By Adam Lucas

Caroline McCain (class of '10) points out something from Sunday's FSU game that may have gone unnoticed in all the Ty Lawson hysteria: the entire Carolina coaching staff was wearing sneakers as part of the Suits and Sneakers awareness weekend. Almost everyone in the ACC participated in the very worthwhile cause.

We didn't use any of these emails in this week's column, but I wanted to give a quick word about the bevy of "Woe is us, Carolina can't beat Duke without Ty Lawson" emails we've received over the last 48 hours. First, there's not really anything to report injury-wise. He didn't practice Monday, and the team will learn much more later today when they see how much he's able to do at this afternoon's practice.

There's a possibility he could play. There's also a possibility he might not play. If he doesn't, does that mean the Tar Heels are doomed? No. If this was a best-of-seven series, playing without Lawson would have a major impact. But this is one game, in front of an adoring home crowd that is sure to be raucous (right?). If you don't think the Tar Heels can muster one dramatic one-game effort against their primary rival, then maybe you need to take your American Express card, fall in behind the head line monitor (look for the jacket that says "Head Line Monitor"), get your cheer sheet, and go root for the boys in Durham.

Will they come up with that kind of effort? I don't know. But I'm not planning to mope around for the next two days, either. Does Tyler Hansbrough still play for Carolina? Does Marcus Ginyard (Incidentally, if he played for another team the fact that he's walking around in a boot would be a mark of his unbelievable competitiveness and will)? And is Roy Williams still the head coach? Good, then I'll see you Wednesday night at 9. If Lawson doesn't play and you're going to be at the game, then that's all the reason to scream even louder--you've got a chance to be a part of something special, as the Smith Center crowd tries to will a team missing its two top point guards to a victory over a top-three opponent.

What is the NCAA policy for a player needing to go home for family reasons? I ask this in regard to Alex Stephenson's recent situation regarding the illness of his father. Is the university allowed to pay for the student-athlete's trip home, or is that the player's own responsibility?
Ethan Benfield, Class of 1986
Edenton, NC

The NCAA gets some bad press for being athlete-unfriendly, but this is one case where the organization actually has the best interests of the players at heart. Thanks to the NCAA's Student-Athlete Opportunity Fund, Carolina was indeed allowed to pay Stepheson's airfare home. That fund is provided to all BCS conferences, and it comes from revenues from the CBS basketball contract. This year, the NCAA sent $27,718,000 to league offices in August of 2007. The league offices then distributed that money based on how many sports each school sponsors. It's a wide-ranging fund, as it can be used for education, medical needs, emergencies, or several other necessities.

On this same topic, there was some under-the-radar recent news that was very good news for NCAA student-athletes. You can learn more here. The NCAA makes a spectacular amount of money off the efforts of student-athletes. Making some of that money easier for the athletes to access in times of need is a step in the right direction.

I just read the Mailbag article on the jobs of Assistant Coaches. Question: How successful have previous assistant coaches become when leaving from under Dean Smith and Roy Williams and becoming Head Coaches themselves? (My example is Roy leaving from under Dean and becoming the Head Coach at Kansas).
Jeff Lewis '79
Fairmont, NC

As Carolina fans, we're conditioned to immediately spout off the fertile Dean Smith coaching tree at a moment's notice. It's amazing to think that at one time the Carolina coaching staff consisted of Smith, Bill Guthridge, Roy Williams, and Eddie Fogler. All four of those coaches won a national coach of the year award as a head coach at some point in their careers. Has there ever been another staff to pull that off? I'm not aware of one.

What you might not realize is that Williams is rapidly working on an impressive coaching tree of his own. You'd want to include Steve Robinson on the list of former Williams assistants who went on to head coaching success, as Robinson did two impressive things in Tallahassee--he cleaned up a program that had experienced some academic issues and he took the Seminoles to the NCAA Tournament in 1998. They haven't been back in the field of 64 since. Now, of course, Robinson is back with Williams on the staff in Chapel Hill.

