. That's the sign of a good coach. Oliver Purnell certainly seems to fit the bill.

One other aside: Sharrod Ford looks like a bigger version of Daniel Ewing. Or maybe that's just me.

Boy, if Maryland really wants to campaign for an NCAA bid, it's going to have do a little bit more media coaching with its players.

Here's a few of the responses to the "Do you guys deserve a bid?" question.

Nik Caner-Medley
"In some guys we played like we deserved to be in it, in some games we didn't. But that's the way it is with a lot of teams. It's not up to us right now."

Chris McCray
"We've got a lot of good wins, and we've got a lot of bad losses. Hopefully we've got enough to even out. We've got a good team, we've just got to start winning ball games. That's the only difference in our team right now." (umm.... okay)

John Gilchrist
"That's a decision that's up to the selection committee. We tried to play our best ball this year. Things didn't work out the way they're supposed to have. That's just where we are right now."

Wow, talking about some ringing endorsments, huh? Something tells me it'll take a little bit more to sway the committee.

You know, journalists are a cynical lot, but sometimes our cynicism is based on years of experience.

Which is why, as Clemson's lead continued to grow in the second half against UNC, the pool going around the press room - purely for recreational purposes, mind you - was of when, exactly, Carolina would retake the lead.

Not if, when.

There are some things that are just certain in life, and UNC over Clemson in an important game is pretty close to being on of those. I know, I know, they had that win over UNC back when Greg Buckner had the last second dunk, but for that's about the only thing keeping this from being a mortal lock.

Sure enough, eventually, a little later than we'd all guessed, the Tigers began to turn the ball over, and over and over. And over. It was almost like it was beyond their control. Like it was predestined.

Either that, or Clemson just really needs a point guard.

Whatever the case, the Tigers are going home. The Tar Heels? This may be the close call before a really, really impressive tournament run.

Doesn't Sharrod Ford look a little bit like a longer, taller version of Duke guard Daniel Ewing? Something about the nose and the eyes, I think.

Actually a couple of other reporters agreed with me on this one. So I'm not really that nuts on this one.

There's a lot of people not wearing red who are rooting hard for the Wolfpack right now. Specifically, the sign of the wolf is definitely being made in the Duke section right now.

Certainly part of it is due to the natural desire to root for an upset. And I suspect the Blue Devils fans feel they match up better with the Pack as well - assuming Duke gets by UVA, that is.

But it's also certainly a continuation of Groin Gate (You knew we had to put a Gate in there, didn't you?) As one Duke fan told me, "We don't want to see Chris Paul playing in any ACC games this year."

Ouch.

Right now, with 9:40 left and Wake trailing by 13, 61-48, it looks like anti-Paul folks might get their wish.

Not that you asked, but I since I just had to suffer through writing the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech game story and capsule, I'm going to share it any way.

Normally, on a second reference, you can call Georgia Tech as "Tech." Except when they're playing Virginia Tech of course. Then, in order to avoid mass confusion you must always use the full name. It's like those old days when I was covering high schools and inevitably I'd run into a Bulldogs v. Bulldogs matchup.

I know, I know, you're crying for me.

One other Woody Allenesque whine. I've already stated my love for the fitness center at the hotel, but here's one question - Who puts the tvs in front of the ab machines instead of in front of the cardio section? I had to do my 20 minutes on the elliptical machine - two days in a row, woo hoo! - while watching the lobbyists stroll down K straight. Hey, when you're as out of shape as I am, you need plenty of distraction as you fall farther into oxygen debt.

Upper management may get mad at me for this, but there's another blogger here at the ACC tournament - actually I think he wrapped up tonight - that I think you might want to read.

He's with the Washington Post and apparently not much of a hoops fan. But very entertaining nonetheless. Enjoy. I think you may need to register before you can see it, though.

Sorry to have let work interfere with my blogging from the ACC Tournament, but, hey, that's what they pay me for. I think.

Anyway, Mike Krzyzewski just finished his Duke-Virginia postmortem in the press hangar, er, room. The last question, from Doug Doughty of sister paper Roanoke Times, was: "This was probably you're last game coaching against UVa with Gillen as its coach. Your thoughts when shaking his hand for the last time?"

"I hope not," K said before professing his respect for Gillen's time and success in college coaching. It's been a pleasure, in other words.

