ESPN Men's Basketball

Yes, Tar Heels fans, you probably should do it.

Take a deep breath.

Hold your nose, if need be.

And cheer for Duke on Thursday night.

Seventh-ranked North Carolina took a half-game lead in the ACC standings with its victory over NC State on Tuesday night. If it wins its last three games, it will earn at least a share of the regular-season league title.

But if UNC wants the top seed in the ACC tournament, it needs to finish at least one win ahead of the Blue Devils and Seminoles in the final conference standings (because it has already lost to both teams once this season, limiting its tiebreaker opportunities).

One fairly uncomplicated path to the top seed: the Blue Devils win at Florida State on Thursday night, Duke and UNC both win their following two games, and then the Tar Heels top the Blue Devils in the season finale at Cameron Indoor Stadium on March 3.

Got it?

Of course, all of that could be turned upside-down and rightside-out if another ACC team (or two) pulls a surprise upset (or two) over the trio. A look at the three contenders’ final regular-season schedules:

• UNC plays at Virginia on Saturday, then vs. Maryland at Duke next week.
• Duke plays at FSU, then vs. Virginia Tech, at Wake Forest and vs. UNC
• After the Seminoles host Duke, they play at Miami, at Virginia and vs. Clemson.

For his part, UNC coach Roy Williams doesn’t want his team complicating things by focusing on the complicated scenarios. All it can do is win, he said earlier this week, and hope that everything else works out.

“I don’t want our guys looking ahead, and then all of a sudden you miss somebody and it comes back to bite you,’’ he said. “ … Between now and the game on Saturday, we’ll talk strictly about the University of Virginia. And that’s the best way for us to go about it. I’m more comfortable that way, and I think our team is more comfortable that way.”

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Watching P.J. Hairston hit shot after shot during Tuesday’s pregame warm-ups, it looked like the North Carolina freshman guard might finally be primed to end his shooting slump.

But the key to making his first 3-pointer this month, the reserve said after the Tar Heels’ 86-74 win over N.C. State, was actually his warm-up misses.

“It’s a little weird thing with me: I feel like if I miss my first two during the pregame, I feel like I’m going to have a good shooting game,’’ he said, smiling. “I actually missed my first three [shots]. I guess it’s a weird little superstition I look at sometimes.”

Hairston didn’t exactly set the world (or game) on fire with his performance against the Wolfpack, going 1-for-5 overall and 1-for-3 from 3-point land. (He played six minutes.)

But his 3 with 11:31 left in the first half at the RBC Center was his first swish from behind the arc since he made two on Jan. 29 against Georgia Tech.

He is now 12-for-57 overall in 12 ACC games, and 7-for-42 on 3-pointers. But, he said, the sore left foot that kept him out of UNC’s win over Virginia on Feb. 11 is feeling a whole lot better. And so is his morale.

“It was a sigh of relief,’’ Hairston said of hitting his Tuesday shot. “I feel like I haven’t hit a 3 since Kentucky. It felt good, just to see it go through the net.

“I feel like I gained a lot of confidence back. Not that I lost confidence; I was just to the point where I was shooting it, and I was iffy about whether it was going in or not. And now when I shoot, I feel like it’s going in every time I shoot, again.”

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

One more note after seventh-ranked North Carolina’s win at NC State on Tuesday: the victory means the Tar Heels have earned a top-four seed in the ACC tournament, and first-day league tourney bye.

At 11-2 in the conference, the worst UNC now can finish is 11-5. The current fifth-place team in the league, NC State, already has six losses.

The top four seeds in the tournament, which begins March 8 in Atlanta, don’t have to play until Friday, March 9.

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

Former Tar Heels forward George Lynch says he has plenty of great memories of his four years at North Carolina -- including playing in two Final Fours and winning the 1993 national championship.

But his fondest (and most impactful) recollection comes from his first official day on a college court.

“My first practice, Coach [Dean] Smith made me run the Smith Center with a weight vest on because I didn’t box out,’’ Lynch said during a recent phone interview, laughing. “I’ll never forget that.”

