Tar Heels eliminate Hokies from ACC tournament

ATLANTA -- NCAA tournament bid unlikely following emotional loss to UNC

Malcolm Delaney knows he can wish. He can hope. He can pray. But he also knows wishes, hopes and prayers often go unfulfilled and unanswered in mid-March, the cruelest days of the college basketball season.

So Delaney, Virginia Tech's sophomore guard and locker-room leader, is not looking forward to watching tomorrow's NCAA tournament selection show.

Not after seeing North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough tie up a jump ball with the game on the line and 5.2 seconds left in yesterday's ACC tournament quarterfinal. Not after grimacing as teammate A.D. Vassallo's 3-point shot sailed long at the buzzer of a 79-76 Carolina win at the Georgia Dome. Especially not after last March's misery, which the Hokies relived yesterday -- again at the hands of the Tar Heels.

"I'm not looking forward to anything, really," Delaney said. "Not at all. I don't think we're gonna get in. I believe we should, but I don't think we're gonna get in. So I don't want to look forward to looking at teams get in, and then we don't get in, like what happened last year. That's not a good feeling."

He is all too familiar with it. Like last season's ACC tournament semifinals, a win over the top-ranked Tar Heels could have vaulted Tech into the NCAA tournament. And like last season, when the Hokies lost 68-66, they will return to Blacksburg to wait, wish and hope.

They again proved a worthy opponent for a team that could win the national championship. But fact is, the NCAA selection committee relies on results. Which the Hokies' 1-7 record last year against teams in the top 50 of the Ratings Percentage Index kept them out. And why their 2-9 top-50 record could hurt them this year. How much, though, will the committee consider that Tech won both those games on the road? Or that five of those losses were by four points or fewer?

For the next two days, the Hokies will remember how well they played yesterday, perhaps all for naught. Carolina never led in the second half from the 14:09 to 1:13 marks. Tech's best players, Delaney and A.D. Vassallo, played like it, combining to make 7 of 14 3-pointers and score 43 points.

Yet Hansbrough again rendered that a footnote. The Hokies trailed 77-76 when J.T. Thompson rolled off a screen, caught a pass from Delaney and dribbled into the lane as the clock wound under 10 seconds. Three Carolina players crowded around Thompson -- Hansbrough and Ed Davis from the front, Bobby Frasor from the back.

Thompson felt hands grasping at the ball. He squeezed tight. He saw Vassallo wide open on the right wing, behind the 3-point line.

"I could have literally walked down the lane and just laid it up if I wanted to," Vassallo said.

But Thompson couldn't pass him the ball, because Hansbrough grabbed it, too. Official Karl Hess blew his whistle. Jump ball.

"I was hoping for a foul, because he came kind of hard, but the referee thought otherwise," Thompson said.

The call and possession arrow gave Carolina the ball. Tech coach Seth Greenberg yanked off his suit jacket, hurled it down in front of the bench and berated Hess. Thompson stood on the court, stunned.

"Not again," he thought, remembering how Carolina beat the Hokies in last season's ACC tournament thanks to a Hansbrough jumper with 0.8 seconds left.

After Tech fouled Hansbrough and he hit both free throws, the Hokies had a chance to force overtime. Vassallo shot a 3 at the buzzer from the left wing, just over Hansbrough's outstretched hand. As Vassallo released the ball, "I thought I put a little bit too much on it," he said. He did. It glanced off the back of the rim.

So began their wait. Greenberg won't spend it torturing himself about the committee's decision. He planned to recruit last night and watch his daughter play volleyball today. He was mellower in his postgame press conference than he was after this game last year, when he suppressed tears and said anyone who didn't think the Hokies deserved an NCAA spot was "certifiably insane."

"I'm not going there," he said. "You guys can have some other village idiot give you a good story."