While Maryland has probably been the ACC's biggest disappointment this season, Virginia has basically been the league's biggest disappointment the past 3-4 years. Really, it's been all downhill since Gillen recruited Elton Brown, Jermaine Harper, Keith Jenifer and Jason Clark coming off an NCAA trip and 20-win season.

Gillen is highlighting his team's injury problems right now. Sorry, not good enough.

CBS analyst Billy Packer was not warmly received by the MCI Center crowd Friday when he was introduced as this year's winner of the Skeeter Francis award that honors a media member's longtime outstanding coverage of the ACC. Booed rather lustily, really.

Carolina fans don't like him. Duke fans don't like him. I knew that. But, wow, were Wake Forest fans even booing their famous alum?

I think what the crowd wanted was to see recently retired News & Record sports writer Larry Keech get the award. I know I did. LK (he likes to call folks by their initials) made the trip. I'm sorry to see him leave empty-handed. Maybe next year.

I've been a Georgia Tech guy all season long. Convinced this was a well-coached team, a mentally tough team, a team that could defend and present all sorts of match-up problems. Even when the Jackets struggled without B.J. Elder, I believed they could still get it together and make the NCAA tournament - and be a threat there.

So when asked today whom I would pick, which team did I go with?

UNC, of course.

Duke fans take heart. I'm picking N.C. State to upset the Blue Devils.

Of course, who can really anticipate what Will Bynum will do? Is there any player that runs more hot and cold? But man, when he is hot, he may be the most exciting player in the conference. Explosive hops, lightning quick first step and unafraid to take any shot, at any time.

One, I'm not Greek. Two, I've never been fired from CBS for racially insensitive remarks. Three, if required to pick games for a living, I'd be in line at the soup kitchen shortly.

I fell in love with State after watching them dissect Wake's porous defense on Friday. I didn't take into account that Duke's defense would be just a tad bit better.

I also was a bit skeptical of the Blue Devils after watching them struggle against Virginia. But I failed to account for how good Duke can be when Redick is on.

Finally, I failed to account for the fatigue that would set in on the Wolfpack becuase they were playing their third game in three days.

Yes, failure all around.

Not that it's going to deter me from picking the final. I'm going with the Yellow Jackets. I'll explain more tomorrow. For now, I gotta get something to eat.

Until then, good night gentle readers.

Real quick, because I couldn't get to this til halftime.

If Tech comes back and wins this game, it will be because the Jackets have two slashers in Jack and Bynum and Duke has only real premium on the ball defender in Ewing.

Since Dockery went down, Duke has yet to play a team that has that capability. Not Miami - only Diaz. Not UNC - only Felton, with McCants out - not Virginia - Bannister's just not that big a threat and not State - Hodge is really their only slasher.

Of course, if J.J. Redick gets hot in the second half, that negates everything.

Back to the court ...

Had some time to ponder the NCAA field on the 6-hour drive back from D.C. yesterday _ should be 5 hours, but that's another story _ and here are a few of the things that stand out:

There are surprisingly few teams left out that have a gripe. Indiana? Only Big Ten shills even tried to make a case for the Hoosiers; there are a surprisingly high number of those folks out there. I would have put DePaul in ahead of Iowa, which, let's face it, benefited hugely from AD Bob Bowlsby being the selection committee chair, even if he wasn't in the room when Hawkeyes talk was going on.

Washington as a No.1. That stunned a lot of people. The majority opinion in the MCI Center press room seemed to favor Wake as a No.1, giving the ACC 3 No.1 seeds. After Arizona's loss to U-Dub, I thought Oklahoma State should've gotten the 4th No.1 -- the Cowboys lost late in the year to Nebraska but beat Kansas twice and then won the Big XII tourney. Frankly, I'd never given the Huskies much thought. Obvious East coast bias. They are #3 in the RPI and 26-5. Worthy I suppose, but ...

They're going down before getting anywhere close to St. Louis. Wake Forest ought not gripe too much about being a No.2 seed. Yes, Gonzaga or Texas Tech will be tough in the Sweet 16, but they're basically the top team in that bracket, as far as I can tell.

Louisville is in the same regional. Yes, the Cards deserve better than a 4-seed. No, they shouldn't be a 1-seed. Perish the thought. I've seen them as overrated all year. I'm thinking a legit 3-seed, though. What they've done is win, much like Kentucky has. After seeing the Wildcats early in the year, I've been surprised they've won as much as they have. Credit Tubby. (And make him a nice offer, Craig Littlepage.) Or question the strength of the SEC.