“I guess I learned my lesson because I was one of the top rebounders when I left.”

Indeed, Lynch -- a defensive workhorse who set UNC’s career record for steals and trailed only Sam Perkins in rebounds when he became a first-round draft pick in ‘93 -- is now trying to pass those fundamentals on to the next generation of players.

After a dozen seasons in the NBA, and a volunteer year under former Tar Heels coach Matt Doherty at SMU several seasons ago, Lynch is now the strength and conditioning coach for men’s basketball at UC Irvine.

“I started to do camps with my high school coach, and then I continued to do summer camps, in every city I was playing in,’’ Lynch said. “… I love being with kids that really have a passion to play the game. So I try to contribute what made the game successful for me; I try to give back. And hopefully, one of these young college players will pick that up and put it in their game.”

Even on the West Coast, he said, playing for UNC has helped him with that goal.

“Any time somebody plays a high caliber of college basketball, or played in the pros, a lot of the kids like to emulate that,’’ he said. “And they like to hear your stories. For the players here at UC Irvine -- men's and women’s players -- they see me here, and they see what’s attainable. They see that if you make the commitment as a student-athlete, you can reach your goal -- whether it’s playing in Europe, playing in the NBA, you can get there. Jeremy Lin [of the New York Knicks] is a great story of someone that just kept working, and put the time in, the hard work and determination, and he never gave up.”

Lynch, who still ranks third on UNC's career list for rebounds (1,097) and is second in career steals (241), said he’d like to get back to the East Coast eventually. And the father of three would like to work his way up the coaching ladder.

“I just want to share some of the ideas that Coach Smith taught me as a college player,’’ he said. “I think watching some of the kids play college basketball today, the team concept is lost; they don’t play with the passion, emotion that it takes to win at the college level. I just like to contribute in that way.”

And he won’t hesitate to strap a weight belt onto one of his players if they don’t box out.

“Oh, yeah,’’ he said, laughing. “If I’m ever a head coach and I’m calling the shots, fundamentals will be a big part of the game.”

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

Some UNC hoops-related links from around the Web:

• The Tar Heels tamed the Wolfpack again, writes J.P. Giglio of The News & Observer. Kendall Marshall sheds some labels, adds Andrew Carter. Robert Willett adds a photo gallery.
• Marshall was right on point, writes Harold Gutmann of The Herald-Sun.
• Greg Barnes of InsideCarolina breaks down the game. Here's Jim Hawkins' photo gallery.
• NC State can't believe it's Butter, writes Jonathan Jones of CarolinaBlue.
• Lively scene, intriguing future suggests the league should preserve this series, writes Stephen Schramm of The Fayetteville Observer.
• UNC sweeps the series, writes Brandon Moree of The Daily Tar Heel.

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

The Morning After: Thoughts, notes and anything else that didn’t quite make this space after North Carolina’s latest game (in this case, No. 7 UNC's 86-74 victory at NC State on Tuesday night).

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina point guard Kendall Marshall has thrown so many assists to teammates Tyler Zeller and John Henson that the starting forwards didn’t mind taking on a couple of negative stats for the sophomore Tuesday night.

“For all the passes he gives to me and makes easy for me, I’ll take one of his turnovers,” Zeller said, smiling.

Added Henson: “I told him, ‘I’ll take it.’ If that’s what he needs for 13 assists and zero turnovers, I’ll take that, because that’s a great line for him.”

Although Marshall -- who also scored a career-high 22 points in No. 7 UNC’s 86-74 win over NC State -- posted no turnovers for the first time as a starter, he freely admits he should have had two.

“But they ended up giving them to the catcher,” Marshall said.

One was described by coach Roy Williams as an “out-of-bounds, 90-miles-per-hour pass off Z’s hands," and the other a “silly backdoor” throw to Henson. Both came late in the game.

Williams joked that the Wolfpack must have had a scorekeeper who liked Marshall.

