Your National Champs - North Carolina vs. Michigan State Recap
by Nick Meyer
In the hours leading up to the Michigan State-North Carolina national championship game, much of the talk between coaches and media members centered on how the 98-63 Michigan State would play better this time around.
That wasn’t really the case, however, as MSU committed 21 turnovers and had a perpetual deer-in-headlights look on their faces for most of the night as UNC cruised to an 89-72 win that wasn’t even that close.
MSU has nothing to hang their heads about though. In fact, at the end of the day, they might have proved themselves as the best college basketball team in America after all, because the 2009 Tar Heels were a pro team masquerading as a college team for most of the year.
UNC only lost four games but was still viewed as a disappointment by some fans who expected them to have a shot to go undefeated. They showed that they were indeed capable of that feat in the tournament as they beat every single opponent by 12 points or more en route to their fifth championship.
Guys like Danny Green, Deon Thompson, and Ed Davis don’t get a ton of media exposure, but the reality is that these former star high school prospects could be go-to guys on about 90% of the nation’s other 300+ college basketball teams.
MSU didn’t have the kind of diversity and explosiveness on offense to keep up with UNC, and when they tried to push the tempo and took quick shots to try and catch up, they only dug themselves a deeper hole. MSU’s only shot was to control tempo and keep the score low but they didn’t learn their lesson from the first game.
Ty Lawson put on a show for UNC with his 21 point, 8 steal game. Despite his relative shortness at 5-foot-11, it’s hard to envision a scenario in which he wouldn’t be a top ten NBA draft pick this year if he decided to come out. He is like a healthy, even faster TJ Ford with range on his jump shot and better defensive ability. He’s a one-man fast break and could be a steal in the draft.
Tyler Hansbrough’s NBA prospects are a bit shakier but he could also be a nice find for an NBA team as a role player who can rebound and hit mid-range shots at the next level.
This wasn’t a particularly memorable NCAA Tournament, but North Carolina’s 2009 team won’t soon be forgotten: they were the best team at the start of the year and at the beginning of the year, and winning it all seemed inevitable to those who truly knew college basketball and watched this group of Tar Heels play and mature for the past few years.
