Following North Carolina’s 103-54 drubbing of his team, Saint Francis coach Don Friday sounds like a fan of the Tar Heels. He praised the way he and the team were treated off the court and even on the court. He said the Tar Heels have “classy kids” who’ll knock you down and then help you up.

Saint Francis is a young team that had little chance to win but any time you score more than 100 points and win by almost 50, it’s impressive. Coach Friday said Carolina just had too many bodies that wore them down with an aggressive, trapping defense.

Without any air of cockiness, UNC coach Roy Williams matter of factly summed it when he said, “we’re more gifted than these guys are.”

Eight Tar Heels scored in double figures. John Henson and Dexter Strickland led the balanced scoring with 13 points. Reggie Bullock and Leslie McDonald dropped in 12 points, Zeller had 11 and Justin Knox, Larry Drew II and Harrison Barnes added 10.

For more on the Saint Francis game, please click here.

Even though North Carolina led for much of the Music City Bowl, with the injuries, penalties, miscues and bad breaks, it never seemed like a game that was meant to be.

But it was. When all was said and done, the Tar Heels had defeated Tennessee 30-27 in double overtime tonight.

Down 20-17 with only 31 seconds to go, UNC’s Todd Harrelson, who made one catch all season long, made a remarkable high-wire catch near midfield and was roughed up by Tennessee defender Janzen Jackson who launched airborne leading with his head. The penalty moved the ball down to the 37.

A TJ Yates pass to Dwight Jones got it down to the 25 yet a very late hit by Tennessee’s LaMarcus Thompson was not called. Carolina instead had to spike the ball with 16 seconds left.

A run by Shaun Draughn moved it to the 17 but the Heels had trouble getting to the line to stop the clock in order to set up the field goal. The officials first announced that the game was over but upon review it was determined that, while some of the field goal team was on the field, there was a second left when Yates spiked it. There was a penalty for too many players on the field but kicker Casey Barth still was able to drill the 39-yard field goal to send the game into overtime.

Tennessee was called for a penalty – it’s unclear if it was for roughing the kicker or for a player throwing his helmet in disgust but it could have been either. The Vols luckily won the overtime toss because had Tennessee been forced to go on offense first, the Vols would have started from the 40 yard line. Instead, Carolina started on offense at the 12 and a half. Three plays later, including one where Tennessee was charged for another personal foul (facemask), Yates snuck it in from inside the one to put Carolina up 27-20.

The official inexplicably waited to see if Yates had the ball in the middle of the pile. Since Yates reached the ball over the goal line it shouldn’t have mattered. It was a touchdown as soon as the ball crossed the plane.

Nevertheless, Yates – fortunately for the Heels – still had the ball. Tennessee was able to score on a Tyler Bray to Luke Stocker TD strike on second down.

With the score tied at 27-27, the Vols went right back on offense. Four plays into the Volunteers’ series, UNC linebacker Quan Sturdivant reached high for an interception, setting the scene for Carolina to go on offense from the 25 only needing a field goal.

Draughn bumped outside for a 16-yard run to the nine and then he ran it to the six. Carolina opted to go ahead and try the short field goal on second and goal from there. Barth drilled it for the improbable win.

Draughn, a senior, who ran for 160 yards, was named the game’s most valuable player. Senior defensive back Deunta Williams wasn’t as fortunate as he broke his ankle in the first half. That was a big blow as Bray had more luck throwing after Williams went out. Defensive lineman Donte Paige-Moss was also banged up and missed some action but came back to block a Tennessee extra point by Daniel Lincoln, allowing Carolina to later tie the game with a field goal.

Tennessee fans – and they were in the vast majority by virtue of the game being in Nashville – littered the end zones with cups and cans and beer on several occasions late in the game and in overtime, including at the game’s end.

The Tar Heels led 7-0 early, then led 10-7 and led 17-14 into the fourth quarter. But penalties disrupted them, injuries slowed momentum and every break seemed to go Tennessee’s way until late. Carolina finishes the eventful, tumultuous season at 8-5.

Poor officiating

The Heels committed 11 penalties for 92 yards. Three of those penalties came on a late-game drive with Carolina trailing 20-17. At least one of the calls, an intentional grounding call on QB TJ Yates, was questionable. No, the ball didn’t make it to the line of scrimmage as the officials pointed out but two players were hanging on Yates. In that circumstance, he shouldn’t be expected to get it to the line of scrimmage.

While the officials ultimately got several key calls right, they not only took too much time but there were tough calls both ways. However, Carolina seemed to have to overcome more of the bad calls or the no calls.

Coming off watching Kansas State lose to Syracuse in great part due to an unsportsmanlike penalty where a player was flagged for saluting the fans after a score, viewers of this game must have wondered why no similar calls in this game.

After each of his four touchdown passes, brash freshman QB Tyler Bray made a slashing celebratory motion. Tennessee receiver Gerald Jones not only danced after a touchdown, he made a double salute motion to the fans. Later, Vols receiver Da’Rick Rogers, after a score, made some weird belt buckling motion. While in each of these instances the players “drew attention” to themselves, which was the explanation why the Kansas State player was flagged, not one flag was thrown.

