ATLANTA—The ACC Tournament notebook …

Three contenders emerged for Most Valuable Player of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.

North Carolina guard Joseph Forte shot himself out of contention quickly in Sunday’s championship game.

Duke guard Jason Williams sparked a first-half run that assured the award would belong to a Blue Devil, then sprained his ankle in the second half and headed to the bench.

That left senior forward Shane Battier, who stayed in the game until the final minute, his team leading by more than 20 points. He came out to a huge ovation from the Duke faithful, enjoying the 79-53 victory in which he scored 20 points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

“It was a very special day for me,”Battier said. “I’ve had a lot of success in this league and a lot of great battles. I don’t think I could have ended it any better way than to beat Carolina in the ACC Championship and receive the MVP.”

Joining Battier on the all-tournament first team were Williams and Forte, along with Duke’s Mike Dunleavy and Maryland’s Juan Dixon.

Second-team honors went to Tar Heels Jason Capel and Brendan Haywood, Duke’s Nate James, Georgia Tech’s Alvin Jones and Maryland’s Lonny Baxter.

Battier was especially pleased with taking MVP honors because he’s struggled in the event in the past. The career 52-percent shooter in league games, averaging 14.7 points, came into this year’s event scoring 10.6 points on 47-percent shooting in his nine tournament games.

This year he averaged 18.6 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, with eight steals and seven blocks.

“This is one of my best achievements I can share with my teammates,”Battier said. “This tournament is three days of grueling basketball. A situation like this doesn’t sink in until you’re an old man.”

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Big number: Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski became the 24th coach to reach the 600-victory mark thanks to the three wins in the tournament.

The milestone got lost in the shuffle of the tournament victory, however. Williams didn’t even know about the milestone.

“Congratulations to the head-guy!”Williams said nonchalantly, his smile drawing laughs before he turned serious. “Coach means a lot, he brings so much enthusiasm and lets you know how much pride and dignity Duke has.”

Dunleavy also downplayed Krzyzewski’s accomplishment.

“I think the ACCChampionship was the first thought for us,”he said with a laugh. “I think it was for him, too. It’s just another milestone for him.”

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Touché! Dunleavy was talking to reporters in the locker room after the game when Williams came up and started harassing him, trying to make him laugh.

So when Dunleavy was asked how it felt to win the ACCTournament, he responded, with a sideways glance at Williams, “Well, it’s great to get out of here with all our main players healthy.”

Williams groaned and laughed, then moved on to share Dunleavy’s clever rejoinder with a teammate.

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KODAK moment: When James climbed up the ladder to cut down a piece of the net, he hesitated at the top step as he turned to the crowd and smiled.

“Last year when I cut the nets down, I didn’t stay up there long enough for my parents to get a good picture,”he explained.

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i wish i knew … There’s no doubt the Blue Devils can shoot. One look at the team’s 40-percent accuracy from the 3-point line and 49-percent effort from the rest of the field tells that story.

But why does Duke struggle at times from the free-throw line? Don’t ask head coach Mike Krzyzewski. He doesn’t know.

“We’ve been so sporadic with our free-throw shooting,”Krzyzewski said. “Overall we’ve been about a 72-percent free-throwing shooting team, but we’ve either been 84 or 60.”

For the year, Duke is hitting at 70 percent from the foul line, and Krzyzewski’s analysis is right on. Over a four-game stretch in January, the Devils hit 90-of-111 attempts, 81 percent.

But in the regular-season loss to Carolina, the Devils missed 14 free throws, shooting less than 50 percent. Against Maryland in Saturday’s tournament semifinal game, Duke went only 18-for-31 and had to hang on for an 84-82 win.

“We got into a stall there during the game, and I thought that contributed to their comeback,”Krzyzewski said.

Sunday against Carolina, it would’ve taken a lot of missed free throws to make it close, but Duke still struggled. The Blue Devils made just 18-of-32 freebies (56 percent) and still won by 26 points.

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Let’s come back: The ACC accomplished its goal for the four-day tournament, setting the NCAA record for attendance with 182,525 fans.

With the exception of Thursday night’s play-in game between Clemson and Florida State, the massive Georgia Dome was filled for every session. The fans weren’t always loud — there were times during the UNC-Georgia Tech game Saturday when you could hear Ronald Curry calling the plays — but the players, coaches and fans seemed to enjoy the new venue.

