In a game that was never close, superior North Carolina pulverized the home town favorite Spartans into pulp to win yet another hoops championship for Tobacco road

SCOTT JACOBS

Michigan State had the feel good story, but it was North Carolina that had the killer team.  Behind another brilliant game from Ty Lawson, the Tar Heels steam-rolled Michigan State 89-72 in front of over 72,000 on Monday Night.  It was a performance that was as consistently dominant as you could script.  From the opening tip the Heels were in total control, racing out to a huge 55-34 lead before coasting to another National Championship.  The 55 points were a championship game record for points in a half.  The 21 point deficit was the biggest deficit ever going into a half.

You could go so far as saying that the way UNC played tonight, no one could have touched them.  But it would have been nice had the Spartans even made it interesting.  The Spartans scratched and clawed the second half, refusing to wilt, and with a highly supportive heavily green clad slew of fans  cheering them on, they kept the game within sneezing distance.  But they never got the lead under double figures, and there wasn’t a single point after about five minutes in that Michigan State looked like it would ever even threaten.

It may have been the most lopsided game from start to finish in the history of the national championship.  From the tip mighty Carolina was the superior team, and the smaller Spartans were over-matched badly.  Ty Lawson led the charge with 21 points, Wayne Ellington chipped in 19, and Tyler Hansbourough finished his brilliant college career with 18, culminating a record setting four years at UNC with the title he came back for.

In running roughshod over a Spartans team that outplayed UConn on Saturday, the Heels cemented their 2009 Tourney run as a historically awesome one.  North Carolina beat all six of their tourney foes by 12 points or more (their closest game surprisingly came against eighth seeded LSU, which had the lead halfway through the second half, before Ty Lawson went on a mission). The Tar Heels trailed the entire tournament 10 minutes, an astonishing feat, considering they played 240 total minutes of basketball.

It was a fitting conclusion to a mostly uncompetitve Final Four, and an even more disappointing tournament.  With few upsets, even fewer close games, and no Cinderellas, this tourney was a dud in every sense of the word.  Sure, I miss the games already, but this tourney lacked the unforgettable moments that its predecessors always seemed to have. And unlike Kansas-Memphis last year, this game was never competitive.

Michigan State played one of the worst first halves of defense I can remember.  Carolina just went wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and would you look at that, they’re now champions of the college basketball universe.

Not an instant classic, nowhere close to it, but North Carolina was awesome tonight.  Too bad the Spartans forget to hold up their end of the bargain.

Photo: Reuters

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