Return of players propelled North Carolina

DETROIT —  North Carolina didn’t win the national title Monday.

It won the national title last June, in Tar Heels Coach Roy Williams’ office.

You sometimes forget the fragile nature of these championship runs.

Three stars from last year’s Final Four team -- Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green -- all had petitioned for the NBA with the option of pulling their names out before draft day.

The players decided to come back, but Williams needed to know why. He told them not to return if all they wanted was to up their NBA ante.

“Our team was going to be the primary focus,” Williams said in the preseason edition of the Blue Ribbon Yearbook. “It was not going to be about running an offense for each one of them or any one of them to help them to improve their draft status.”

North Carolina didn’t win the national title Monday.

It won when Tyler Hansbrough, last season’s unanimous player of the year, decided to return for his senior season after having a long talk with his grandfather. Hansbrough liked school and, what the heck, he might be able to get out with his degree and a national title.

The decision of four young men, with guidance from their counselors, allowed North Carolina to return its top six scorers and position itself for something special.

Coming back, when you can make millions in the NBA, is risky business.

A stress fracture suffered to his shin forced Hansbrough to sit out three of his team’s first four games this season.

Williams, the coach, faced a different kind of stress.

“How would you like to be coaching a guy who came back to school when he could have gone, and he has a stress-reaction condition?” Williams said after the Tar Heels’ 89-72 win over Michigan State in the NCAA title game Monday night. “And one day, if I make a mistake, he could break his leg. Every agent in America would start smiling because they would say, ‘See, you shouldn’t go back.’ ”

Williams fretted over Hansbrough for weeks, then dealt with a late-season injury to Lawson’s big toe.

Williams brilliantly, as it turned out, sat Lawson out of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and Carolina’s first-round NCAA win against Radford.

Lawson returned to lead a six-game run to glory.

“You add those two together, the expectations, those kinds of adversity, they’re really pretty serious to me,” Williams said of dealing with the Hansbrough and Lawson injuries.

If it all comes together, you get Monday night.

After Florida won the national title in 2006, its starting lineup decided to return to school to win another title -- and did.

Conversely, Stephen Curry returned after leading Davidson to the brink of the Final Four last year. This year, Davidson didn’t even make the tournament.

Did UCLA guard Darren Collison, after playing in three Final Fours, improve his stock by coming back to lead the Bruins to a second-round loss to Villanova?

Hansbrough and Co. took the chance and made it pay off, but it was far from easy. Hansbrough did not match his spectacular junior season production and heard his share of whispers.

“A lot of people doubted me this year,” Hansbrough said after Monday’s victory. “But looking back on things, people can say whatever they want. Because now, I’m part of something special that most people will never get to experience in their lives.”

Should they stay or should they go?

On Tuesday, Oklahoma sophomore Blake Griffin, this season’s Associated Press national player of the year, announced he was turning pro. Other players will ponder similar choices in coming weeks.

It’s easy to look at North Carolina and wonder about USC, a program teetering between something special and something mediocre.

Three key Trojans face the decision that the four Carolina players faced last summer.

If juniors Daniel Hackett and Taj Gibson, along with freshman DeMar DeRozan, all return to USC in Carolina-like unison, USC could make a run to the Final Four.

If they all leave, the Trojans will be lucky to make the NIT.

Should they stay or should they go?

“This is the best decision that I ever made in my life,” North Carolina’s Ellington said after winning the Final Four’s most-outstanding-player award. “To experience this with my teammates and to be here, national champions, it is all worth it.”

The knocks may soon come on USC Coach Tim Floyd’s office door.

Of course, until 3 p.m. last Thursday, it appeared Floyd might be moving his door to Tucson.

Should they stay or should they go?

Is North Carolina the model or the exceptional exception? Think of the possibilities, and the risk.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com