But the coach was still impressed.

“It’s really special. I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody that’s been 13-zero,’’ he said. “... I can sit up here and nitpick, but he played a phenomenal basketball game.”

FINDING Z: Zeller had only two points by halftime, as the Wolfpack collapsed on the interior in an attempt to make UNC beat them from the outside (which it did). But he had a stronger second half, as the Tar Heels made a point of getting their 7-footer the ball.

“It was a little bit of an emphasis, to say the least, that we throw the ball to Tyler Zeller,’’ Williams said. “He’s only leading the league in field goal percentage, and he only had three shots in the first half. So we did try to make him more of an emphasis in the second half, and he did some good things.”

The senior finished with 14 points on 3-for-7 shooting, plus eight rebounds.

ON THE ROAD, AGAIN: The Tar Heels are now 5-0 in road games since losing by 33 points at Florida State -- a good sign, with neutral-site tournament play right around the corner.

"This team has done a good job of bonding together," sophomore forward Harrison Barnes said. “Earlier in the season, when we were at UNLV, at Kentucky, we didn’t always do the best job of everyone coming together, of being focused and relaxed and poised. But we came out here tonight and laid the first punch, and I thought we never let down.”

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina sophomore Kendall Marshall on Tuesday became the second-fastest player in ACC history reach 500 assists. He recorded his 12^th double-figure assist game of the season, tying a school record. He finished with zero turnovers, the first time as a starter he’s managed that feat.

All that, and he showed that he can, indeed, knock down shots, too.

“Leading scorer? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before,’’ Marshall said after recording a career-high 22 points in the seventh-ranked Tar Heels’ 86-74 win over rival N.C. State.

Ever?

“Well, not since middle school,’’ he said, laughing.

The 6-foot-4 Marshall, you see, is known for his passing. Takes pride in it. Likes to check how far he trails Iona’s Scott Machado in the national assist rankings (Machado was averaging 10.1, and Marshall 9.7, entering Tuesday’s games).

And he tends to prefer deferring to his teammates when it comes to points.

“When I have such great scorers on my team, it’s not my job to score 20 a game,’’ he explained.

But a couple of things happened Tuesday.

First, team video coordinator Eric Hoots gave the player a copy of an article from The (Raleigh) News & Observer, a local newspaper. It gave NC State’s Lorenzo Brown the edge in the point guard matchup because, according to the story, he is more multidimensional than Marshall.

“Shout out to that paper, the article they wrote today,’’ Marshall said. “I guess it gave me some extra incentive to go out there and win.”

Then Marshall’s dad gave him a pep-talk about being more confident in his shot. “Assists are easy -- because other guys finish,’’ the player explained.

And then he hit his first two shots -- both 3-pointers -- to help give his team a 10-point lead.

“Going into games, if I miss the first one or two, I’m like, ‘All right, that’s it,’” he said. “Tonight, to be able to see those first two go in, I think it really pulled the defense out.”

Which is a positive of having Marshall bury 7 of 8 shots (including a career-high four 3-pointers).

UNC coach Roy Williams has said all season that his team, which has now won 12 in a row over the Wolfpack, would be even better if Marshall could make the shots in games that he was consistently making in practice.

“I’ve seen him shoot like this -- even in the summer, he was phenomenal,’’ said forward Tyler Zeller. “He’ll go out and make 10 or 12 in a row, and we sometimes wonder why he doesn’t shoot more.”

It’s because, Marshall explained, he has so many talented scorers in forwards Zeller (14 points, eight rebounds Tuesday), Harrison Barnes (20 points) and John Henson 14 points, 13 rebounds) around him.

He knows, though, that when those guys are drawing double teams, he needs to connect in order to keep defenses honest.

And that was especially important at the RBC Center, in a game that saw State be the aggressor in the lane (it outscored the Tar Heels 42-22 in the point, and 16-8 off second-chance points).

“We just didn’t expect him to score like that,’’ Brown, who finished with 18 points and four assists, said of Marshall. “He must have been in the gym.”

