North Carolina's Leslie McDonald earns Athlon Player of the Week honors
McDonald's Tobacco Road rival earns Freshman of the Week
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When North Carolina’s season started, P.J. Hariston and Leslie McDonald were in NCAA suspension limbo.
McDonald, though, was the clear No. 2 anytime the two suspensions were mentioned. Now that he’s been in the lineup for weeks, McDonald has proven himself one of the key missing pieces for the Tar Heels’ season.
The senior guard led North Carolina with 21 points in Thursday’s 74-66 win over Duke and added 19 points in Saturday’s rout of Wake Forest to earn Athlon Sports National Player of the Week honors.
Can North Carolina finish what it started a season ago?
Kentucky earned a chance to avenge a regular season loss in the NCAA Tournament.
Nine ACC teams earned NCAA Tournament bids. Only North Carolina remains after the first weekend.
The departures of Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson led many to believe that North Carolina would take a step backwards in 2016-17. Fortunately, that has not been the case. The Tar Heels won their second consecutive outright ACC regular season championship, and once again find themselves well positioned as a No. 1 seed in the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
Making history typically isn’t the easiest thing to do. Villanova made it look like child’s play Saturday night in the Final Four against Oklahoma. The Wildcats demolished the Sooners 95-51, setting an NCAA Tournament record for largest margin of victory in a Final Four game behind a near-perfect offensive performance.
