NCAA basketball - Lawson and NC in the road for the Championship Title

This is the third year that Ty Lawson has been with the North Carolina Tar Heels and for the second year in a row, his team is in the final four; but this year in specific he has been a remarkable player, along with Tyler Hansbrough who is a great player too, Lawson has become almost irreplaceable in the team. His effectiveness has given him a permanent spot in the team, so against Villanova he will be absolutely necessary.

The game against Villanova will be on Saturday for the National semifinal at the Detroit’s Ford Field. North Carolina is now two victories away from winning their first National Championship since 2005; they looked very motivated after beating No. 4 seed Gonzaga and No. 2 seed Oklahoma last week in the South Regional.

"Probably what concerns us most is just the completeness of their team," said the Villanova coach Jay Wright. "You've got one of the best point guards in the country, who can create shots, who can control the tempo of the game. You've got one of the best big men in the country, who has the ability to play inside-outside. And you've got a deep bench and length and size. It's just a complete basketball team."

And part of this complete team is an outstanding player who has been named ACC player of the year, and whose performance in the second round and the sweet sixteen was remarkable.  In the game against LSU, at Greensboro, N.C. he scored 23 points and led the Tar Heels to an 87-94 victory. For the sweet sixteen against Gonzaga, his performance was great; he scored 19 points and had 9 assists. At the South Regional final in Memphis, Lawson scored 19 points and had 5 assists in the game against Oklahoma with a victory of 72-60. 

North Carolina wants to leave behind their loss against Kansas last year 84-66 in the NCAA semifinals in San Antonio and eventually Kansas won the National Championship. It was kind of frustrating for the Tar Heels, who didn’t expect to lose for that amount of points so easily. About last year’s experience Lawson said that it was very tough to lose that way, but they fought back and that would give them force to comeback this year and fight for the National Championship.

This was the main reason why Lawson and some of his teammates, like Hansbrough and Ellington, came back with the Tar Heels this season. They were all considering entering into the 2008-09 NBA draft, but at the end, they decided to give it a shot for the championship.

Now that they are going to the semifinal against Villanova and after making an analysis about the entire situation, NC’s coach Roy Williams said that Lawson has matured a lot since he has been with the NC team. His teammates also consider that he is a leader for them; would they be capable enough to win the ticket for the National final, we will have to wait and see.