Indeed, after the Wolfpack rallied from an early 14-point deficit to tie the score in the first half, it was a key 3 by Marshall that gave the Tar Heels a six-point cushion.

He opened the second half with a layup. And then another eventual 3 – with 7:34 left – gave the Tar Heels an 18-point advantage, their largest lead of the game.

His only self-described “awful” attempt: a first-half 3-point transition miss that he knows he should have passed. “If I could have that one play back, I would.”

Not that he needs to erase it. In the end, Marshall-led UNC made 10 of 19 3-pointers, its best output this month.

"Kendall was something else tonight,'' Williams said.

As usual, the sophomore's favorite stat was his assists (he now needs only nine more to tie the school record for dish-outs in a season).

His opponents, though, left impressed with all the facets of his play.

Asked if he had ever seen Marshall shoot like that, Brown replied in the affirmative:

“When he was 12.”

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A quick look at North Carolina’s 86-74 win at NC State.

Why it happened: NC State plays in spurts, but it didn’t play in enough of them against a hot-shooting Tar Heels team. North Carolina scorched the Wolfpack from beyond the arc, connecting on 10-of-19 3-pointers. UNC shot 53 percent from 3 and 51 percent overall.

What it means: NC State’s uncomfortable bubble seat just got a little more uncomfortable. The Wolfpack had three chances (at Duke, vs. FSU, vs. UNC) to make their case and failed in all three. Now NCSU has to win out against Clemson, Miami and Virginia Tech and hope for a little help from other bubble dwellers. North Carolina, meantime, is trying to build a case for a No. 1 seed, an argument that got a little stronger with Missouri’s loss to Kansas State. A lot still has to happen for the Heels to secure a top spot, but winning out will make it an interesting debate for the Selection Committee.

Star of the game: Kendall Marshall isn’t known for being a scorer. That doesn’t mean he can’t score. The North Carolina point guard had a career-high 22 points, 13 assists and most impressive, no turnovers. He was 4-of-5 from long range. Not much more you can ask a point guard to do.

For starters: North Carolina rode hot shooting from the 3-point line to stake a 46-41 lead at the half. The Tar Heels hit 7 of 14 from the behind the arc. But credit to the Wolfpack, which rallied from an early 10-2 hole to make this a game. C.J. Leslie, who needed to be big against UNC’s bigs, was in fact that. He had 14 and 7 in the first 20 minutes, helping the Pack stay tight with the Heels on the boards, 22-21.

Simply not good enough: NC State turned it over just four times, but was 3-of-13 (23 percent) from long range and just 13-of-23 (57 percent) from the free throw line. That's simply not going to get it done against a team as talented as the Heels.

What’s next: NC State’s NCAA tournament hopes are dangling by a thread, especially since some of its fellow bubble brethren (Seton Hall, Kansas State, etc.) took care of business on Tuesday night. That means every game is huge and the next one is awfully dangerous. Clemson has won three of its past four. The Tar Heels, trying to win the league crown, travel to Virginia, host Maryland and then finish the season off with the remach against Duke.

Seventh-ranked North Carolina has won 11 in a row over NC State, but there’s more than the rivalry at stake at the RBC Center on Tuesday night.

The Wolfpack has lost two straight, and needs a win over a top-tier team to stay in the NCAA tournament at-large discussion.

The Tar Heels, meanwhile, are trying to stay atop the ACC standings and push themselves in the NCAA positioning.

A few things to watch in the 8 p.m. EST tip-off (ESPN3):

CROWD CONTROL

Expect emotions to be running high.

Saturday night, former NC State stars Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta — whose jersey numbers hang from the rafters — were ejected from the Wolfpack’s game at the RBC Center by official Karl Hess for “excessive demonstration.” (Hess was subsequently reprimanded by the ACC).

Tuesday night, the duo will be back on the court, as the school will honor the 1989 ACC regular-season title team — which featured both players — before the game.

