Tar Heel Blue Nation Seeing Red Today, Not Surprisingly

A lot of vitriol flowing around the Web this morning, most of it aimed at Gerald Henderson and Duke. But none seemed more perturbed at the roundhouse elbow to the probiscus of Tyler Hansbrough than the Tar Heels men's cheerleading squad, who were in Henderson's face, dude! You do not want to anger people in matching sweater vests and slacks. Also, the woman at the far right above seems just, shocked. And, are those Latex gloves? ... Anyway, here's a sampling of what people are saying the morning after:

• The worst part of this whole incident is that it overshadowed a brilliant Hansbrough performance. A classic Tar Heel performance in this rivalry. He was unstoppable Sunday. Well, you had to draw blood to stop him, and even then he still wanted a piece of you. Tyler was pushed and hit all game long, and the Blue Devils got away with it. Not anymore. [ HeelsBlog]

• At that point, Hansbrough's instincts kicked in and he did what he'd been doing all day—outfought McRoberts for the rebound. It's encoded in Hansbrough's DNA: ball in air, launch self towards ball. Who would you rather be—the guy who hits Hansbrough in the face or the guy who tells him to stop giving maximum effort on the court? [ Tar Heel Blue]

• Whatever, the Blue Devils have a lot of issues heading into the ACC tournament. Losing arguably their best player of late doesn't help things, though I doubt Hansbrough and his new Owen Wilson-inspired nose feels sorry for them. [ AOL Fanhouse]

• It wasn't a vicious shot. Credit G for defending Duke's goal with seconds left. Also no one wants to see anyone get hurt, but it's a physical game and Tyler was mixing it up inside trying to score with seconds left, his team up double digits (not a classy thing to do) and was accidentally chopped down like a tree in the forrest by a freshman playing hard for his team. [ Raven85, Devils Illustrated]

• I've always disliked Duke's basketball program, but I've never been as heated as I was after Gerald Henderson's elbow to the face of Tyler Hansbrough in the closing seconds of UNC's 13-point win. The elbow had me upset enough, and I would've liked to see Hansbrough retaliate, but I guess the kid just has too much class for that. [ Truth About Duke]

• Henderson's sloppy, out of control play exemplifies the problems with this year's team. What a shameful, embarrassing performance by our basketball team. [ Commenter at the Duke Chronicle]

• Oh, and one more thing: Duke sucks balls. And yes, I'm 12 years old. [ Heels, Sox & Steelers]