Georgia Tech has to be upset about its draw. Nearly won the ACC tourney to get a 5-seed. That's nice. But the Jackets will have to be Louisville in the 2nd round after a brutal 1st-round matchup with a solid GW team. Either GT or L'ville knocks off Washington. (That advice is not for office-pool purposes, of course.)

Regional in Syracuse. Ugh. Can't we please put these regionals in warmer, less desolate towns? At the least, can we at least not put North Carolina, the team I cover, in this regional? I was hoping for Austin.

Syracuse as a popular pick to beat Duke in the Austin regional. If they meet, I might agree. Just not sure they'll get that far. Gerry McNamara hasn't been completely healthy and is not shooting as well as past years. My friend Russ is a diehard Syracuse fan who studies them a little too closely, and he uses expletives to describe the Orange's season. That's good enough for me, forget their Big East title. I might even pick Vermont to knock them off in the first round. That could be my Tom Brennan bias coming through though. Or maybe I'm wondering why a team with an RPI of 26th is a 13-seed.

Back to the Syracuse regional. Trouble for the Tar Heels? Yes. Villanova in the Sweet 16 would be a tough perimeter matchup. Roy Williams dreads the possibility of seeing Kansas, with a bunch of guys he recruited, in the Elite 8. More likely, the Heels will see UConn, which will be much tougher the second time, especially with Rashad Anderson back.

Illinois is the best team in the field, no doubt, but Oklahoma State in the regional final will be big trouble. Good thing it's in the Chicago suburbs. The Illini will win it all, even if Dee Brown was on a recent SI cover.

Roy Williams was asked Tuesday about the firing of former Tar Heel Buzz Peterson as Tennessee's coach earlier this week. He responded that Tennessee isn't exactly the best coaching job in the world.

He also has seen reports that missing the NCAA tournament four straight years isn't the only reason Peterson was canned.

"They've got to make their own decisions," Williams said, "but I read in articles it's because of attendance and concessions and souvenir sales. And a basketball coach has to handle his team, he's responsible for making the product good enough to put people in the stands, he has to work with the media and he has to work with the alumni.

"But I really didn’t know that the basketball coach was responsible for how much dadgum popcorn was sold."

Recalling his days as a high school coach, Williams revealed a trick of the concession trade: We used to put more salt in the popcorn to sell more Cokes.

I assume that worked with pretzels, too, causing many a fan to say: "These pretzels are making me thirsty."

Sorry, I can't let the day go by without at least one Seinfeld reference.

Man, do I miss D.C. No, not the history, not the sights, not the culture. I mean, the spacious, Bond-movie like cavern they had for a press room there. There was a phone for every paper and a chicken in every pot. Or something like that.

Charlotte? Not so much. If you hold your laptop screen at just the right angle, two people can work directly across the table from each other. Phone lines are a very, very precious commodity. Guys are shooting me dirty looks already and I just got online five - ok, 15 - minutes ago.

Over under on the number of shouting matches that break out on deadline is 5.5 for the weekend. Two to one odds that somebody gets threatened with bodily harm. I'm telling you, nothing smells worse than the scent of desperation in a media room as deadline approaches.

Speaking of desparation ...

I did all my pool picks - strictly for recreational purposes of course - in about five minutes flat this morning. Every year I plan on doing in-depth research. Every year I slap them together at the last minute.

Two of my brackets are in a pool that rewards upsets. So I went wild on that one. The other two are in a pool that rewards overall accuracy. So I actually used the index approach on one of those - picking it all according to seeding until the Final Four, where I have Illinois and UNC winning and then Illinois winning it all. And no, I won't apologize if I win.

How am I doing so far? I picked UW-Milwaukee on 3 of 4 brackets, including both upset pool brackets. But I got burned by Pitt on 3 of 4 brackets. And Niagara fell through on one of my upset brackets. So not, great but not bad.

Don't worry, I'll keep you all updated. Because I know you care. But it might be tricky getting on-line often enough.

Gotta go, the angry mob is threatening to torch my computer if I don't disconnect from the phone line.

Sorry I couldn't get back to you guys again yesterday. But as I said, phone lines here are as rare as a - I'm searching for a good metaphor here - well, they're really hard to find. Also, you didn't really miss much. Just folks trying to figure out who the heck Delaware State is.

Actually there were a few questions about Hornets coach Greg Jackson and his son, Greg Jr., who suffers from sickle cell anemia. Really, a sad story, although Jackson seems to be handling it remarkably well and it has clearly had a maturing effect on his team.

