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Hansbrough, North Carolina continue rolling

Jan 1, 2009 - 6:17 AM RENO, Nevada (Ticker) -- Tyler Hansbrough and North Carolina continued their dominance on Wednesday.

Hansbrough scored 22 points and Wayne Ellington added 15 as top-ranked North Carolina cruised to another victory, 84-61, over Nevada.

It was the seventh straight 20-point game for Hansbrough, who extended his school's scoring record to 2,375 points. He was 7-of-13 from the floor and 8-of-10 from the foul line.

North Carolina (13-0), which has won all of its games by double digits this season, shot 51 percent (30-of-59) and proved to be no match for another opponent.

The Tar Heels' average margin of victory is 26.4 points this season.

"I feel very fortunate to come into a tough atmosphere and win," UNC coach Roy Williams said. "The thing that is most pleasing is that early in the game they hit us with a pretty good three or four baskets in a row and our guys maintained their poise and kept playing and never got frustrated or flustered at any point. That maturity and that focus we had on the basketball court was really important to us."

Nevada (7-6) hung tough early but North Carolina started to create separation with an 18-5 run, giving the Tar Heels a 30-19 lead with 5:15 left in the first half.

Hansbrough, who was held scoreless for the first 8:07, scored six points late in the half and Ellington connected on a 3-pointer from the right corner to give the Tar Heels a 41-27 advantage at the break.

"We got out in the passing lanes," Ellington said. "We've got some skills to pick up the tempo a little bit. That is the style we want to play. That's how we want to start out every game."

North Carolina kept Nevada at a distance in the second half and further extended its advantage with a 13-6 run to take a 67-44 bulge with 9:13 remaining. Hansbrough capped the run with a three-point play.

"Fatigue was a big part," Wolf Pack coach Mark Fox admitted. "One of the ways that Carolina beats you is that they have great players, great depth, great pressure. Their depth was higher quality than ours tonight."

The deficit was far too much for the Wolf Pack to recover from and Hansbrough made back-to-back shots before coming out of the game with over five minutes left to play as the Tar Heels cruised to the finish.

Freshman Luke Babbit scored 22 points and Armon Johnson had 15 for the Wolf Pack, who shot 35 percent (22-of-63) from the field, including 1-of-10 from the arc.

"We just made too many mistakes," Babbit said. "Against a good team, you can't make that many mistakes."