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Hansbrough, No. 1 UNC cruise past Florida State

Wed 5th, March 2008

Chapel Hill, NC (Sports Network) - Tyler Hansbrough led the way with 20 points and nine rebounds, as top-ranked North Carolina celebrated its new spot at the top with a 90-77 victory over Florida State.

On senior night in Chapel Hill, it was the ever-constant output from Hansbrough and a solid home return for Ty Lawson that paved the way for North Carolina (28-2, 13-2 ACC), which began a pivotal week that will end down the road in Durham against rival Duke on Saturday night.

"Well we have gotten better and I tired to give them a confidence boost right before the game," said North Carolina coach Roy Williams. "I just wrote one word on the board, instead of three factors or suggestions, I just wrote our defense. The first half we held them to 39percent, but we didn't make many shots but we still had a 12-point lead. I do believe we are getting better and better defensively, but we need to continue doing that."

Almost one month to the day earlier, Lawson sprained his ankle in Tallahassee against the Seminoles. In his second game since returning to action Saturday at Boston College, he scored 10 points with three assists. Marcus Ginyard added 13 points and sixth man Danny Green scored 12 points and grabbed seven rebounds.

Jason Rich led all scorers with 27 points and Uche Echefu added 14 points. Toney Douglas scored 11 and Ralph Mims donated 10 points for the Seminoles (17-13, 6-9), who were undone by a UNC scoring blitz to end the first half.

"Obviously, we allowed the game, well I'm not really sure we allowed, but the game got out of hand for us really at the beginning," said Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton. "Right now, matching up against a team that is averaging 90 points is not really good for us with the depth that we have, and the pace of the game, even though it was manageable there for three-fourths of the first half, the tempo was such that it just took its toll on us."

The Seminoles scored the first seven points of the contest with UNC's first points coming from senior Surry Wood. A back-and-forth affair broke out over the first 10 minutes in the first half with Florida State actually holding a 16-14 edge.

After Rich's trey brought the Seminoles within 27-26 with 3:51 to play, the Tar Heels ran off a 17-6 spurt over the remainder of the half. Green's three made the score 38-28 and Ginyard ended the half with a pair of free throws.

Rich cut the deficit to 59-53 with 11:20 to go, but the Tar Heels fought back once again. Eight straight points capped by Alex Stepheson's free throw pushed the advantage to 67-53.

North Carolina cruised to victory from there.

Game Notes

UNC leads the all-time series, 38-8...The Seminoles made just 6-of-24 from beyond the arc and were outrebounded 41-26...North Carolina shot 54.4 percent from the floor and made 22-of-29 from the charity stripe, led by Hansbrough's 10-of-11 effort...The Tar Heels assisted on 22 of 31 made baskets.

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