Rebound: Heels, Devils win for ACC

About dinnertime last night, the proud ACC bowed its head in agony and fretted over what disaster might happen next.

The NCAA Tournament was becoming a ghoulish cartoon, with four of the seven conference teams checking out in the first round and Maryland's second-round demise officially confirmed by the Greensboro Coliseum's public-address announcer and all those TV chirpers snickering at once.

Revived LSU seized the early second-half lead over tournament favorite North Carolina, and it didn't take much imagination to visualize the entire league heading over the cliff -- stagecoach, horses, RPI algebra and all.

That's precisely where a human cartoon character named Ty Lawson grinned as only a mischievous child can grin, jumped in front of the runaway team and rescued the trunk of basketball gold.

Lawson, competing on his globally recognized sore toe for the first time in two weeks, scored 21 of his 23 points in the second half and led the Tar Heels past LSU 84-70. They're headed to Memphis for the South Regional semifinals against Gonzaga, and Coach Roy Williams knows why.

"I kidded the little fellow, called him Dennis the Menace, and that's exactly who he is," Williams said. "But I've never seen Dennis the Menace as tough as I saw him today."

Wayne Ellington matched Lawson's 23 points, and freshman Ed Davis matched the Tigers' long-and-lean rebounding machines, enabling Carolina to avoid repeating half of the most infamous NCAA day in ACC history.

On a Sunday afternoon 30 years ago, in the league's Reynolds Coliseum incubator, Penn upset Carolina in the doubleheader opener and St. John's stunned Duke in the second game.

The double whammy promptly earned a nickname -- Black Sunday -- that remains part of everyday vocabulary for Williams, then an assistant on Dean Smith's bench. As a historic benchmark, Black Sunday endures as the last season the ACC failed to advance any team to the Sweet 16.

The Tar Heels buried the possibility, and Duke restored a semblance of order to the ACC universe nearly three hours later, beating Texas 74-69 to qualify for an East semifinal against Villanova in Boston.

Those developments give the ACC two reasons for Final Four optimism, but no one should infer that Carolina fans are happy for Duke, or that Duke fans are happy for Carolina. Substantial coliseum evidence suggests just the opposite.

Never mind that pale blue clothing was attached to perhaps 80 percent of the seats in an arena holding 22,479. Darker blue was scattered here and there, but most Duke, Texas and LSU fans sat in well-defined school sections, their tickets distributed by NCAA formula.

UNC fans cheered Texas

Although a vocal minority, Duke students and their older comrades chanted "go to hell, Carolina" until an aroused majority drowned them out. They also tried to inflict "airball" harm on Tyler Hansbrough. So much for guerilla warfare. When Duke and Texas entered the final minute tied, the overwhelming Tar Heel lungs booed every call that went Duke's way.

As expected, the Blue Devils survived psychologically and physically. Nolan Smith drained the go-ahead foul shots. Jon Scheyer saved an elusive long rebound with an instinctive hockey ploy, chasing down the ball in the deep corner and flinging it high and far down the floor, with his back turned. The outcome -- a Texas foul -- set the stage for a robust Duke celebration.

Henderson missed 14 of 21 shots but scored 24 points anyway, and Duke's exceptional perimeter defense restricted Texas to three 3-pointers in 12 attempts.

Kyle Singler contributed 17 points and seven rebounds before fouling out. Scheyer, the hybrid point guard, delivered another possession-conscious performance: 13 points, just two turnovers.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski applauded the atmosphere, saying that he expected boos when he came out the first time. "It was bad that my family was doing it, but that was the only thing that hurt," he joked. "My daughters are booing me. But I thought our Duke fans, the ACC fans who were here were tremendous in their support of our team."

Krzyzewski stoked the Duke fires, and blistered a couple of refs, but the sharpest verbal assault probably belonged to Carolina's Williams. LSU wiped out a nine-point deficit just three minutes into the second half and still led by five with 12½ minutes left. In the midst of this meltdown, Williams turned a timeout into an impassioned lecture.

According to Ellington, Williams called out his seniors and yelled: "If you want your careers to end tonight, like this, continue to play that way."

Lawson, a junior with NBA designs, presumably heard the lecture. He played inspired basketball down the stretch, drilling jumpers and driving the lane and somehow easing shots over the rim in heavy traffic.

Trent Johnson, the LSU coach, saw one too many bank shots spin around the rim and drop. "He finishes the best I've ever seen a point guard finish at his height," Johnson said.

The fact that Lawson finally started and finished was news. The big toe on his right foot became extremely painful, Lawson said, yet he pushed on.

Observed Williams: "That was about as tough a performance by a young man who has had people question his toughness, and I think that's probably the most satisfying thing."

Other ACC promoters experienced something else: churning stomachs, followed by pure relief. They're still living with Black Sunday, but Septic Saturday retreated into the shadows of hypothetical history. Beep-beep.

■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com<.