The ACC officially got shorter on talent Thursday night, courtesy of the NBA draft.

Four of the league’s top forwards — Georgia Tech’s Derrick Favors (No. 3, by the New Jersey Nets), Wake Forest’s Al-Farouq Aminu (No. 8, Los Angeles Clippers), North Carolina’s Ed Davis (No. 13, Toronto Raptors) and Clemson's Trevor Booker (No. 23, traded from Minnesota to Washington)  — were all chosen in the  first round at Madison Square Garden.

In addition, 6-feet-6 Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez was chosen 28th overall by the Memphis Grizzlies -- striding out of the stands to hug commissioner David Stern.

University of North Carolina head coach Roy Williams has a good feeling about how former Tar Heels forward Ed Davis will do in tonight's NBA draft.

In his annual summer press conference, Williams said Davis' wrist is 100 percent and through his workouts with NBA teams it has not been an issue. Davis has not played in any competitive situations, though, and worked out for NBA teams individually.

Virginia Tech junior guard Malcolm Delaney opted to submit his name into the NBA draft, but he has not hired an agent.

He hopes to get the feedback he needs from pro scouts and NBA teams before deciding
whether his NBA stock is high enough or if he should return to Blacksburg, Va. for a final season of college basketball. But with a new, shortened period to withdraw his name and return to school, the question now is, does he really have enough time to get that feedback?

North Carolina sophomore forward Ed Davis, who declared for the NBA Draft on Monday, wasn’t born when the pros began tapping the ACC for promising underclass players.

The process actually started in 1972 when the Tar Heels' lost first-year star and ACC Tournament MVP Robert McAdoo to the Buffalo Braves.

Following are my lists of the ACC's best first- and second-year players to leave early for the NBA draft.

When North Carolina basketball fans got their first glimpse of Ed Davis
as a freshman in 2008-09, they could hardly be blamed for thinking the
next Sam Perkins finally had arrived on campus.

In four seasons during the early 1980s, the 6-foot-9, 225-pound
Perkins helped the Tar Heels win a national championship (1982) and
compile a 48-8 regular-season ACC record.

With his left wrist still healing in a soft cast, North Carolina forward Ed Davis might be taking a risk by giving up his final two seasons of eligibility to turn pro.

But after the school announced the sophomore’s decision Monday afternoon, Ed’s father, Terry, said there was a bigger concern on the table — an NBA lockout in 2011.

CHAPEL HILL — North Carolina coach Roy Williams went to watch signee Harrison Barnes win a high school state championship in Iowa over the weekend, and constantly had to avert his eyes from the television showing college teams qualifying for the NCAA tournament.

“I’ve been like a spoiled little brat, I’ve taken my ball and gone home,’” Williams said Monday. “I haven’t watched one play. And it’s the most unusual feeling I’ve ever had; it’s a feeling I never want to experience again. It’s painful, it’s frustrating … my first year, we were not eligible to go. And since then, in our mind, there was ever
any doubt we were in.”

From today's College Basketball page:

Since the ACC was formed in 1954, North Carolina (14-14, 3-10 ACC) has
placed at least one player on one of the All-ACC teams. That's another
streak that could end this season.

Deon Thompson leads the Tar Heels in scoring (14.1 ppg) entering
today's game at Wake Forest - but considering his inconsistency, he's
going to have to put on quite a show this week to earn media votes.

CHAPEL HILL -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams said he wasn't surprised to learn that forward Ed Davis' family had been in contact with at least one agent; he says it happens all the time. And he reiterated that it isn't an NCAA violation unless and oral or written agreement for representation
is made -- and in this case, he said, it hasn't been.

The subject came up during Williams' Friday news conference because on Thursday morning, Davis' biography briefly ended up on the website of Chicago-based PTA Sports Management, making it look as if the injured sophomore was ready to leave early for the NBA. Vincent Foster, founder of the agency, said someone hacked his site and that he had no agreement with Davis, although he had been in touch with the Davis family.

11:45 a.m. UPDATE: Davis' dad says Davis hasn't made an NBA decision, and injury has set him back

North Carolina forward Ed Davis' biography was on a sports
agency's Web site Thursday morning, but agent Vincent Porter said the
sophomore has not signed, or verbally committed, to his agency -- even
though Porter has had contact with the family.

"I don't even know if he's going to go pro ... this injury has opened up all possibilities,'' Porter said in a phone interview.