Enough Talk, Cal And Unc Ready For Battle

After a week of talking about subjects they would have preferred not to discuss, North Carolina and California are ready for a war under the boards tonight in the East Regional semifinals in Syracuse, N.Y.

The Tar Heels (26-6) spent all last weekend dancing around the subject of coach Dean Smith’s record-setting 877th victory.

The Bears (23-8) had to talk about playing without injured conference player of the year Ed Gray with the emphasis centering on his replacement, tight end-turned-power forward Tony Gonzalez.

The record is old news for North Carolina, and Gonzalez is now being referred to as a basketball player first.

The talk Thursday was mostly about the game that will send one of them to the regional final against either No. 6 seed Louisville or No. 10 Texas.

“Cal is the best rebounding team we’ve seen,” Smith said. “Life is full of trade-offs. When Gray went down, Gonzalez gave them four experienced, physical players.”

The Bears are 4-1 since Gray, who averaged 24.8 points, broke his foot.

“We have concentrated more on rebounding since Ed got hurt and we outrebounded three of the last four teams we played by 10 or more,” Cal shooting guard Randy Duck said. “Rebounding is another opportunity to score, maybe even closer to the basket or to get the ball against a scrambling defense.”

Costly win

Minnesota’s victory over Clemson in the Midwest Regional semifinals might prove to be very costly.

The Gophers won 90-84 in double overtime to advance to the regional finals, but point guard Eric Harris was knocked out of the game with what was thought to be a separated right shoulder.

Grease fuels Chattanooga

Grease may be a recipe for making it to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament.

Tennessee-Chattanooga dines on scrambled eggs, grits, hash browns, ham, bacon, sausage and biscuits before tournament games, no matter what time it is.

The ritual started out as an affordable alternative to expensive hotel food when the Mocs went to Greensboro, N.C., for the Southern Conference tournament.

But after eating the hearty food before five straight wins, coach Mack McCarthy got superstitious about it.

So, even though the Mocs won’t play Providence until 7:30 p.m. PST today, they will find some restaurant in Birmingham, Ala., to fulfill their dietary needs.

A real joker

Each stop on the tour brings some new material, or old material with an updated twist for Pete Gillen.

“The five starters dislike me and the four guys on the bench hate me,” the Providence coach said. “Then they switch roles.”