“Our goal is that we want to come out with a strong start and take the crowd out of it early,” UNC point guard Kendall Marshall said. “If we can do that, it’ll be a lot easier than if we let the crowd get behind them. I think they’re also honoring one of their teams, so the juices are going to be flowing for them. We just want to take the air out of the building as quick as possible.”

UNC’S DEFENSE

“Everybody thinks that defense is just sweat and slobbering and yelling at guys and stuff like that,’’ UNC coach Roy Williams said. “You’ve got to know what the dickens you’re doing.”

The Tar Heels appear to be getting there. They’ve held their last three opponents to less than 40 percent shooting, and pose a tall matchup problem for the Wolfpack, which shot only 36.8 percent against the Tar Heels last month.

One key again will be slowing junior Scott Wood, who made only 4 of 12 shots in the last match-up. According to The (Raleigh) News & Observer, the Pack actually locked away the balls and didn't practice on Sunday to keep the players – including Wood – from wearing themselves out by shooting too much.

THE POINT GUARD MATCH-UP

Marshall, before the last showdown, complimented Wolfpack ballhandler Lorenzo Brown, saying Brown had quietly posted “one of the best point guard seasons of the year.” Marshall, though, easily won the battle last time, recording seven points and 11 assists. Brown finished with nine and six, respectively, and his team lost 74-55.

If Brown was aggressive, he could test Marshall. If not, expect the Tar Heels sophomore to add to the 11 double-digit assist games he’s already posted this season.

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

Some UNC hoops-related links from around the Web:

• UNC's John Henson is chasing the school's shot-blocking record, writes Andrew Carter of The News & Observer. NC State must rebound in tonight's matchup, adds Caulton Tudor. ACC official Karl Hess has been reprimanded, writes J.P. Giglio.
• The Tar Heels are a tall task for NC State, writes Adam Smith of The Times-News.
• Bret Strelow of The Fayetteville Observer thinks fans are getting impatient as the season winds down.
• The Tar Heels are inching toward March, writes Greg Barnes of InsideCarolina.
• The Tar Heels aren't taking the Wolfpack lightly, writes Harold Gutmann of the Durham Herald-Sun.
• UNC will visit a hungry Wolfpack team, writes Bill Cole of the Winston-Salem Journal.

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

North Carolina coach Roy Williams said he doesn’t feel pressure during games.

There just isn’t time.

“Before the game, you’re stressed,’’ he said during his Monday night radio show. “After the game you can’t sleep, and all that stuff. But during the games, I really never have [felt pressure], because you’re busy, you’re involved, you’ve got too many things to do to be thinking about what somebody else may say or feel about it. … The worst time is a 9 o'clock game, when you’ve got to think about it all day long and all that stuff. And after a game … big win you’re so fired up you can’t sleep, tough loss, you can’t do anything.

“During the games, you never think about the outcome. You’re thinking, ‘What can I do next, what can I change, what can we do better next?’"

LISTENING IN: When Williams watches game film, he doesn't turn down the volume. He makes it a point to listen to what broadcasters had to say. Why?

"Prospects,'' he said.

"I love all of you -- but I don’t care what you all think. I want to know what prospects think. So for me, I listen to the games all the time to see what they [broadcasters] say. Yes, it does frustrate me. Sometimes I think criticism is unfair when it’s given out to a certain kid, but we have some fantastic announcers, too."

Someone asked him if he got mad about what the broadcasters said during his team's 33-point loss at Florida State.

"And I said, ‘No, if they would have given me the microphone, I would have said the same thing: We didn’t play very well, we weren’t very passionate,’" he said.

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY: When Williams was asked what NBA player he would have liked to have had an opportunity to coach, his answer was immediate: Dwight Howard.

“He only visited one school, and that was us,’’ Williams said. “And when he announced he was going straight to the NBA he said that if he had gone to college, he probably would have gone to North Carolina. And I really loved him as a kid, and love the way he played, but I could stand here and give you about 100 of those guys. Dwight’s just the first one that comes to mind.