But I know you really want to know how my pools are doing. As expected, my index fund approach has done the best so far - 13 out of 16. All my others were 10 of 16. Not great. But I'm not dead... yet.

More to discuss later, but I've gotta get some grub.

I managed to hijack a phone line here thanks to the help of UNCG SID Mike Hirschman, who's here helping run media operations.

Watching N.C. State put the finishing wraps on its come-from-behind victory over Charlotte and I'm struck by three things.

1) Wasn't Charlotte coach Bobby Lutz supposed to be one of the potential replacements for Herb when disgruntled Wolfies had him fired at mid-season.

2) Andrew Brackman can play. I think he works perfectly in this offense. I wonder why his minutes got so low at certain points during the season.

3) I'm betting UConn was hoping Charlotte would win. Facing this State offense when it's clicking - which it certainly is right now - is sort of like running into a football team that excels in the triple option. It's something you don't normally see and it's really hard to prepare for on such a short turnaround.

There's been a lot of obsession this season about Duke's depth, or the lack thereof, but what's usually overlooked is that by the time the NCAA tournament rolls around the Blue Devils have settled on a seven-man rotation. If that's the case this season, who will be the two left out? Maybe McClure and Love, although those are both guys who could contribute minutes in the post area, so maybe Duke expands to eight.

And with the way the tournament is set up - game, day of rest, game - week of rest, lots of other teams also shorten their benches and ride their main guys longer.

Take a look at the box score from Iowa State-Minnesota. Two guys for the Cyclones played 40 minutes and two others played at least 36 minutes. The Gophers had one player log 40 and two others on the floor for at least 36.

How come I'm the only one that went into the NCAA tournament unaware of UW-Milwaukee's upset potential? Everyone, I mean EVERYone, is bragging about how they picked Bama to go down in the first round. Not me.

After the first day, the one thing that's clear isn't necessarily that UWM is a great team. It's that the SEC, as suspected, isn't very good this year. Alabama, LSU are done. Florida almost lost to Ohio. Kentucky almost lost to the Colonels of Eastern Ky. I wasn't completely caught unaware: I only had two of those teams going to the Sweet 16 and one, Kentucky, going to the Elite 8 (in my fictitious, just-for-fun bracket that was not compiled for gambling purposes).

I'll just let that one sink in. I have nothing else to add.

Roy Williams cemented the pressroom legend status of Durham Herald-Sun Duke beatwriter Bryan Strickland on Saturday.

Two days earlier, Strickland asked for his thoughts on a colleague in the building tying Dean Smith's record for NCAA tournament victories. The Tar Heels coach apparently misheard the question. He thought he said overall victories and told the media how impressive it was that Mike Krzyzewski had won 100 games in one week. Or maybe the questioner meant Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt.

In any event, Williams was thrown. Later, he quipped, "Just don't let the guy in the blue shirt ask any more questions."

Saturday, someone else asked about Coach K's 65 tourney wins. Williams scanned the room.

"I was just looking for my man in the blue shirt," Williams said, adding when he spotted Strickland: "Darker blue, huh? I'll tell Mike you're wearing his colors."

For those who think Roy might get uptight at tournament time, that exchange shows he doesn't stop looking for punchlines in March.

One - Why didn't they have extra Oakland and Delaware State tourney shirts at the souvenir stand? Didn't they know that people like me would be looking for one?

Two - Why is is that I only saw one souvenir stand while walking halfway around the arena? Didn't they know that people like me would be desparately looking for shirts today?

Three - I've seen several Illinois fans here today. After patiently explaining to them that the Illini were in Indy, not here, they responded that they'd bought tickes to Charlotte a long time ago, hoping to guess where Illinois would end up.

Why Charlotte? Because - wait for it - it was the easiest early-round site to buy tickets. How is this possible? Isn't this state supposed to be the central location for March Madness? With UNC always a likely candidate to end up in Charlotte, why wouldn't this site have been sold out months ago?

Anyone have any answers for me?

Gotta go, State's got something going right now.

Wow, wow, wow.

I had a feeling that the Wolfies could give the Huskies trouble, but unfortunately for me, that didn't translate into picking State over UConn. So yeah, all those brackets that had UConn winning a rematch over UNC in the regional finals are now crumpled in the waste basket in the media room here.

But let's be honest, you're not that concerned with my brackets (Had Syracuse going a ways in one of them as well!) You want to know about the Pack.

