Barack-O-Brackets Forgot About Lawson

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Risking criticism that he acts more like a wannabe sports-talk caller than a fix-the-nation savior, President Obama -- Barry from Bethesda? -- filled out a March Madness bracket this week. Like the rest of us, he made a mad mess of the thing, reassessing and scratching out names. One of his original decisions, for instance, involved North Carolina losing to Pitt in the Final Four and Louisville winning the national championship.

But then, somehow, Obama went with a repeat hunch. Even though Carolina blew it for him last year, losing to Kansas in the semifinals, he's picking the Tar Heels again. "Now, for the Tar Heels who are watching, I picked you all last year -- you let me down," Obama said as he finished his selections for ESPN.com. "This year, don't embarrass me in front of the nation, all right? I'm counting on you. I still got those sneakers you guys gave me."Last April, Obama played a pickup game with the Carolina team in Chapel Hill. Tyler Hansbrough let him slip by for an uncontested layup, which Obama missed, and it was pretty much a rough day for the future commander-in-chief. "Those guys move very fast,'' he raved at the time. In particular, the fastest player was point guard Ty Lawson, who has matured over the last year to become the ACC Player of the Year and arguably the most important player of March. Maybe Obama missed this part of the Carolina equation as he was proposing his $3.6 trillion budget. But Lawson, the head of the monster, has an injured right big toe.

And he's probably not going to play Thursday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, which means we're going on two weeks since he jammed the toe while running into a basket support during a March 6 practice. This is a problem, Mr. President, and quite possibly a lingering crisis that mars Carolina's shot at a championship in a season the Heels once were expected to dominate. Not only that, he evoked a response from Carolina's rival coach, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, who said, "Somebody said that we're not in President Obama's Final Four, and as much as I respect what he's doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets.''

Ouch. And I think he was serious, which only will fan the Duke-Carolina flames, seeing how the president appears to be a Carolina fan. For sure, Obama should have consulted with coach Roy Williams, a gloom-and-doom artist who didn't try to hide the in-house concern Wednesday. "There is a huge, huge probability that Ty will not play,'' Williams said of the opener against Radford, champion of the Big South Conference. "He was not able to do the things that I wanted him to do in practice. So some things would have to change drastically before I would change my mind on that. If that's what y'all wanted to know, we can probably leave now.''

Not a chance. What exactly is Lawson doing in practice, if anything? "He hasn't done anything live,'' Williams said. "I mean, he went through the dummy stuff. And the shooting stuff. But he hasn't done anything live where you're playing against anybody.''


Wasn't the toe supposed to be healing by now? "Before the Duke game a week and a half ago, he says, 'Coach, I'm a lot better, I can go.' So I checked with the doctors and they said, 'Yeah, the swelling is gone, blah, blah, blah,' '' Wiliams said. "So we went out and our trainer watched him move around before the Duke game. He played, and he wasn't very bad. But you know, the next day, the swelling just surprised everybody. And the extent of the swelling surprised everybody. So it took a certain number of days to get the swelling down. Then the soreness is still there, the pain is still there. So I think it has surprised everybody so far.''

On Tuesday, Williams said he was more discouraged than at any point since the injury occurred. Is he at least slightly more encouraged now? "No,'' he said.

Don't dismiss this as a vintage boo-hoo act by Roy, either. The players, too, are anxious about their floor leader. "He's not the Ty that we've all seen,'' said senior point guard Bobby Frasor, who has no reason to lie as the player who will inherit much of Lawson's playing time. "That's just being honest.''

"You can see it as well," Wayne Ellington said. "Without Ty out there, there's a whole different look to our team. We play a lot more halfcourt. We're not getting up and down as much."

