To Play or Not to Play

That is the question hounding Roy Williams and Ty Lawson at the current moment. Will he? Won't he? Should he? Can he? The answer is that no one knows. My feelings are that I would like to win the ACC Tournament, but if that jeopardizes the NCAA tournament, then I say, shut down Lawson and put him in a padded room for the next week. The injury sounds bigger than I first thought, when I declared that Ty Lawson would play against Duke (which he totally dominated). Something about ligaments and already been broken. Doesn't sound to good and will probably need some off-season surgery (maybe affected his draft decision?).

At first, I didn't think we had to win the ACC tournament to win the NCAA tournament, because we didn't in 05. But over the last 5 years, the only National Champion, not to win their own conference tournament is North Carolina (Kansas, Florida twice, UCONN) if we got back to the start of the decade, only Duke and Michigan State are the only other teams to win both their conference tournament and the NCAA tournament (Syracuse and Maryland were the other national champions). So 3 out of 8 teams have done it. But the numbers say that it is better to be hot and stay hot.

I think there are some pros and cons to this whole Lawson situation. I'll start with the pros first:

-Larry Drew would get some experience if Ty can't go. Larry Drew will be needed if the toe bothers Ty in the NCAA tournament or in foul trouble. Drew appears to lack confidence and reminds me quite a bit of Q Thomas his freshman year. Remember in 05 against Villanova? Felton fouled out and we could either go with Thomas or Melvin Scott at the point. HMMM. Same thing could happen this year and Drew would greatly benefit.

-If Ty Lawson can't play and we lose either the quarter finals or semi-finals, the team gets extra rest. They are banged up, I'm sure and an extra day or two can make the difference.

Con:
-Ty Lawson plays, but after the 3rd game, his toe is killing him and he's done for the year. Yeah, that would be real great.

-Ty Lawson doesn't play, UNC loses early and then has no confidence and loses in the Sweet 16 or Elite 8. Ohhh my heart would break/shatter/be crushed/stop beating.

-With Ty Lawson not playing, the bench becomes, Davis, Zeller, and Drew or Frasor, whichever one Roy starts with. So we're left with one guard to sub for our three other guards. Super.

Obviously, some of these are a little extreme, but this is March and anything can happen. My feeling - Let Ty sit and whatever happens, happens. Do I think UNC could win the ACC without Ty Lawson? Sure. They would be reduced to a half-court team because they are missing the V-6 of the V-8 engine, but they can win. But I would rather think of the big picture.