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Hansbrough stellar in UNC win March 30: Tyler Hansbrough once again proved he is an invaluable member of the UNC squad.

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Hansbrough essentially closed the door on Louisville on the next possession. The 6-9 junior got the ball on the left wing with the shot clock winding down, then pump-faked to get Clark up in the air and step in for another jumper over Padgett. The ball swished cleanly through while Hansbrough was knocked to the ground, pushing the lead to 75-66 with 1:33 left.

“I’ve been playing with him my whole college career,” said junior Danny Green, who had 11 points despite needing four stitches to close a cut above his left eye late in the first half. “A lot of shots that he takes and makes, it still shocks me to this day. I’m like, ’How did he get that off and how did he make it?’ He’s been doing it his whole career.”

The baskets left Louisville’s players in similar disbelief.

“You see the guy as a junior and he’s getting his jersey retired and you’re like, ’Why?”’ said Terrence Williams, who had 14 points for Louisville. “Then you play against him and you say, ’That’s why.’ He’ll go through the floor just to get a rebound. He’s a great player.”

The Tar Heels went 8-for-8 at the foul line to seal it in the final minute. That steady hand was quite a change last year’s loss to the Hoyas, in which they missed 22 of 23 shots and let an 11-point lead slip away in the 96-84 overtime loss.

Jerry Smith scored 17 points to lead Louisville, which shot 53 percent and gave the Tar Heels all they could handle after halftime.

“We played exactly the style of play we needed to win,” Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. “(It’s) very difficult sometimes for people to admit when the other team is better. But we’re a very good basketball team this year, very good, and they were better tonight.”

Lawson — back at full speed after spraining his left ankle in February — had nine assists while operating as a one-man press break against the Cardinals’ full-court defense all night.

The Tar Heels shot 53 percent to become the first team to shoot better than 50 percent against the Cardinals. The win allowed Williams to move past Pitino and Bob Knight and into a tie with Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp and Louisville’s Denny Crum with six Final Four appearances, which is fourth most all-time.

The game came hours after the Louisville and North Carolina women’s teams played in the NCAA round of 16 in New Orleans. In that game, the top-seeded Tar Heels rallied from an 18-point deficit to beat the fourth-seeded Cardinals 78-74.

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Mark J. Terrill / AP

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