Not to draw too dramatic a parallel, but this is vaguely like asking Big Brown to complete the Triple Crown on a cracked front hoof. That's how vital Lawson is to the Carolina machine. When he's healthy and leading the fast break, this team is breathtaking to watch, with his penetration creating open shots for three-point specialists Ellington and Danny Green. Without him, the perimeter shots are contested, and Carolina is half a team. Sure, he'll eventually play again, probably on Saturday in the second round inside an ancient arena about 75 minutes from campus. But how well will he play? And will his status continue to be so uncertain that it alters the team's chemistry, preparation and focus? When he spoke to a media mob Wednesday, Lawson wore a soft brace on a heavily taped right foot and was aided by a steel plate in his shoe. He's downing painkillers, using special anesthetic creams, icing the toe and having it massaged.

"It's painful when I'm cutting back and forth,'' Lawson said. "When I'm running straight, it's not as bad, and I can deal with it. But cutting back and forth, that's when the most pain comes. Last week, when we were in the ACC tournament, I was just thinking, 'When is this going to get better?' It's been like two weeks, and it's still kind of tough to run on. It's just draining to keep feeling like I'm doing all this stuff, getting up early in the morning for pool workouts and all this, and it's still not getting better."

I believe him. Obama should, too. Think I'm a Chicken Little in a state where there's a Chick-fil-A every two blocks? Consider how out of sorts the Heels looked without him in the ACC tournament, where Florida State bounced them and forced them to the South Region, where they're the most vulnerable of the No. 1 seeds. "People say, 'It's just his toe,' but it's extremely important," Williams said. "Because to play basketball, you have to be able to run, you have to be able to change directions, you have to be able to be able to be explosive, you have to be able to jump -- and you can't do all of those from your heel. I mean, with Ty, we average 91(points) a game. And (at the ACC tournament), we averaged 74. We didn't get as many easy baskets on the break with his ability to push the ball, his ability to penetrate and draw people to him and pitch.''


The diehard Carolina folks -- you know, the good ol' boys who show up in Greensboro the night before for cigar-and-whiskey binging -- think Lawson should have the toe injected with a numbing local anesthetic, as he did before the March 8 victory over Duke that clinched the ACC regular-season title. Williams won't have it. "I told him I didn't want him doing that again. I'm not going to do that to a youngster,'' he said. "Let's make sure we understand one thing: I'm not criticizing anybody. But I'm old-fashioned. I'm crazy, whatever. I don't see that happening. I had to take a shot Dec. 7 in 2005 to coach the St. Louis game that night, and it was the same thing. They gave me a shot in my right cheek at 2 p.m. and my left cheek at 7 p.m., and I coached the game -- and it was great.''

He managed a laugh, as did some of Lawson's teammates. "I always joke with Ty about it: 'Man, there's nothing wrong with you. You've got a jammed toe,' " Ellington said. But when Ellington's shooting percentage slumps without Lawson, try to detect any smiles.

If Carolina basketball is religion, then Ty Lawson's toe is the anti-Christ. About the only people happy about it in these parts are Duke fans, whose team also was placed in Greensboro in what smacks as a pretty cool prank. Can these two sets of fans tolerate each other for three days without parking-lot smackdowns? "I hope our fans will give them a little trash talk,'' Ellington said.

"I'm not really sure our fans and their fans are really on the same page all the time,'' Hansbrough said. "So there may be some trash talk there.''

The Heels won't be losing to Radford, despite the hulking presence of 6-foot-11, 260-pound Artsiom Parakhouski, a.k.a. the Beast of Belarus. "We didn't know they called him the Beast of Belarus, but we do know he's a good inside player,'' said Hansbrough, who will have to deal with him. "We'll have to be prepared for him.'' If, by some apocalyptic chance, Carolina became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA tournament, Arby's would give away free roast-beef sandwiches to the national masses Monday.

"We're not going to be the No. 1 seed that loses,'' Elllington said. "But if Arby's wants to give out free sandwiches anyway, I might go get one.''

All in all, they'd rather have a healthy point guard. Obama is powerful, but no presidential order can heal a bad big toe. I sense Barack-O-Brackets is going to be wrong on Carolina.

Again.