Twice Tennessee converted big first downs on plays where offensive linemen should have been called for moving early. Meanwhile, on top of the questionable grounding call mentioned earlier, Carolina was called for a mysterious illegal shift. The announcers assumed it must have been because the fullback was rocking a bit as another player was in motion. Whatever – not much of an offence. If they were calling them that closely, the early motions on the Vols offensive line could have been called multiple times but was never called once.

When Tennessee’s defense was called for offsides, it worked to the Volunteers advantage because the officials, again inexplicably, called the play dead. It should have been a free play and Yates knew it as he was honing in on a receiver for what could have been a big gain. But whistles blew it dead.

Another controversial play that I suspect officials got right, even though replays didn’t show it clearly, was when UNC’s Dwight Jones presumably stepped out of bounds, came back in and caught the ball for what would have been a critical first down late in the game. Officials called illegal touching.

For any ABC fans reading this article, I urge you to watch it on replay before you dispute what I’m writing. I have the game taped and I have gone back and verified everything I’ve written.

After Duke destroyed UNC-Greensboro yesterday to notch Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s 880th coaching victory, surpassing Dean Smith’s 879 wins, the former UNC coach released this statement: “I congratulate Mike on this milestone victory. I am sure he would want to share the credit for the wins with all his players and staff. I enjoyed competing against Mike’s teams throughout the many years I was at UNC. I wish him continued health and personal success.”

Here’s video of Coach K celebrating with the fans and players after the win.

No one wants to finish a season with a 51-20 loss but it stings even more for East Carolina fans who braved the treacherous road conditions to drive up to D.C. only to see their Pirates not only lose big in a bowl game but finish the season below .500.

The way the Pirates defense has played much of the year, it really wasn’t much of a surprise to see Maryland rack up the points. But the Pirates, who averaged close to 40 points a game this season, had little to no offense and QB Dominique Davis looked his worst this season.

With so many bowl games, there are bound to be teams that go with a .500 record but it’s really a shame after the overachieving season the Pirates had to lose more games than they won. I know it’s a reward and it’s a financial plus I suppose but it might be better for most 6-6 teams to stay home and leave it at that.

ECU senior linebacker Dustin Lineback said, “We were picked to win two games. Memphis and Marshall – and we did that plus some. It’s alway down to lose the last game, we didn’t want that. But this team is a great team. In the future, the sky is the limit.”

Ruffin McNeill certainly brought excitement and more wins that most predicted. We at capitalsportsnc.com predicted that the Pirates would win four games but we did say that five wins was doable and that if ECU got to six wins McNeill should be considered for conference coach of the year. After that kind of final loss, maybe not but the future does look bright for the Pirates.

Also, word from my sources indicate that the rotund McNeill will have some sort of weight-reducing surgery before next season but I haven’t heard any official word on that. If he does get his weight under control, the future will look even brighter for ECU.

North Carolina seems to be peaking just as the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule is about to begin. The Heels appear to be 10 deep, especially evidenced by Leslie McDonald’s 14 points and Justin Watts’ 10 points in last night’s 78-55 win over Rutgers.

But there are at least three troubling trends. First, the free throw shooting is poor at 64 percent. Compare that with the 2009 team that shot 75 percent and the 2008 team that shot 76 percent.

Second, Harrison Barnes has not settled in as the star Carolina needs him to be. He’s shooting just 36 percent from the field, which is second worst on the team, even though he has more minutes played than any other Tar Heel. Against Rutgers he hit just three of nine shots.

Finally, John Henson seems to still be bothered by a thumb injury. He managed seven points and four blocked shots against Rutgers but he seemed limited and appeared to favor the hand.

Still, the team has survived with strong play from Tyler Zeller and Dexter Strickland, and good bench play. Against Rutgers, the Carolina bench outscored the Scarlet Knights bench 38-13.

The Heels have one more nonconference game before opening the ACC schedule at surprising Virginia, 8-4, Jan. 8.

For more on the Rutgers game, please click here.

The University of North Carolina football team and staff arrived in Nashville, Tenn., throughout the day Sunday to begin preparations for the 2010 Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl on Thursday, Dec. 30.

Senior tailback Anthony Elzy also did not travel with the Tar Heels to Nashville and will not compete in the bowl game after failing to meet his obligations as a student-athlete at UNC.

Elzy started the final three regular-season games at tailback in place of Johnny White and produced 531 all-purpose yards (176.7 avg.) in games vs. Virginia Tech, NC State and Duke. He had a career-high 118 yards rushing in his final game at Duke and had a career-high 178 yards receiving vs. NC State.

NC State’s C.J. Leslie was selected the ACC Rookie of the Week following his 15-point effort this past week.