Four other former Williams assistants have moved on to high-profile jobs. Neil Dougherty is in his sixth year at TCU, where the Horned Frogs are 11-9 this season. Kevin Stallings is doing a phenomenal job at Vanderbilt. He's in his ninth year there and the Commodores are 19-3. He also happens to have a son coming to Carolina to play baseball next season. Matt Doherty is at SMU, where the Mustangs are 7-12.

Perhaps the most intriguing former Williams assistant in the head coaching ranks is Mark Turgeon. He played for Larry Brown at Kansas, coached under Brown at Kansas for one season and then coached under Williams for four, and took Wichita State to the Sweet 16 in 2006 while also winning 128 games in seven seasons. Assuming he experiences the same level of success at Texas A&M--where the Aggies are currently 18-4 and ranked in the nation's top 25--he'll be on the short list for some elite jobs in the years to come. You would have to think Kansas fans probably rank him as the first coach on their wish list when Bill Self finishes his reign there (and that's not to say Self isn't doing a great job, because he is).

By the way, when this question is asked again in five years I would expect Jerod Haase and C.B. McGrath to be on the list. They've both been in consideration for some head coaching jobs over the last couple of years. The next branch of the coaching tree after that duo might be Wes Miller. He's back from London and is spending his free time traveling the country to watch college teams practice. In fact, one of his recent stops was at Vanderbilt to observe Coach Stallings. Whether the Tar Heels are there or not, Miller will be at the Final Four this spring to be a part of the annual coaching job hunt that takes place over that weekend.

I've noticed a lot of negative press on the Tar Heels and the ACC lately, particularly from the folks at Sports Illustrated. This year we just don't seem to get any credit for playing in the ACC- is the conference really as "bad" as the haters claim? How does one go about ranking the conferences and where do we stack up?
Beth from NJ

There are many subjective ways to rank the conferences. You can factor in marquee nonconference wins, head-to-head play between the leagues, or try to play the game of the transitive property of opponents (UCLA beat Maryland, Maryland beat Carolina, therefore UCLA is better than Carolina). Unless you've got absolutely irrefutable evidence, however--such as the ACC's dominance of the Big Ten--it's difficult to compare head-to-head.

The most objective way to compare leagues is using the RPI. As mentioned here before, Jerry Palm does the best work with the RPI at his CollegeRPI.com site. The NCAA calculates league RPI in two ways: including conference games and strictly including non-conference games. The ACC currently ranks number-one in the nation in both categories. Last season, the league was first in the overall rankings and second in the non-conference rankings. In the Roy Williams era, the league has ranked first in at least one category in every season except the 2005-06 campaign.

It's also worth noting that "ranking" the leagues depends on how you want to rank them. Do you prefer leagues with one or two superpowers and a collection of weaklings or do you like a league where every conference game is competitive? Your preference determines how you assign value to the leagues.

Speaking of SI, readers were in a tizzy over Grant Wahl's assertion a couple of weeks ago that the Tar Heels won't win the national title. Don't get too upset about it. Wahl is a good writer--not to mention a longtime observer/friend of Roy Williams--whose job requires him to pick a controversial stance. Jones Angell had him on the pregame show recently on the Tar Heel Sports Network, and Wahl explained he wanted to pick one of the nation's power teams as a squad that would not win the title. He chose Carolina. What does that mean? Nothing. It's very, very easy in a one-game title scenario to pick a team that won't win it. He has one chance to be wrong and over 300 to be right. I like those odds, and so should Wahl. It just so happens that I hope he's wrong. And as he notes in his column, it wouldn't upset him to be wrong, either.

Brownlow's Down Low
How many times have UNC and Duke have met while both teams were in the top five? What is our record in those games and when was the last time it happened?
Britt Faunce
Atlanta, GA

Lauren writes: The two teams have played 62 games in which both teams are ranked and Carolina is 31-31. Carolina has won the last three meetings, which ties Carolina's longest winning streak in the series (when both teams are ranked). Duke won five in a row when both teams were ranked between 2001 and 2005. When Carolina is ranked higher than Duke, the Tar Heels are 15-11. Carolina is 16-19 when Duke is ranked higher.

