Larry Brown Sports

Larry Drew II is finally starting to live up to the potential that made him a top recruit coming out of high school in Los Angeles.

Drew is averaging 8.4 assists per game and shooting .452 percent from the field in his first season with the UCLA Bruins. He spent two and a half seasons playing for North Carolina until he quit midway through his junior season. Formerly known as “Turnover Jesus” with the Tar Heels, Drew is only averaging 1.6 turnovers per game with the Bruins. Now that he’s enjoying some success with UCLA, the truth about his early college career is emerging.

According to a story from the Los Angeles Times’ Baxter Holmes, Drew, who played high school ball for Taft High School which is less than 20 miles from the UCLA campus, wanted to come to UCLA out of high school. The problem is that coach Ben Howland offered him a scholarship but gave him just a week to accept it. Though Drew says he wanted to attend UCLA, he wasn’t ready to accept the offer at that time.

“I just wanted to keep my options open and weigh everything out, even though UCLA was my favorite,” Drew told the Times.

Howland admits he made a mistake by applying the deadline.

“I take full responsibility for him not being here as a freshman,” Howland said Monday.

With the deadline to accept UCLA’s scholarship expired, Drew decided to go to one of the other top programs in the country — North Carolina. But he says he went with mixed feelings.

“I never really wanted to go there,” Drew said.

Drew also said he “never really liked” North Carolina, which helps to explain why he quit the team and left so abruptly.

Some may wonder “What could have been?” had Drew come to UCLA straight out of high school, but things probably worked out for the best. Maybe Drew needed the North Carolina experience in order to mature. Whatever the case, at least he has finally found a good home, even if it is only for one season.

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

University of North Carolina’s chief fundraiser, former quarterback Matt Kupec, resigned on Sunday after an internal investigation revealed that he and another university fundraiser took personal trips with the school’s money. The other university fundraiser is Tami Hansbrough, the mother of Tyler Hansbrough.

According to the News & Observer, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp said a review of Kupec’s travel with Hansbrough showed that they took trips that were not university related, including ones to destinations where Tyler’s brother Ben Hansbrough was playing basketball for Notre Dame.

“It was difficult because Matt has been such a great person for the university and has raised billions of dollars for us,” Thorp explained, “but I had to share with him what we had been finding and it didn’t look good and that it’s likely that this sort of personally driven travel was unacceptable, and we are going to need to do a pretty thorough investigation of it.”

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Many pundits declared North Carolina’s chances of winning the NCAA Tournament over when point guard Kendall Marshall got hurt in the team’s second-round game last weekend. ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb was as definitive as possible speaking about the Tar Heels’ chances of winning the tournament.

“They will not get out of St. Louis. They will not go to New Orleans,” Gottlieb said on SportsCenter Tuesday.

North Carolina’s next two games would be in St. Louis and if they win both, they would advance to the Final Four in New Orleans. Obviously Gottlieb doesn’t think they’ll win both games. Many Carolina players heard his prediction and referenced it when speaking with the media.

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It was certainly shocking when 15th-seeded Lehigh knocked off No. 2 seed Duke in the round of 64 on Friday night, but should a UNC store be bragging about it? Obviously Tarheel fans hate the Blue Devils and are thrilled they fell flat on their faces, but it seems like a bit of a stretch to be selling shirts that commemorate Lehigh’s win over Duke. If UNC gets knocked out in the next round, Duke’s loss probably won’t be as funny. Anything to make a buck and anything to highlight a lowlight for the Blue Devils, I suppose.

Thanks to Darren Rovell for the picture

There was a big upset in the ACC Saturday when Florida State drubbed 3rd-ranked North Carolina 90-57. Had it not been for the last few, meaningless seconds of a lopsided game and what happened afterward, Seminoles guard Deividas Dulkys would have received the spotlight for scoring a career-high 32 points, hitting a remarkable 8 of 10 3-point shots. Instead, it was UNC coach Roy Williams’ hasty retreat from the court with time on the clock that many fans in attendance will remember.

With 14.2 seconds remaining in the game, Seminole fans were gearing up to rush the court. FSU coach Leonard Hamilton met with Williams and a referee to discuss matters. Then, Williams had his team and coaching staff promptly shake the Seminole players’ hands as they quickly hustled to the safety of the locker room.

Those 14.2 seconds still remained, however. Williams left five walk-ons to stay on the floor until time ran out, leaving them to run off as FSU fans rushed the court. The scene in Tallahassee was pretty incredible with all the fans storming the floor:

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There are college sports fans and then there is John Snipes.  Snipes is on his own level when it comes to being committed to a school.  If you thought the Cameron Crazies love the Duke basketball team, check out the whip Snipes shows up to North Carolina basketball and football games in:

Grilling your food in a casket at a tailgating party is just plain weird.  Rolling up to a game in the HEELRAISER hearse is something only a boss can pull off.  According to The Dagger, Snipes came up with the idea seven years ago when he and his buddies saw a similar hearse that a Clemson fan had tricked out.  Snipe’s custom hearse has all the bells and whistles, from a ram’s skull on the grill and skull and crossbones on the back to a train whistle under the hood.  As Tobacco Road Blues pointed out, Snipes hope to soon rig up some nitrous under the hood so he can blow smoke from the ram skull’s nostrils.

How great are the ACC gravestones along the side? Keep doing you, John Snipes.  Keep doing you.

North Carolina was almost lucky enough to be bailed out by a fire alarm Saturday, but it wasn’t to be. While attending a press conference to answer questions from the media ahead of their Elite 8 game with Kentucky, a fire alarm went off inside the Prudential Center in New Jersey. The Tar Heels were excused by the NCAA moderator and exited the building.

Unfortunately the burden of facing the media wasn’t forgiven because of the fire alarm.

The players and coach Roy Williams were asked to return after they had filed onto their bus to continue answering questions. Williams did get off one line when the alarm went off saying “The good news is we can make it out of here faster than some teams,” a reference to the team’s up-and-down playing style.

Originally I thought Williams’ crew was behind the move as a clever ploy to get them out of the tedious session. Even if they were, the plan didn’t work because they had to return. Honestly, there isn’t much that’s more boring than a pre-game media chat.