In NC State’s lone game last week, Leslie finished with 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds in the Pack’s 72-70 win over Delaware State Wednesday. For the sixth straight game, Leslie led the Pack in rebounding. The Holly Springs, N.C., native also handed out a career-best four assists in his 34 minutes of action.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will pass former UNC coach Dean Smith Wednesday in most coaching victories. I’m already tired of the “Who’s better” articles. The fact is, while the careers overlapped, you can’t really accurately compare coaches from different eras.

The blogs are burning up with childish banter between supposed fans of each team. The ugliness aimed at either coach is unnecessary.

It’s a good parlor game I guess. Smith has a better winning percentage. K has more wins. Both have one Olympic medal and 11 Final Four appearances. K has a 4-2 edge in national championships while Smith has a 24-14 edge in head-to-head competition.

If I had to play the game, I’d go with Smith.

Here are reasons why:

1) Smith led his Tar Heels to 33 straight years of finishing in the ACC’s top three teams and 20 straight years in the top two. Coach K would have to coach the Blue Devils until 2028 just to tie the 33 straight year mark.

2) Smith took over a basketball program under scandal. As a result of point-shaving, North Carolina de-emphasized basketball just as Smith took over whereas Coach K took over a program that had impressively averaged more than 24 wins a year over the previous three seasons.

3) For much of Smith’s coaching career, only the winner of the ACC tournament got to go to the NCAA tournament. That’s never been the case for Coach K. As a result, he’s had more opportunities to make noise nationally and has coached more games per season.

4) Smith put in place many innovations in college basketball from the Four Corners to the Jump defense and from getting players to display a tired signal to huddling at the free throw line. Smith was employing trapping press defenses and the fastbreak running game before everybody else.

And 5) I still have a hard time ignoring head-to-head competition. Some argue that Carolina was established and Duke was rebuilding early in Coach K’s career. Even if you throw out the first four years of direct competition, Coach Smith still holds a 16-13 edge.

To play devil’s advocate, had Coach K been put in the same situation as Coach Smith, perhaps he would have been able to do just as well… and vice versa. So, again, it’s difficult, if not impossible to say which coach is better.

But the hoopla of Smith passing Adolph Rupp for most wins is a bigger deal than Coach K passing Smith – or even when he passes his mentor Bobby Knight. Rupp had the all-time record for something like 35-40 years before Smith broke it. Smith had it for fewer than 10 years before Knight broke it and Knight will have it for three or four years before Coach K breaks it.

Regardless, those four, along with UCLA’s John Wooden have to be on anybody’s short list for the best college basketball coach of all time.

North Carolina, 85-60 winners tonight, actually started out slowly and was ripe for the picking had William & Mary been able to shoot at all. The Tribe has been hitting an average of seven threes in 19 attempts. But they missed their first 14 threes when the Heels were struggling.

Leslie McDonald’s hot hand from three and Dexter Strickland’s ability to generate offense broke the Heels out of their funk late in the first half and they played pretty well the rest of the way.

McDonald scored 14 in only 15 minutes of play while Strickland scored a career-high 19 in 23 minutes. A total of nine Tar Heels played 15 minutes or more in a game where all 16 players saw action.

John Henson’s thumb continues to be a concern as he banged it working his way out of a screen and never returned after only 11 minutes to play. UNC women’s coach Sylvia Hatchell’s son Van Hatchell got in the scorebook with a free throw.

For more on the game itself, please click here.

Jimmy Clausen got his first win as a starter as the Panthers defeated the Cardinals 19-12 while Rex Grossman got his first start for the Redskins but despite rallying from 20 points down the Skins fell at Dallas 33-30.

Clausen went 13 of 19 passes for 141 yards and a touchdown while Grossman went 25-of-43 passing for 322 yards and four touchdowns.

While Clausen wasn’t as spectacular as Grossman, he also didn’t make as many mistakes as Grossman, who threw two interceptions and fumbled once.

“All of the hard work – coming in early, staying late and watching tape – has paid off,” Clausen said. “I think it showed today. Now we just have to keep that mentality for the last two games of the season and into next season.”

Grossman, taking over for the benched Donovan McNabb, ran the offense better than the All-Pro McNabb. His four touchdown passes were two more than McNabb had in any game and the 30 points were the most the Skins have put on the board this season.

While Grossman’s proclivity to turn the ball over will probably keep him from being the Redskins’ starter next year, he may have earned a backup roster spot. McNabb, who figured to be an upgrade over Jason Campbell, hasn’t worked out in the Redskins’ new offense. As a result, Campbell in Oakland has a better quarterback rating than McNabb and the Skins only have one more win than they had last season.

Ironically, the Panthers go into next season with a more stable situation at quarterback than the Redskins who had figured to have McNabb at the helm for several more years.

McNabb probably won’t be back next season. The Redskins and the Panthers could be trade partners next year, especially if the new Panthers coaches believe they have their franchise quarterback in Clausen. Insiders indicate that the Redskins covet Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck but the Panthers will likely have the first pick in the draft.