I don't cover State regularly, so I can't tell you exactly what happened, but something changed in this team, just in time. That offensive system that sometimes could be so frustrating suddenly looked effortless down the stretch. It's operating on such a high level now that it didn't even suffer a letdown without Tony Bethel. Guys like Jordan Collins became useful role players, young players like Andrew Brackman became consistent contributors and Greensboro's own Cameron Bennerman began to reach that potential he's been flashing off and on since he arrived in Raleigh.

And then there's Hodge. A senior star who came up big in the biggest moment of his college career.

Add in the fact that the Wolfies have always played tough defense this season and you can see why they were the tournament team no one wanted to face on the first weekend.

Where can they go from here? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves and let's not get me accused of jinxing them. But I'll just say this - State next plays the winner of Wisconsin-Bucknell.

Just walked by the holding area off the court where the Duke cheerleaders are sharing warmup space with the Mississippi State cheerleaders. I haven't felt this much tension bubbling under the surface since a Duke-Wake Forest game.

This certainly isn't the Charlotte Coliseum. First off, the media work room in the Carrier Dome isn't nearly as cramped. We're on a football field and have 150-foot high ceilings. I'm sitting at the 15-yard line while N.C. State practices on a basketball court on the other side of the curtain.

Wolfpack fans in town for the regional might flashback to a very nice football victory here a few years back.

Chased out of Greensboro by a tornado (or at least there was a warning and scary cloud formations), your intrepid News & Record crew landed in Syracuse late last night during snow showers that tapered this morning.

Cab driver tells us she's only been to the Carrier Dome twice: once for a Pink Floyd concert and once to a Syracuse intrasquad football scrimmage.

"You couldn't lose that one," Rob Daniels cracked.

"Coach P could," she shot back.

First pot shot at Paul Pasqualoni, who was relieved of his duties after the '04 season. But it probably won't be the last.

As for concerts, we'll be seeing the Fixx on Saturday night at Armory Square. I'm fired up. For some odd reason, nobody else seems to be.

Didn't take long to get the feel of Austin. My cabbie had a space Sirius radio setup that he was using to listen to Outlaw Country while simultaneously capturing the tunes on his computer in the shotgun seat. Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings and Emmylou Harris. Oh, and some other band called the Beat Farmers, banging out a song called, "Are you drinkin' with me Jesus?" Good times.

The good vibe quickly ended after arriving at the Erwin Center. Thanks to catching a 6 a.m. flight from RDU, I made it to the media center just in time to get to the media buffet before the Michigan State media conference. But despite a schedule which clearly states - Media Buffet, noon - we were turned away and told to come back at 4:30. Thanks.

So I went up the concourse for a jumbo dog and nachos. Bad times.

But hey, I ain't complaining. I could always be in Syracuse.

Sorry I didn't post again yesterday. Carlton and Daniels stole my airport charter jet note for their own notebook in today's paper.

Got a chance to check out the very, very large capitol - or is it capital? - building here in Austin. Massive place with tons of history on the walls. Portraits of everyone from Davy Crockett to W decorated the place.

Best of all was a massive painting in the Senate chamber commemorating the battle of San Jacinto in which the Texans won us the right to have really, really good junior college basketball at San Jacinto State. There may have been some Texas national independence mixed in there as well.

My thoughts for tonight's game? I picked Duke to win - which bodes badly for their chances, giving my recent prognostication losing streak.

But there's something about the Spartans that bugs me. They've got a ton of athletes, more than Duke, in fact. But they just don't seem to have that go-to guy, that crunch-time money player (to throw in a few more cliches). To me, this is the time of the season when you need players capable of elevating their games and carrying their team for minutes at a time - particularly toward the end. Duke has three potential suspects; Redick, Ewing and Williams.

Now I'm not saying that someone like Ager, Brown, Davis, Anderson, or Torbert (I told you they had a lot of athletes) isn't capable of turning into that guy for this game. But I still like Duke's chances.

This is a very Jim Young thing to do, but the Blue Devils are back in Durham and so is Jim, yet the show must go on.

So I'll offer a little pregame analysis on UNC and Wisconsin, who tip off in the Syracuse bubble in about an hour. I've already picked the Heels to win in print, by a 72-65 score if I recall correctly, and I'm not going to contradict myself now. That would be bad for business. But I certainly could see a scenario by which UNC stumbles over its own talented feet.