“I would loved to have coached Chris Paul, also. I think he and Raymond Felton would have been fantastic together. … There are hundreds of those guys. But you know the guys I wanted to coach the most were Marvin Williams and Raymond Felton and Tyler Hansbrough, and those guys that I did coach. I feel very, very lucky to have coached them.”

WATTS CONTRIBUTING: Senior Justin Watts has played 40 minutes over UNC’s last three games, making 4 of 5 shots and pulling down three rebounds. He’s been playing more because of the season-ending knee injury to shooting guard Dexter Strickland, and because of freshman P.J. Hairston’s sore left foot.

“What he’s been able to do as a leader of our team has been important all season long,’’ Williams said of Watts. “But he’s been giving us good minutes … he does some good things that people don’t notice [and] aren’t on the stat sheet.”

COLOR HIM BLUE: What’s Williams’ favorite color?

“Carolina blue – you can’t get any better than that,’’ he said, laughing.

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina point guard Kendall Marshall allowed himself to savor his latest double-digit assist effort -- 13 against Clemson on Saturday -- for all of 90 minutes.

"Until I went and checked ESPN, and saw that [Iona's] Scott Machado had 15 assists," he said Monday, smiling and shaking his head. "I was like, 'Oh, God. I'm still struggling to catch this guy.'"

Don't get the sophomore Bob Cousy Award candidate wrong. The first way Marshall judges his play is whether his seventh-ranked team, which faces rival NC State in Raleigh on Tuesday night, wins. "If our team is getting great shots, it doesn't matter to me if I'm getting credit for the assists."

Another way is his turnovers: "I think a good game for me is when I keep them under one or two."

But the pass-first ball handler freely admits he enjoys those double-digit assist games. (He's posted 11 this season and 17 for his career.) And during a season when his closest ACC competition averages more than three fewer dish-outs per game -- the Wolfpack’s Lorenzo Brown is second in the league at 6.5 -- Marshall often looks to Machado's numbers (nation-leading 10.1 assists, compared to Marshall's 9.7) as a personal challenge.

He also eyes the record books, where his 262 assists are closing in on some historic digits.

"Obviously, those are feats I want to accomplish. I know I've got 22 to tie Ed Cota [for the single-season UNC record for assists], I know I've got a long way to go to get the ACC mark," Marshall said. "First and foremost, we want to win games. But I feel like we're winning games at our best when I'm getting my teammates great shots. So they sort of go hand in hand."

Indeed, Marshall's ability to find his teammates 13, 14, 15 times an outing has become so commonplace that it's often taken for granted.

“Sometimes you think, ‘I’m open right now; I’d really like -- and then bam! It’s there," UNC forward Harrison Barnes said. “He always finds you. And that’s why we’ve got the best point guard in the country.”

But what Marshall can do, and so often, is rare.

Consider this:

• With six guaranteed games left (four regular-season, at least one ACC tournament, at least one NCAA tournament), Marshall needs to average only 3.83 assists to break Cota's single-season school mark of 284, set in 2000, and would need to average only 7.0 to top Georgia Tech guard Craig Neal’s ACC record of 303, set in the 1987-88 season.
• He's on pace to exceed Wolfpack great Chris Corchiani's single-season ACC average of 9.6 assists per game, an ACC record that has stood since 1991. (Cota holds the school record at 8.1.)
• Marshall already has posted five career games with 15 or more assists. To put that into perspective, Raymond Felton (18), Jeff Lebo (17) and Cota (17) are the only other players in UNC history who have dished out that many in a single outing. And they did it only once apiece.

“He’s so unique -- you don’t see many guys like him,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell said Saturday. “His ability to pass, his unselfishness, his IQ for the game is tremendous. Who wouldn’t want to play with that guy? Who wouldn’t want to coach him? He takes so much pressure off you as a head coach because he makes so many decisions that you don’t need to tell him a whole lot.”

