CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The fastest guy on the court here today and the fastest guy on the second-highest scoring team in the country hates to run. Honest. You can look it up.
You could see sophomore point guard Ty Lawson loafing in practices last season and getting tossed out of one of them. You could read his famous quote: “I hate to run for no purpose. If I’m not on the court running, then I’m not running at all.”
Then you could see him riding the bench at Georgia Tech last season after North Carolina coach Roy Williams finally took his 3-wood and sliced him out of the starting lineup.
But look at what happened to North Carolina (34-2) when the Tar Heels lost him to a sprained ankle for a six-game stretch in February. Then look at what he has done in the NCAA Tournament now that he’s nearly healed.
Then realize that, regardless of how many magazine covers, breathless platitudes and awards big man Tyler Hansbrough receives, it’s the 5-foot-11 Lawson who makes the top-ranked Tar Heels go.
He helped carry them to Charlotte, the biggest city in Tar Heel Nation, where they meet fourth-seeded Washington State (26-8) at 5:27 p.m. MDT today in the semifinals of the East Regional.
During North Carolina’s walk-through practice Wednesday, the entire lower bowl of Bobcats Arena was filled with 10,000 screaming Carolina blue-clad Tar Heel fans. They all would have stayed home or traveled to some far-flung regional if Lawson hadn’t sat on that bench in Atlanta and pondered the crossroads in his basketball life.
“Immaturity,” he said. “I probably didn’t think practices were too important. And I went through the motions, but ever since then, I play hard in practice. I had a 100 percent turnaround.”
He’s averaging 12.9 points and 5.3 assists a game, but more important, he engineers a breakneck attack that’s second in the country at 89.9 points a game. If there’s any doubt about his sprained ankle, he quelled it with 42 points and 11 assists against zero turnovers in NCAA Tourney romps over Mount St. Mary’s and Arkansas.
Lawson is one of North Carolina’s five prep All-Americans to whom basketball came easy. At Oak Hill Academy, where he averaged 23.8 points and 9.1 assists, about all he ever did in practice was scrimmage.
“He had never really been challenged because he was so gifted,” Williams said. “That quickness is hard to simulate, so he had always been able to get by people so much easier, and all of the sudden you’re playing in the ACC and it’s not quite as easy.”
When he went down with his sprained ankle, the effect was obvious. North Carolina immediately lost to Duke at home, had to go two overtimes to beat Clemson and beat Virginia by only one. Since he returned March 1, only three teams have come within double digits.
“It took us a game or so to get used to a slower pace because Ty gets you so many easy (baskets),” Williams said. “You wouldn’t like to have to play against the other teams’ set defense. If you play golf, you would like tap-in birdies, as opposed to putting from 20 feet every time.”
Lawson says he’s 95 percent healed, which may even help his psyche. His childhood idol while growing up in Clinton, Md., as the son of an Air Force career man? Allen Iverson, who is excelling for the Nuggets now despite playing with a broken finger.
“He was so small and still controlled the game,” Lawson said of A.I. “He scores, plays tough-nosed defense, plays when he gets hurt. He just had a lot of toughness as a player.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
