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GREENSBORO -- North Carolina point guard Ty Lawson, owner of the most discussed toe in sports since football kickers approached the ball straight on, ran LSU out of the Greensboro Coliseum, 84-70, on Saturday night.

Most of the assembled masses exhaled in joy. Two members of the Greensboro Sports Commission high-fived on their way off the floor, in fact.

But the best news for Carolina, which advances to play Gonzaga on Friday, was not Lawson's healed hallucis bone; it was the body of offensive work by the Tar Heels.

You want efficiency? Digest this one: In the final 16:52, the Heels attempted shots on 21 trips downcourt. They scored at least one point on every one of them.

They were 15-for-21 from the floor in that span, and every miss was followed by an offensive board. On five possessions, they committed a turnover, but all five occurred before they could get off a shot.

On their final possession of the evening, they did nothing and allowed time to expire on a 14-point win that really wasn't that easy.

To put it another way, LSU did not collect a defensive rebound for nearly 17 minutes. Since the institution of the shot clock two decades ago, how often has that happened to anybody?

"Everybody concentrated on boxing out," said UNC center Tyler Hansbrough, who had eight boards. "Even the guards got in there."

Wayne Ellington offered the best example thereof. LSU, which scored on its first eight possessions of the second half and turned a nine-point halftime deficit into a 54-49 lead in no time, found itself down 67-63 as the clock rolled under seven minutes. The Tigers elicited a desperately needed and rare Carolina miss, but when Ellington tracked down the ball in the deep left corner and batted it out to Danny Green, the coliseum was poised to reach Motley Crue levels in the sound department. Green did not disappoint, hitting a 3-pointer.

The Tigers would not get closer.

"You know, we just couldn't get ourselves in a situation where we could make a play and get a stop," LSU coach Trent Johnson said. "We just couldn't get anything done."

Lawson was the show's choreographer. In his return to action after missing the ACC tournament and Thursday's first-round flogging of Radford, he played 31 minutes and committed zero turnovers. That's the sixth time this season Lawson has been mistake-free for an entire game. In those half-dozen contests, he has dished out 50 total assists and averaged 28 minutes of playing time.

Most pleasing to coach Roy Williams, however, had to be Lawson's assertiveness in the second half. Inquiring minds wondered at halftime if the junior had lost a step or two because of the toe injury. Lawson saw the Tigers start the second half ablaze and put the speculation to rest.

"When they made that run, I decided I had to try something," he said.

Three times that entailed taking the ball himself 50 or more feet in the immediate aftermath of an LSU turnover. In the second half, the Tigers gave away the ball seven times, and five of them became Tar Heels layups or Tigers fouls in transition.

"I kidded the little fella," Williams said of Lawson. "I called him 'Dennis the Menace,' and that's exactly who he is. But I've never seen 'Dennis the Menace' as tough as I saw him today."

And Williams is pretty sure he hasn't seen one of his teams frustrate the opponent so thoroughly for so long.

"We didn't get rebounds, and we let them run the floor," LSU forward Tasmin Mitchell said.

LSU (27-8)

FG FT Reb

Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PTS

Mitchell 31 8-14 2-2 2-6 4 3 18

Johnson 31 4-6 0-0 1-6 0 4 8

MThornton 35 10-22 0-0 4-6 1 4 25

Spencer 34 3-9 0-0 1-3 2 1 8

Temple 38 2-8 1-2 4-7 4 3 6

Graham 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Bass 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Martin 11 1-3 0-0 0-0 1 0 3

Kinsley 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Warren 1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Farrer 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

QThornton 13 1-1 0-2 2-3 0 1 2

Totals 200 29-64 3-6 16-33 12 16 70

Percentages: FG .453, FT .500.

Three-point goals: 9-22, .409 (M.Thornton 5-11, Spencer 2-6, Martin 1-2, Temple 1-3).

Team rebounds: 2.

Blocks: 4 (Johnson 4).

Turnovers: 15 (Johnson 5, Mitchell 3, M.Thornton 3, Spencer 2, Temple 2).

Steals: 5 (Temple 2, M.Thornton, Kinsley, Mitchell).

NORTH CAROLINA (30-4)

FG FT Reb

Min M-A M-A O-T A PF PTS

Green 32 3-10 1-1 2-6 2 1 8

Thompson 15 3-3 0-0 1-1 0 2 6

Hansbrough 34 6-11 3-6 3-8 1 3 15

Lawson 31 7-13 7-7 1-1 6 0 23

Ellington 37 9-16 2-2 1-3 4 0 23

Frasor 17 0-0 0-0 0-2 0 2 0

Drew II 3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Watts 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Davis 25 4-6 1-2 1-7 0 1 9

Copeland 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

Zeller 4 0-0 0-0 0-1 0 0 0

Totals 200 32-59 14-18 11-32 13 9 84

Percentages: FG .542, FT .778.

Three-point goals: 6-13, .462 (Ellington 3-6, Lawson 2-3, Green 1-4).

Team rebounds: 3.

Blocks: 5 (Green 2, Davis 2, Ellington).

Turnovers: 10 (Hansbrough 3, Ellington 2, Frasor, Watts, Thompson, Davis, Green).

Steals: 11 (Frasor 3, Lawson 2, Ellington 2, Green 2, Hansbrough 2).

LSU 29 41 -- 70

North Carolina 38 46 -- 84

A--22,479. Officials--Karl Hess, Pat Driscoll, Doug Sirmons.