FACTS & STATS: Site: Charlotte Bobcats Arena (20,200) -- Charlotte, North Carolina. Television: Local. Home Record: FSU 13-4, UNC 14-2. Away Record: FSU 4-6, UNC 13-0. Neutral Record: FSU 2-3, UNC 2-0. Conference Record: FSU 7-9, UNC 14-2. Series Record: North Carolina leads, 38-8.

GAME NOTES: The nation's top-ranked team begins play in the 2008 ACC Tournament today as North Carolina does battle with the ninth-seeded Florida State Seminoles in Charlotte. Florida State began tournament action with a 70-60 decision over Wake Forest in yesterday's opening round. Leonard Hamilton's Seminoles finished the regular season with a decent 18-13 overall record, but struggled in conference with a 7-9 ledger. However, FSU played well down the stretch, winning four if its last five games and clearly carried that momentum into the opening round of this event. North Carolina has 16 ACC Tournament titles to its credit, as the team is tied with Duke for the most crowns captured. The Tar Heels are 80-37 all-time in this event and won the title last season by knocking off NC State in the championship game. North Carolina is 29-2 overall, and the team captured the ACC regular season title by beating Duke in Durham on March 8th. That win was the eighth in a row for what is sure to be a confident team. North Carolina beat Florida State by double figures in both regular-season meetings, and the Tar Heels own a decided 38-8 advantage in the all-time series.

Heading into this tournament, four players for Florida State were averaging double figures in the scoring column. Toney Douglas is an All-ACC Third Team performer who leads the league in steals to go along with nearly 16 ppg. Jason Rich, Ralph Mims and Uche Echefu are all effective offensive contributors as well. In the opening-round game against Wake Forest, Rich shined with 21 points, including 17 in the second half. Mims added 16 points for the 'Noles, who limited the Demon Deacons to 3-of-17 shooting from three-point range. Florida State connected on 45 percent of its field goal attempts and managed to knock off Wake after losing both games to the Deacs during the regular season.

Tyler Hansbrough is certainly deserving of any national player of the year awards that may come or have already come his way. The standout forward for North Carolina is scoring 23.1 ppg on 54.3 percent shooting from the floor, and he is ripping down 10.5 ppg as well. Wayne Ellington checks in with 16.4 ppg, and he is a 40.9 percent shooter from three-point range. Point guard Ty Lawson brings a tremendous amount of quickness to the floor, and he is scoring 12.9 ppg to go along with 131 assists. Danny Green rounds out a foursome of double-digit scorers with 12.0 ppg, and he can get it done at both ends of the floor. UNC is scoring 89.7 ppg while limiting the opposition to 72.8 ppg. The Tar Heels are outrebounding foes by 11.6 rpg, and the fact that the top four scorers mentioned above are all shooting better than 80 percent from the free- throw line is staggering.

North Carolina is poised for a run at the national championship, and it is hard to imagine an upset in the quarterfinal round of this league tournament. Hansbrough and company will jump on top early and never look back.

Predicted Outcome

North Carolina 83, Florida State 66