Think back just two nights ago to the frustration NC State had against Wisconsin's patient swing offense and disciplined defense. And the Wolfpack is a team accustomed to playing at a deliberate pace. For the Heels, seeing the shot clock repeatedly go below 10 seconds is worse than watching "Ishtar" over and over and over. This could lead to a force-the-issue, force-shots mode.

We saw it in the ACC Tournament. Could happen again against a team like Wisconsin. But Villanova might have been the Tar Heels' big-scare game. Sean May and Marvin Williams could have huge days against the Badgers, and they could win by 12-14, which would feel like a blowout.

That would keep us on track for Illinois-Carolina in St. Louis. That's the matchup I'd like to see from a basketball purist's standpoint. Who's the best? Let's see for ourselves. So that had me in the odd position of being an Illini fan last night against Arizona. What a comeback. Or choke. However you prefer to look at it.

Having taken my plate full of mango (Seinfeld reference) I'm back to the blog.

"Why, Jim, did you take off a few days?" you ask.

Well, it's pretty simple. After working, oh, 30 days or so in a row (give or take) I needed a day or two off. Plus, when I got into the office on Tuesday, I needed a Bobcat to help excavate my desk. I also had a few angry phone calls from Duke fans to listen to on my voice mail (more on that later).

I didn't make it in until Tuesday because I had a minor - well, okay, major - traffic incident on Monday. My beloved Civic (162,000 miles and still purrin' like a kitten!) was blindsided by a deer. Let's set the record straight from the beginning. The deer hit me. Not the other way around. Just driving down the road, minding my own business and ... whammo.

I know what you're all going to ask. As far as I know, the deer was fine. After turning around and heading back home to call body shops, I drove right past the accident site. There was Bambi, sitting up in the grass, looking a bit stunned, but overall in good health. The Civic? Well, you'd better believe it takes more than a massive collision which crumples in every panel on the right side of my car to keep my baby down. She's got a bit of cosmetic damage - okay, a lot of cosmetic damage - but she's still good to go. Sort of like Rudy Tomjanovich post Kermit Washington.

And yes, Mom and Dad, I'm fine too.

And yes, eventually I'm going to get back to sports. Just wait til the next post in an hour or so.

Okay, not everybody, but when I finally got a chance to check my office voice mail after a few weeks on the road, I stumbled upon a handful of angry Duke fans.

Half of the complaints were about my story on J.J. Redick's quick recoveries from bad shooting games - Public Enemy No. 1 is Duke's No. 1 option. The other half were about my story after Duke's first round win over Delaware State - No celebrations for Duke even in victory.

Unfortunately, none of the callers offered any particular reasons for their complaints, instead preferring to fall back on the old familiar charge that I have a "pro-Carolina bias." So let me try to at least guess what the problem was.

With the J.J. article, I'm guessing it was the headline. It was taken from a line I wrote halfway through the article in which I wrote that the same brashness that has made Redick Public Enemy No. 1 among the rest of the ACC has made him Option No. 1 in Duke's offense. Look, I know Duke fans are protective of J.J. and lord knows the kid has gotten way more verbal abuse than any college kid should ever have to take. But I'm not breaking any new ground with this observation. Redick is cocky on the court. He knows it and really makes no apologies for it. He says he's different away from the game, but opposing fans don't ever see that. They only see this otherwise ordinary looking kid lighting their team up and clearly enjoying himself in the process. And that infuriates them.

If there was something else in the article that bothered these callers, I honestly have no idea what it was. The rest of the piece was about how well he bounces back from bad games. Nothing offensive there, right?

As for the article I wrote after Duke's win over Delaware State, I'm guessing those angry callers didn't like the overal message of the story, which was - Duke won, but not it didn't play very well. Again, I wasn't writing outside the box on this one. If you'd just walked into the Duke locker room after the game was over, without looking at a box score, you would have thought the Blue Devils had lost. They were not pleased at all with their effort. And they knew they had to play better in their next game or risk going home early.

Again, I'm only theorizing here, but I'm assuming that the callers were upset because the article wasn't more "positive" about a Duke win. But folks, I can only write what I see and hear. And I saw a Duke team that was displeased with itself and I heard players that told me the same thing.

Having said all that, please keep the calls and the emails coming. And feel free to respond to this blog as well. Getting that kind of feedback - regardless of whether I agree with it - helps keep me aware of the impact my articles have on you the reader. I like to think that makes me a better journalist.