UNC held their annual basketball banquet on Thursday night honoring the players who helped bring to Chapel Hill a fifth NCAA title. The banquet also included senior speeches, of which Mike Copeland stole the show apparently and some crying from Roy Williams. Here is a quick rundown of the awards:
Co-MVP: Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough
Best Defender: Bobby Frasor
Most Inspirational: Marcus Ginyard
Most Improved: Ed Davis and Wayne Ellington
Scholar Athlete Award: Jack Wooten
Butch Bennett Award(exemplifying determination, sportsmanship and sacrifice): Tyler Zeller
Hansbrough, Frasor and Green were also named permanant team captains.
No word was given on whether Lawson and/or Ellington would return. Roy indicated they were in the middle of the process and he was gathering information. Roy also said he was thankful to have had Lawson and Ellington for three years and will be happy with whatever decision they make. Since the deadline is a week from Sunday, I expect we will know something next week. UNC usually holds a press conference for players choosing to enter the draft early which is to say if we get a press conference, we know someone is leaving.
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I hate to sound so corny and trite, but the awards banquet got me thinking again of what a great group of seniors we have, how much they matured as players and as men during their time in Chapel Hill, and how fortunate all of us were to have been able to go along for the ride.
i couldn’t agree with you more. They had the NBA money in their faces but like real men they came back to lead us to our 6th championship. You won’t see that much anymore. It’s always about the money.
Over their 4 years, the Seniors were 25-7 on the road. That is amazing…
When I was watching TV on Sunday and Monday before the title game, people were talking about it being tough for our team because they would be facing one of the largest opposing crowds in NCAA history. I laughed.
WB – Ford Field got more silent than Saint Patrick’s Cathedral at any given midnight in less than ten minutes.
I still can’t get over how well we fared with them in 2005-2006. I know it was awfully beneficial having Reyshawn, Noel, & Thomas.
We knew it would be a down year, but it wasn’t. They set the template for how we would achieve going forward with the new class of 06-07. We haven’t looked back since 04-05. Gotta thank those 05-06 freshmen for that, as they played like a team that didn’t want to be known as the filler till a new class came in. They played with a chip on their shoulder because we were expected to be nothing with all of those nba draftees leaving after the championship, and they just weren’t going to take being the “scrubs or fillers”.
I had the pleasure of being in Memphis and Detroit. It was loud at Ford Field, and then the game began.
This was a great group. With the return next year of Ginyard, all of them will have played four years. My fondest memory was being in Chapel Hill for the game at Duke in 2006. I was in a restaurant/bar on Rosemary Street. A long table full of obnoxious Duke fans were loud and making comments about kicking our ***. An early lead motivated one of them to chide us on our lack of cheering. As the tide turned, and we built our need, I clapped my hands in his face and shouted, “Do you hear us now?” He, half my age and twice my weight, had nothing to say. He eventually retired to a table in the corner with nothing to say.