Top-ranked Tar Heels far, away the best around

Right. This setting. Ford Field will be home of the 2009 Final Four, and if you ask me, the Tar Heels could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if they'd just cut down the nets Wednesday night.

They're that good. They're so good, I don't see them losing this season, and Izzo sees just one weakness. And it's a small weakness. And it's about to be strengthened.

"I'm sure Roy was not satisfied with their defensive effort in the first half," Izzo said. "If there's a weakness -- ha, a small weakness -- maybe that's it. And Ginyard can solve that."

Otherwise, the Tar Heels are better than they were a year ago when they were considered, up until the Final Four, the best team in the country. Hansbrough has added another dimension to his game -- near-perfect foul shooting. After making all 13 free throws Wednesday, he is 41-for-44 on the season. Imagine a center leading the country in foul shooting. Preposterous. But at 93 percent, Hansbrough is right up there.

Lawson, already among the quickest and strongest point guards in the country, has fixed his so-so outside shot. After shooting 35.8 percent as a freshman and sophomore on 3-pointers, he is 12-for-22 -- 54.5 percent -- this season. Danny Green (19-for-36) also is shooting better than 50 percent from the newly extended college three-point line.

Freshman Ed Davis is a double-double candidate at power forward. The guy he fills in for, starter Deon Thompson, is the fourth-best player on his team but one of the best 20 or so players in the country.

There were mitigating factors for the severity of this beatdown, which Izzo was (disappointingly) only too happy to point out. Again. And again. And again. This was Michigan State's fourth game in seven days, and the Spartans were without injured big man Goran Suton. Izzo listed a few more things, but I stopped listening. All I could hear was a violin.

And all I could see was Hansbrough playing on a sore ankle. Ginyard not playing at all. The Tar Heels playing in a hostile environment.

The Tar Heels winning by 35 anyway.

You can have Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia. Give me Tiger Woods any day of the week.