Carolin came into Miami this past Thursday needing to sweep the Hurricanes to win the regular season ACC title. They were promptly blown out in the opening game, locking them into a second-place finish, and raising the possibilty of a dispirited weekend performance.

Instead, the Heels turned around and won 10-6 after opening up a nine run lead on Friday, and then started today with a 12-4 margin. In a game where Hurricane player awards were being announced between innings, UNC's lead proved to be enough to put the game away, with some late heroics from relief pitcher Tim Federowicz (less than seven innings pitched entering the game) who with a one run lead in the bottom of the ninth and two runners on, forced one batter to hit into a near double play and fanned the next to seal the win.

UNC opens the ACC baseball tournament this week against Virginia, possibly as the number one team in the country, depending on how the polls shake out.

As everyone has heard by now, Alex Stepheson has left the Heels to be closer to his family back in Los Angeles. He'll be missed. Personally, I was felt more comfortabe when he was in the game as opposed to Deon Thompson, even if it was more of a gut-reaction than anything else (Statistically, they were pretty similar). I leave it to less-hinged mines than mine to divine what this means about who's staying in the draft.

Stepheson was heavily recruited by UCLA and Arizona, and the Bruins are already salivating at the prospect of bring him back. But if I may make another suggestion, how about UC Santa Barbara? Sure it doesn't have the cache of a Pac-10 school, but it's right on the beach. There's great weather. A relaxed atmosphere. Arnold Schwartzenegger's signature on your diploma. Chancellor-issued statements imploring the students not to do porn. What's not to like?

I've been negectful in my Finest News Source reading of late - I didn't pick up last week's print issue of the Onion until tonight while I was picking up dinner. Which is why I'm probably the last to see this:

Nice to have an explanation - if only Hartz was actually on faculty. What kind of shoddy fake news is this?

Alas the Onion also has something to say about San Francisco's latest draft pick. From the list of Worst NFL Draft Picks of 2008:

Damn them for discovering our athlete's secret aquatic nature!

The same day Mike Copeland goes down with a torn ACL, the New York Times runs a story on the prevalance of the same injury in teenage girls. It's a bit alarmist, in the "Our children are in danger!" way, but throws out an interesting estimation - that ACL injuries in teenage girls are as much as five times as prevalent in their male counterparts. And naturally they go to Anson Dorrance for an opinion on the whole thing, and he knows where to put the blame:

It sounded reasonable to me, since I couldn't recall a headline ACL tear on the UNC team, but the very next page brings one up:

There's also Susan Bush, (two torn ACLs, '00 and '01), Ali Hawkins (last year), Ashlyn Harris (each knee, '05 and '06) and of course, Anson Dorrance himself, back in 1991. Even the coaching is dangerous. And that's just the first few pages of a Google search.

Anyway, the whole thing is a pretty good read. And of course, no mention of ACL injuries and Tar Heels is complete without the story of Jimmy Hitchcock.

It took 21 days from UNC's last game until three players tossed their names into the hat for the NBA draft. It's another 51 until the deadline for withdrawing their name - June 16th. That's two days after the College World Series starts, and two weeks after the Stanley Cup Finals will have ended, if everything goes to seven games. Hell, the NBA playoffs may even be out of the second round by then.

Hence the political talk. Or more accurately, the political as it applies to Carolina basketball talk. Or more succinctly, will Obama's scrimmage effect recruiting?

No.

The cosmic alignment of a) a Democratic primary that stretched out so long the state of North Carolina actually mattered, and b) a presidential candidate young enough to run up and down a gym floor isn't going to come around every year. Or every four years. Frankly, it's going to come around as often as that leap year that's not supposedly a leap year but is a leap year because the year is divisible by 400. Which I suppose would be every 400 years. That's science.

In other words, when the great-great-great grandaughter[*] of Dean Smith is recruiting the great-great grandson of Tyler Hansbrough, then yes, UNC's awesome ability to bring presidential hopefuls in from a pickup game will definitely be a plus. (State will have to resort to reflected post-primary speech glory) Until then, well, with the political activism of your average eighteen-year old I don't think Obamamania is going to be a big concern.

At least their internet access, which is apparently transmitted by telegraph, and for which I'm paying an exorbinant twelve dollar a day for the privlege.

This means that I'm unable to write about Kentwan Balmer for Niners Nation at the moment, or Connor Barth for any Chiefs fans who happen to be aware he's been signed. Nor can I speculate wildly about the NCAA rules Barack Obama may have brought down upon the Heels by playing a little pickup ball. Or worry about the fact that the Gamecocks are trying to poach Sylvia Hatchell. Come on, you don't want to coach on a court with that giant, maroon state on it, do you?

But if that's not enough to worry about, you can add the fact that UNC's athletic success may not be increasing the university's place in the world. A new study reported by Inside Higher Ed says that male alumni of collegiate teams give more to the university when their former teams win conference championships, but that overal donations are down when football and men's basketball teams are more successful. Of course, as others have pointed out, the school in question is almost certainly Princeton, and probably shouldn't be applied outside of New Jersey. Sorry, Duke.

And hey! Larry Brown finally got that Carolina coaching gig he's always wanted!

Hansbrough stays, Lawson, Ellington, and Green all declare for the draft without hiring agents. If I had to handicap the odds of various folks going pro - which I didn't, because who really needs my half-assed speculation - it would have gone Lawson, Hansbrough and Ellington, with Green not even making my radar. I'd bet at least two out of three come back for another year, but then again my analysis has already proven to be pretty close to worthless.

In other news, Johnny Dawkins has accepted the Stanford job, just a month or so after I wondered why he stayed on the Duke bench. Tomorrow's news shoddily kicked around today, that's what Carolina March brings to you, loyal web viewer.

If my referrer logs are any indication, most of my readership nowadays just cycles through Tar Heel Fan, Jackie Manuel Has a Posse and The Fifth Corner looking for word on the players going pro. Well, with my total lack of sources in Chapel Hill, it's only natural to assume I know what's going on - and I totally do. The following players are declaring themselves eligible for the NBA dra-

Hold that thought. I've got to head to the airport to catch a flight to Phoenix. You know, by the time I get back the deadline to declare for the draft (midnight Sunday) will have passed anyway, and it'll be common knowledge by then. So why spoil it for everyone?

(As an aside, I really think the Chapel Hill-Durham area needs a better steak place, because if I never hear about another potential agent meeting at the Outback, it'll be too soon.)

Reyshawn Terry, who's playing basketball for Aris Salonika in Greece, had his car firebombed by "five youths on motorbikes" while driving through a neighborhood partial to the team's rival, PAOK. Luckily, neither he nor his teammate Jeremiah Massey was hurt.

I'd start by asking around about folks who go by the nickname Firestarter, but I'm pretty sure in this case he has an alibi.

The Heels have tied their best start in school history after sweeping Boston College this weekend to extend their record to 34-7. This matches the start back in 1983, when B.J. Surhoff was playing for the Heels.

The feat is even more impressive when you consider Carolina has no true home games this season, with Boshamer under construction. Their "home" games are all played at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary.