The best backcourt in college basketball decided to disband this week and go its separate ways. Fortunately, the terms of separation were immensely amicable.
Ty Lawson and Wayne Ellington announced on Thursday they will forego their senior years and enter the pool of available players for this June's National Basketball Association draft.
The pair will leave with the best wishes of nearly all, if not all, of the fans who cheer for Carolina and the blessings of their head coach, who is grateful they stayed for three seasons and gave all that they did.
"You're talking about two of the greatest kids I've ever coached as basketball players and people,"
UNC coach Roy Williams said. "I'm going to miss them immensely off the court and definitely on the court. It will be a huge challenge for other people."
The two established a special place in Carolina history and the game of college basketball. They played a huge role in the Tar Heels winning a national championship after playing in the round of eight for three consecutive years and the Final Four twice in a row. They never finished lower than first in the ACC regular-season standings in their careers. In addition, they won two ACC Tournament titles.
Individually, Lawson won the Bob Cousy Award as the nation's top point guard this season after being named ACC player of the year, while Ellington was named the most outstanding player at the Final Four after breaking Donald Williams' record for long-distance shooting by going 8-of-10 from three-point range in the two games in Detroit.
Just as important, they played within the framework of the team after testing their worth with NBA general mangers and coaches last spring, but deciding to return. Along with Danny Green, who did the same, the kids on this team showed what a group of talented individuals can do when they pull together with the concern for the greater good atop their list of goals.
"Coach did a great job of getting us together, and we're all just that kind of people,"
Ellington said. "We're worried about how our team is doing and not about individual things. That's how we got along so well. We not only worked together well on the court, but off the court we got along well. We all hang out. I think that is the character of the guys on the team."
No doubt the members of the ABC Club (Anybody But Carolina) would scoff at such a statement as if these kids were anything but talented as basketball players, but the proof is in the way they conducted themselves. When Lawson hit a buzzer-beater to win the game at Florida State this year, the first person to race down the court and embrace him was Tyler Hansbrough, the player of the year in the country the season before and the person who had thrown the inbounds pass to Lawson.
When Lawson sprained an ankle at Florida State his sophomore season, Ellington and Hansbrough put the team on their shoulders and carried it, saying only that their duty was to step forward.
In the three years this entire group was together, there was one short period when some friction showed. The team lost consecutive games at the end of the 2007 regular season, and then the players settled their differences with a closed door meeting without the coaches. That happened right before the ACC Tournament during the junior class' freshman year. Carolina went to Tampa, Fla., and then won the conference tournament.
"Coach recruits good players who also have good character,"
Lawson said. "When I was first coming into Carolina, a lot of my friends, people outside of the team, were talking (about this year's senior class). They said, 'They're going to be hating on ya'll, not wanting you to do well. They are the big boys on campus.'"
"But when we came on campus, Danny Green and Bobby Frasor embraced us. They took us everywhere and treated us like we were their little brothers. So it's just the kind of people Coach recruits."
Doing that is not easy, either. The nature of amateur basketball today goes against the team in almost every way. The summer circuit is set up to showcase the individual more than the teams. The NBA is about shoe contracts, television commercials and star players more than teams.
So when a coach such as Williams can sign kids who are ranked among the top 10 prospects in the nation as he did with Hansbrough, Ellington and Lawson and then get those kids and all their teammates to work as one, he has accomplished something substantial.