Carolina has a 46-35 edge in games in which both teams were unranked. The last time the two teams have played and neither was ranked was February 27, 1960. In games in which one of the two teams was ranked, Carolina has an 81-61 record. The two teams have played 28 times when Carolina was unranked and Duke was ranked. The Tar Heels are 7-21 in those games and 1-7 in the last eight years. The lone win in the last eight years came at home in 2003 when Carolina beat No. 10 Duke 82-79. Carolina has a 43-9 record in games in which the Tar Heels are ranked and Duke is unranked. Carolina last lost to an unranked Duke team on February 28, 1981 by a score of 66-65 when Carolina was ranked No. 1.

Carolina and Duke have played 37 times when both teams were ranked in the top ten. Carolina is 18-19 in those games. When both teams are ranked in the top five (as they are now), Carolina has a 5-4 record. The first matchup between top five teams was in 1961 at Duke when No. 5 Carolina lost to No. 4 Duke, 81-77. The two teams were in the top five during both meetings in 1986 (Carolina went 1-1), and in 1994 (2-0). The two teams were in the top five for two of three meetings in 1998 (1-1) and 2001 (1-1). The last matchup was the No. 4 Tar Heels at home against the No. 1 Blue Devils; Carolina lost 95-81. No. 4 Carolina beat No. 2 Duke 85-83 at Cameron earlier that season.

The two teams have played 25 times when one of the teams is ranked No. 1. Carolina is 14-11 in those games, including 7-1 when Carolina has the No. 1 ranking and 7-10 when Duke has the No. 1 ranking. Duke won four straight as the No. 1 team facing Carolina from 1999 to 2004. Then No. 13 Carolina beat No. 1 Duke on Senior Night on March 4, 2006 to end the streak. Carolina's loss as the No. 1 team came in the 1984 ACC Tournament when Carolina lost to No. 16 Duke, 77-75.

Carolina and Duke have played each other five times when both are in the top three; Wednesday's game will mark the sixth time in 22 years. Carolina has a 3-2 record in those games. The last matchup came in 1998 when No. 3 Carolina lost to No. 1 Duke at Cameron, 77-75. Carolina was No. 2 and beat No. 1 Duke earlier that season at home, 97-73. No. 2 Carolina beat No. 1 Duke at home 89-78 in 1994. No. 3 Carolina lost at No. 1 Duke in 1986; earlier that season, No. 1 Carolina beat No. 3 Duke at home. Carolina is 2-0 in matchups of No. 1 versus No. 2; Carolina was No. 2 in both victories. The two victories came by a margin of 17.5 points (89-78 and 97-73).

Things started to get close for good in this rivalry in the late 80's when Coach K's teams hit their stride; Carolina went 7-7 from March 1984-1989 when both teams were ranked and six of those games were decided by five points or less. The last time things had been that close was the 1960's when ten of the 24 meetings were decided by five points or less. From 196768 and then 1970-72, 11 out of 15 meetings were decided by five points or less. There was also a stretch from January 1974-January 1976 where eight games were all decided by fewer than ten points and six games by five or fewer points.

Even though it may not seem like it to Carolina fans, in terms of margin of victory, this decade has been the closest in the history of the rivalry. Out of 19 meetings, eight have been decided by five points or less. Compare that to the 1990's, when the teams played 24 times and only four meetings were decided by five points or less. From March 2001 to March 2002, Carolina lost all five meetings by double digits. But from February 2003 to February 2006, the two teams played eight times and Carolina won just twice but only one of those eight meetings was decided by more than five points. Since beating Carolina by 12 points in the ACC Tournament in 2003, Duke has not beaten Carolina by more than five points. Since March 2006, the teams have played three times and Carolina has won all three by more than five points.

Adam Lucas most recently collaborated on a behind-the-scenes look at Carolina Basketball with Wes Miller. The Road To Blue Heaven is available now. Lucas's other books on Carolina basketball include The Best Game Ever, which chronicles the 1957 national championship season, Going Home Again, which focuses on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.