The Ty and Ty show

Moments before tip-off off Thursday night’s Virginia-North Carolina game, former UVa star Sean Singletary greeted the crowd with a pre-recorded message that was shown on the video board. Then, to the fans’ surprise, Singletary, clad in an orange polo shirt, walked through the student section and took a courtside seat.

Too bad Singletary couldn’t have kept walking onto the court. Virginia could have used the current Charlotte Bobcats guard. Actually, UVa could have used two or three Singletarys.

North Carolina, behind 28 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks from All-American Tyler Hansbrough and 19 points and nine assists from Ty Lawson, soundly defeated UVa, 83-61, in front of a crowd of 13,811.

“It was going to take a monumental effort,” said Virginia coach Dave Leitao. “The first four minutes of the game were critically important…we were a little tentative. We had a chance to fight back, but in what has been a disturbing pattern, we leaked a little oil toward the end of the first half and that was essentially part of the game.”

UNC, which had lost its first two league games to Boston College and Wake Forest, also got 13 points apiece from Danny Green and Wayne Ellington.

The Tar Heels, who led by 14 at the half, completely took the game over early in the second half, going on a 19-7 run that essentially sunk UVa. Highlights of the run included 3-point plays by Hansbrough and Ellington and a thunderous put-back dunk by Green.

“There was no way [UNC coach Roy Williams] was going to allow them not to play their best basketball,” Leitao said.

Jamil Tucker led Virginia with 12 points. Mike Scott and Calvin Baker had 11 each.

Virginia freshman Sylven Landesberg, who came into the game averaging a team-leading 18.5 points, had one of the quietest games of his brief career. He finished with just two points on 1 of 9 shooting. On several occasions, Landesberg seemed to have trouble getting off his shots against UNC’s long, athletic defenders.

Williams said he employed a similar strategy that he had used against Wake Forest’s Jeff Teague on Sunday. Only this time, it worked a lot better.

“He’s going to be a complete player,” Williams said, “but right now his game is more driving to the hole.”

Lawson, meanwhile, played a lot better than he did against the Demon Deacons.

“I’m not sure that I’ve seen a better orchestrated game than I saw from Ty Lawson,” Leitao said. “The way he managed the game and pushed the ball every single time…he was better than advertised today and the rest [of UNC’s players] kind of filled in from there.”

Virginia (7-7, 1-2 ACC) started the game rocky. After a Landesberg bucket made it 4-2, UVa went nearly the next six minutes without scoring as UNC (14-2, 1-2) took a 14-5 lead. The Tar Heels’ speed and athleticism seemed to throw Virginia way off kilter.

UVa was able to cut the lead to 15-14, but UNC, buoyed by Hansbrough, answered with an 11-2 spurt and led 50-36 at the break.

UVa alternated between man and zone defenses, but it didn’t seem to make much difference as UNC shot 50 percent from the field. A major first-half storyline was at the foul line. UNC was a whopping 17 of 20 (including 12 attempts from Hansbrough), while Virginia was just 5 of 7.

“Needless to say, this feels better than it did in Winston-Salem the other day,” Williams said.