This Is Ty's Tournament

Even if you read the list of Ty Lawson's superlatives at the breakneck speed the North Carolina point guard gets from one end of the court to the other, you'd still be going long after coach Roy Williams hit the summer recruiting trails.

He's the ACC player of the year, the fastest thing in sports since NASCAR went to restrictor plates, and for perhaps his finest trick, he turned a nation of sportswriters into an army of Dr. Scholls.

But after the North Carolina needed just a half to dispose of Gonzaga in an eventual 98-77 walkover, it's awfully clear that we can stop talking about his toe and start talking about his tournament.

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And add one more item to his ever-growing list of laurels: budding March legend.

No, this tournament doesn't belong to UConn, Pitt , Louisville or even the Heels. Each of those has struggled at some point in the march to Detroit. Lawson, even when he made the breath freeze in every Carolina fans' throat when he heard a "popping sound" against LSU, has turned this into the kind of singular defining March performance like former Tar Heel Sean May in 2005, Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony in 2003 and a list of other NCAA tournament stars whose heroics are as easy to recall as their name.

And on a night so dull it would've put a cup of coffee to sleep, North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson was an energy drink in sneakers.

Lawson scored 19 points against the Bulldogs on typically efficient 7-of-9 shooting and handed out nine assists, a great tournament night by any standards but frankly just another day for Lawson. The junior scored 17 points in the first half then took it easy in the second half, perhaps exerting himself the most when he got a slightly tweaked ankle re-taped.

"If they play like that," Gonzaga's Josh Heytvelt said after the game. "They're going to win the national championship."

And Heytvelt is right. Except the senior means "he", referring to Lawson, instead of "they" unless Lawson really was the one-man team it seemed like at times.

While coach Roy Williams said earlier this week that his toe injury won't go away short of a six-week rest ("That'll help my golf game," the coach joked, if his point took the time off now), we've now seen Lawson respond time and time again despite the troubling toe.

We've seen him on two days rest, when he ripped Duke's defense into shreds fit only for car washing. We've seen him on two weeks rest when he personally ended LSU's season, and we've now seen him on five days rest when he bobbed and weaved through Gonzaga's top-20 rated defense.

And every time he looked oh-so-good.

Friday, his effort was surgically precise, even after complaining of swelling on the plane ride over.

The Tar Heels didn't commit a single turnover until Wayne Ellington's offensive foul with 5:53 left in the first half and they didn't first lose the ball until Lawson's lone turnover with just over four minutes remaining in the first stanza.

By that point, the Tar Heels already owned a 16-point advantage, were well on the way to the Elite Eight and televisions everywhere were flipping to something less predictable.

They could've flipped to a cooking show, rooted for the lobster to survive, and had a better chance. By the time the two teams went into the break, Lawson had just scored 38 points in Carolina's last 40 minutes.

"I think Ty did a great job," teammate Wayne Ellington said. "Our guards did a great job of taking care of the ball and getting if where it needed to be. We took care of it and weren't dangerous or casual with it. As a result, we had a nice lead going into the half."


And Lawson did a Heel of a job on the defensive end, too. If there was one lingering question about this Tar Heel squad, it was how it would defend a speedy opposing guard without defensive stopper Marcus Ginyard. Both Boston College's Tyrese Rice and Wake Forest's Jeff Teague made the Carolina perimeter look positively pick-up earlier in the year.

But Gonzaga star Jeremy Pargo had three fouls 13 minutes in, finished with a quiet 16 points and committed more turnovers (three) than assists earned (two). Second-round hero Demetri Goodson hit just 1-of-3 shots and Matt Bouldin, the team's most skilled passer, didn't have a single assist.

So afterward there was no discussion of weakness and vulnerabilities. Just Ty, his tournament and whether his toe will swell like his March legacy.

"We were able to get by with him only playing 27 minutes," said Williams, who went on to talk about a pool-based therapy that's had results on the lingering injury. "Hopefully, it will be good. We'll have a little practice tomorrow, but we'll have some time to get him in the pool too."

Gonzaga coach Mark Few thought Ty's toe has been a plus for the speedy point guard, an understandable viewpoint after it and the other nine toes just walked all over his team.

"In some instances I think the toe injury might have helped Ty Lawson," Few said. "I mean, he's playing at a great pace right now. He's not forcing anything. He got in the lane a couple times where he was closely guarded and we shut down option one, option two, option three, and he was under control and found option four wide open out there on the back side of our defense."

And so the talk went on about the tournament star's even more famous digit.

And if the seemed strange after a third consecutive command performance from Lawson, maybe it's because there didn't need to be any questions about what was already known.

This is Ty's tournament.