“It was a good year for the ACCto go to a dome. We’ve had some sensational basketball here,”Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s been great, and the players have really responded. I think the ACC hit a grand slam with this one.”

One of the biggest questions around the league prior to arriving in Atlanta was if a dome could match the high-energy atmospheres of 20,000 seat basketball arenas. Mission accomplished, Krzyzewski said.

“I think the ACC has done an amazing job of creating a Final Four atmosphere here. I don’t think until you come down could you realize the ambience of the whole tournament,”the Duke coach said. “I think people walking to a game is kind of a Final Four atmosphere. You see so many colors all around, people with their banners …”

And don’t forget the most impressive testament to the ACCfan — the stretch limousine painted Virginia orange, with “Wahoo Limo” emblazoned down the side in brilliant blue letters.

The Wahoo-mobile will have to wait a while to re-visit the Georgia Dome, though. The ACCTournament returns to Carolina the next three years — Charlotte next year, then Greensboro the next two — and will visit Washington, D.C., Greensboro again, Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte before returning to Atlanta in 2009.

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Coach of the year? Georgia Tech head coach PaulHewitt wasn’t in the best of moods after his squad lost to Carolina in Saturday’s semifinal.

So when asked once again, albeit in a round-about way, of how he was able to get his Yellow Jackets to play so well this season, he tried once and for all to set the record straight.

“It’s not coaching, guys. It’s not coaching,”Hewitt emphasized. “I read so much stuff … It’s a group of young men who play hard, play unselfishly, play together.

“It is good players who know how to play the game together.”

Hewitt, who led the Yellow Jackets to a 17-12 record and No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament — the Jackets’ first bid since 1995 — is still the leading candidate for ACC Coach of the Year despite his protestations.

His chief rival is Tar Heel Matt Doherty, who became the first rookie head coach to win the ACC regular-season championship.

“He’s had a tougher job than I had,”Hewitt said of Doherty. “Inheriting a program with great expectations, a team that has gone to the Final Four two of the last three years and convincing guys who have had a lot of success to change what they’re doing is much harder than what I’ve inherited.”

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PASSING FANCY: Three of Mike Dunleavy’s 24 points in the title game came on an amazing through-the-legs pass from Jason Williams, who had raced up court in transition, then dropped the ball off to the trailer.

“I was ready for it, although not through his legs,”Dunleavy said. “I was just glad I could finish the highlight off the right way.”

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MILESTONE: UNC junior Kris Lang scored only three points in Saturday’s semifinal win over Georgia Tech, but it was enough to push him over 1,000 points for his career.

Lang is the 53rd Tar Heel and the fourth member of the current squad to reach the plateau. Brendan Haywood, Joseph Forte and Jason Capel are also 1,000-point scorers.

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moving on: UNC’s semifinal win over Georgia Tech was probably a foregone conclusion, because the Tar Heels have won their last 13 ACC tourney semifinal games. The last loss for the Heels in the semis was to Duke in 1984, coach Matt Doherty’s senior season.

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CONSISTENCY: UNC’s win in this year’s semis gave it 25 wins for the 27th time in its history.

The Heels have also been steady in the ACC Tournament. They haven’t missed out on participating in the finals in back-to-back seasons since 1984. In 1984 it was a Duke-Maryland final and in ‘83 it was an N.C. State-Virginia championship game.

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MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES: Despite Maryland’s tough loss in the semifinals to Duke, most everyone considers the talented Terps a threat to bounce back and make a run for the national championship.

“This could be a year that you see multiple ACC teams in the Final Four,” said Duke’s Shane Battier.

That hasn’t happened in a while. The last time two ACC teams made it to the Final Four site was in 1991 when national champ Duke and North Carolina represented the league. Duke and Georgia Tech were both in the Final Four in 1990. Both lost to champ UNLV.

The odds are good that at least one ACC team will be on hand for April’s festivities in Minneapolis. At least one ACC’s team’s been in the Final Four in 12 of the past 13 years.

The lone miss was in 1996 when six ACC teams — Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, UNC, Maryland and Wake Forest — made the field, but fell short. As you probably heard, six ACC teams are in the field this year.

The last time the ACC came close to producing half the Final Four was in 1998 when UNC, No. 1 seed in the East, made it to San Antonio, but Duke, No. 1 in the South, lost 86-84 to eventual national champ Kentucky.        

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STATMAN: South Rowan’s Jason Corriher, now a student at N.C. State, was part of the media relations crew for the tournament.