Everyone likes to talk about Marshall's extraordinary court vision, but there's more to it than just seeing (especially considering he wears a contact in his left eye). It's about feel, about thinking two or three throws ahead, about knowing exactly where his teammates want to catch the ball and being able to get it there.

Marshall freely admits he lacks the foot speed of most elite point guards, but he pushes the ball up the court with lightning pinpoint throws -- looking not for the first pass but envisioning the one that ultimately leads to a bucket.

“I think that's where Kendall is different than any other point guard in the country -- he can really pass ahead," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “And not just a pass ahead for somebody to make a move. He's made the move for the guy with the pass.”

UNC coach Roy Williams said that’s an innate skill that can’t really be coached.

“Great poker players have that memory, and I think Kendall sees the game as a whole," Williams said. “It’s hard. Some players never see the game as a whole. Tyler Hansbrough did not. It was ‘Give me the ball, I’m putting it in that basket.’ But Kendall sees the whole court -- and when he doesn’t see it, he still has that vision in his head.”

Marshall said he doesn’t know exactly where his court sight comes from, only that he’s always loved to pass. Growing up, he remembers, his dad actually used to get mad at him for not shooting the ball more.

And although he’s worked on his shot this season (he’s averaging 6.6 points), he’s still always looking for his teammates first. “That’s what makes our team special," senior forward Tyler Zeller said. And Marshall, who is averaging a team-leading 32.4 minutes, so invaluable.

In the coming weeks, there will be plenty of debate about ACC Player of the Year candidates, and "Barnes" and "Zeller" will be among the most repeated names in the chatter.

Marshall, though, should be credited for the often-umpteen times he finds the duo (and the rest of his teammates) for dunks or hook shots or jumpers. Even though he allows himself only scant hours to enjoy those double-digit outings and soon-to-be records.

“I do pay attention," he said, “... but winning games comes first.”

Follow Robbi Pickeral on Twitter at @bylinerp.

North Carolina forward Harrison Barnes, who averaged 23.5 points in UNC's wins at Miami and against Clemson last week, was named the ACC's Player of the Week on Monday.

Boston College forward Ryan Anderson, who averaged 21.5 points in the Eagles' two games, was named Rookie of the Week.

Barnes, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, scored 14 of his 23 points at Miami on Wednesday after halftime as the Tar Heels rallied to win. He added 24 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals in UNC’s 74-52 victory against Clemson on Saturday. Barnes currently ranks second in the league in scoring, at 18 ppg.

Anderson, who leads all ACC freshmen in rebounding (7.0) and scoring (10.8), is the third Boston College player to be named Rookie of the Week this season.

North Carolina rose to seventh in the Associated Press poll today, while staying at No. 7 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll.

The rankings can be viewed here.

Around the ACC, Duke is now ranked fifth in the AP rankings and fourth by the coaches. Virginia, which lost to Clemson before defeating Maryland last week, fell to No. 25 in the AP poll, and out of the coaches' poll.

There are always plenty of subplots when rivals North Carolina and NC State face each other. But if the crowd in Raleigh wasn't going to be revved up enough for Tuesday's re-match, here's another. ESPN.com's Andy Katz writes:

Against rival North Carolina on Tuesday night, North Carolina State will honor recently ejected alums Tom Gugliotta and Chris Corchiani as part of a celebration involving the 1988-89 Wolfpack team.

Suffice it to say, Karl Hess is not invited.

The official who tossed Gugliotta and Corchiani from Saturday's game against Florida State worked Sunday night's South Florida-Pitt game for the Big East and the ACC has no plans to discipline him, only zinging him for not following proper procedure during the ejection.

No one claims he doesn't have the right to eject the Wolfpack legends for criticizing him, but Hess was supposed to go to the game manager, not security. Whether or not Hess works another NC State game at the RBC Center this season, no one may ever know since game officials aren't announced in advance. So any change could be made without the public's or school's knowledge.

Those involved in the bizarre incident say they have moved on, but not without unanswered questions.

Click here to read the rest of Katz' story.