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Off the cuff: With their sixth straight ACC victory, the Tar Heels are back in the hunt for the regular-season crown. Carolina can only afford to lose one more to anyone besides Duke to win it. Upcoming games at Duke and at Miami will go a long way toward determining if the Heels will win the top seed going into the ACC tournament, which this year is at Atlanta starting March 12.

Hansbrough passed both Rodney Monroe (State) and Johnny Dawkins (Duke) on the all-time ACC scoring list. He's a couple hundred points away from becoming the all-time league scorer over Duke's J.J. Redick. The No. 2 scorer, Dickie Hemric of Wake Forest, was an outstanding player (1955 ACC Athlete of the Year) but really shouldn't be considered the league's second highest scorer because many of those points came before there was even an Atlantic Coast Conference. Wake Forest was in the Southern Conference for Hemric's first two seasons. It's really a mute point I guess because Hansbrough will pass Hemric with just 16 more points.

I guess it's good that Marcus Ginyard is redshirting because he has been out so long. However, if he were healthy, he could have been an important cog in the national championship run this season. I feel bad for him because Carolina does have a better shot at a national championship this year than it does next year. Still, UNC will be better next season with the fifth-year senior Ginyard being the team leader.

If I hear anything about why Will Graves was removed from the team for the remainder of the season, I will pass it along. My speculation is that he either failed to take class seriously or he blew up at coaches for his lack of playing time, which had diminished lately. Again, those are only guesses but if it were anything to do with the law, there would be public notice of it.

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Ginyard to request redshirt; Graves suspended for the rest of season

Heels 108, Terrapins 91
Carolina, behind Ellington, drains 3s

North Carolina's season-high 16 three-pointers, seven by Wayne Ellington, did in the Maryland Terrapins 108-91 in a game that really wasn't even that close. (2/3)

The Tar Heels' scoring began with back-to-back three-pointers by Danny Green and Wayne Ellington. The pair teamed up again to give Carolina its first double-digit lead of the game at 20-8 six minutes in.

Eight straight points by Ellington, two of them bombs, gave the Heels their largest lead of the first half at 52-31 with less than five minutes remaining.

With an amazing 60-44 halftime lead, Carolina came out hot in the second half quickly outscoring the Terps 11-4 to take a 71-48 advantage after another three-pointer by Ellington.

Ellington, who finished with a season-high 34 points, got his final points of the game on a follow shot to give the Tar Heels their biggest lead of the game at 101-75 with 5:20 to play.

Maryland, which had little trouble scoring two-pointers throughout the game, outscored the backups and reserves 12-3 over the last few minutes to make the final score more respectable.

UNC coach Roy Williams was not happy with the Carolina defense, which gave up quick easy baskets in transition throughout the game, but he couldn't complain about the shooting. The Heels shot 64 percent from beyond the arc. Ellington, Green and Ty Lawson were 15 of 20 from three-point land.

"It was a heck of a show," Williams said. "We shot the dickens out of it tonight but I don't like giving up 91 points."

Tyler Hansbrough, who also hit his only three-point attempt, finished with 24 points. Lawson added 21. It was the first time since 2004 (May, McCants and Felton) that three Tar Heels finished with more than 20 points each in a game.

Carolina, which hosts Virginia Saturday, moves to 20-2 and 6-2 in the ACC while Maryland falls to 14-8 and 3-5 in the league.

Boxscore


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