After their team was drubbed by eventual national champion Kansas in the Final Four, University of North Carolina basketball fans needed some good news, and yesterday they got some when everybody’s player of the year, Tyler Hansbrough, announced he would return to play as a senior. Rising juniors Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington, however, have declared for the NBA draft to pursue their dreams of playing the pro game.

When I was growing up in North Carolina, my dream was to play for the Tar Heels, setting up driveway dramas where I was the star hitting the last-second shot to win the game. Because I was vertically challenged with only the teeniest bit of talent, I had to settle for living in the players’ dorm and cheering them on from the stands while I was in Chapel Hill.

So for me, I identify more with the Hansbroughs and Tim Duncans of this world, guys who value the college experience, realizing that they only get one chance at these four years. Of course, many would say, “Hey, I bet if some magazine had thrown millions of bucks at you while you were in Journalism school, you’d taken the cash and left college far behind.” Probably, but if I had been a part of something special while in Chapel Hill, something I had aspired to be a part of while growing up, something that afforded me challenges and opportunities unique to college, and the promise of money would’ve still been waiting for me after my senior year, I would’ve wanted to stay through graduation.

That doesn’t mean I look down on players like Lawson and Ellington. They have different dreams and aspirations than I did and they have to do what’s best for themselves and their families. And the Tar Heel faithful should wish them well as they seek out a successful career on the hardwoods of the NBA.

In my neck of the woods there is no bigger or bitter basketball rivalry than Carolina and Duke. Allegiances to these two schools a mere 8 miles apart can divide families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow congregants. Some relationships within this rivalry are hard to explain. For instance, I have a friend who graduated from UNC, married a Carolina cheerleader, but has remained a lifelong Blue Devil fan. Go figure. A few take the rivalry to the extreme, including one Tar Heel fan who wrote a book on how much he despises those Devils from Durham (see Will Blythe’s To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry). Even former U.S. senator and presidential and vice presidential candidate John Edwards, a Carolina law school grad, once risked alienating potential voters by admitting to a reporter that he “hated” Duke basketball. But as we head into tonight’s regular season finale between the highly ranked Heels and Devils, a few days after UNC’s student body president was violently gunned down in a quiet, seemingly safe Chapel Hill neighborhood, we’re reminded that we need to put such things as the Carolina-Duke rivalry in perspective. As UNC head coach Roy Williams told his team before practice Thursday: “This is just a basketball game. It’s a big game, it’s a game that’s going to get a lot of attention, but it’s still a game. …”

College basketball’s regular season winds down next week, followed by conference tournaments, and then the event many of us have been looking forward to all year—even more so than the Super Bowl—the NCAA tournament. Two weeks from tomorrow is Selection Sunday and the beginning of our bracket-obsessiveness. As the top teams jockey for position over the next 15 days, who do you think will end up with the four No. 1 seeds in the men’s and women’s tournaments? Of course, my Tar Heels stand an excellent chance to claim top seeds in both tourneys.

Here are some key games on TV this weekend involving ranked teams that could have an affect on the tournament seedings (all times Eastern; current USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ Poll rankings in parentheses):

Men’s (Saturday) — Duke (6) at North Carolina State, CBS, noon; Georgetown (10) at Marquette (21), CBS, 2 p.m.; Wichita State at Drake (20), ESPN2, 2 p.m.; North Carolina (2) at Boston College, ABC, 3:30 p.m.; Texas (5) at Texas Tech, CBS, 4 p.m., regional coverage; Washington State (22) at Stanford (8), FSN, 4 p.m.; Kansas State at Kansas (7), ESPN, 9 p.m.

Men’s (Sunday) — Kentucky at Tennessee (1), CBS, noon; Indiana (12) at Michigan State (15), CBS, 2 p.m.; UCLA (4) at Arizona or Villanova at Louisville (18), CBS, 4 p.m., regional coverage.

Women’s (Sunday) — Baylor (8) at Texas A&M (18), FSN, 4 a.m., tape; Texas at Oklahoma (10), FSN, 1:30 p.m.; LSU (6) at Mississippi State, FSN, 3:30 p.m.; Duke (11) at North Carolina (2), FSN, 5:30 p.m.; Tennessee (3) at Georgia (20), ESPN2, 7 p.m.

And if you thought that March couldn’t get any madder, ESPN has decided to spice things up even more by adding former Texas Tech (and Indiana and Army) coach Bobby Knight as a studio analyst for its college basketball coverage. I assume they’ll be operating on a few seconds’ delay.

Since way back on August 5, when the Steelers marched over the Saints in the Hall of Fame game, you football fans out there have had gridiron action to look forward to nearly every weekend. Now that the Giants have pulled the big Super Bowl upset over the no-longer-perfect Pats and another weekend’s upon us, where do you sports fans turn your attention? Yeah, I know, the Pro Bowl will be played in the land of leis tomorrow afternoon, but does that count? (I don’t think so.) Glancing through the “Sports on TV” section of USA Today, here are your options:

• Boxing: Welterweights rock ’em and sock ’em tonight in California.
• Bull riding: The PBR series bucks its way into Anaheim this weekend.
• Bowling: The PBA sets its pins up in El Paso tomorrow.
• Tennis: The United States will be volleying in Vienna in Davis Cup action against Austria today and tomorrow.
• Golf: Choose from the PGA European Tour in India (I think there’s somewhat of a geography problem there), the Champions (a.k.a. “seniors”) Tour in Boca, and the PGA Tour’s best playing alongside a gaggle of celebrity hackers at Pebble Beach.
• College basketball: Both the men and the women will tip it off in a number of TV games across the country this weekend, wrapping it all up tomorrow night with the Clemson men trying to put an end to their school’s amazing streak of futility (0-52) against North Carolina in Chapel Hill. With Tar Heel point guard Ty Lawson ailing, this may be the year for the Tigers.
• Pro basketball: ABC and ESPN will offer 11 consecutive hours of men in long shorts tomorrow.
• Motor sports: The NHRA’s Winternationals power up in Ponoma, Calif., while NASCAR’s 2008 season gets into gear tonight in Daytona with the Budweiser Shootout followed by pole qualifying tomorrow afternoon for next Sunday’s 500.
• Oh yeah, and there’s a hockey game on Sunday: Ducks and Wings (sounds kind of fowl).

But if you still need a taste of NFL action, skip the Pro Bowl and tune in tonight to the Gospel Music Channel, where you can catch Giants Super Bowl star receiver David Tyree and players from every team in the league singing together in a gospel choir.

It’s happened only once in the NFL, when the 1972 Miami Dolphins, coached by Don Shula and led by the running of Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris along with the always tough “No-Name Defense,” defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.

In NCAA men’s basketball, it’s been accomplished by seven teams, the last time back in 1976, when the Indiana Hoosiers, led by coach Bobby Knight and the trio of Scott May, Kent Benson, and Quinn Buckner, took care of Big Ten rival Michigan in the NCAA tournament championship game. (The other six were San Francisco in 1956, North Carolina in ’57, and John Wooden’s UCLA teams in ’64, ’67, ’72, and ’73.)

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