UNC Wilmington Student Wins $100,000 Lottery on Birthday

A UNC Wilmington student is celebrating today, after she won $100,000 on a North Carolina Education Lottery scratch-off ticket on her birthday.

Laniah Ashley - a now-19-year-old from Clinton - won the jackpot on a $20 100x The Cash scratch-off ticket. And amusingly enough, it was the first time she had ever bought a lottery ticket.

"I kept looking at the numbers and reading the rules over and over again," Ashely said. "I was too stunned to speak."

Ashley is a freshman at UNCW and was home for Spring Break. Her 19th birthday was Wednesday, and she went to dinner with her family to celebrate. She got the ticket at the Han-Dee Hugo's On Southeast Blvd. in Clinton right after dinner.

"It was my first time ever buying a ticket," Ashley said. "I thought the colors on the ticket looked pretty so I chose that one. At first I kept it to myself because I didn’t want to sound crazy. I was too excited to believe it was true."

Ashley picked up her prize at lottery headquarters on Thursday, and after federal and state withholdings, she will take home $71,016. The UNC Wilmington biology major has plans to attend medical school, and the lottery money should help her with that. She also plans to help her grandparents out with some of the money too.

Ticket sales from scratch-off games make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $900 million per year for education. For details on how $4.7 million raised by the lottery made a difference in Sampson County in 2021, visit www.nclottery.com and click on the “Impact” section.

With the NCAA Tournament almost here, it's time to figure out what North Carolina city might be the best for college basketball fans.

Thanks to our good friends at WalletHub.com, we learned that not only do we know which city is tops in the state, but that city happens to be the best in the COUNTRY.

But before we tell you which one that is, it's important to understand what we're ranking here.

"To find 2022’s top spots for NCAA hoops, WalletHub crunched the numbers on more than 290 cities using nine key metrics," WalletHub said in their rankings release. "They range from the number of teams per city and the winning percentage of each to stadium capacity and social-media engagement."

So not only are we talking about success on the court, but we're talking about stadium environments, social media, and so much more.

"Passion is what makes a good college basketball fan. Enough passion to follow for the team, whether the team is winning or losing," said Rhema Fuller, Ph.D., Associated Professor, The University of Memphis. "And the thing about passion is that it does not cost much money. Sure, it costs time and emotion – but not a lot of money. A fan who has never attended a college basketball game can be just as passionate, or more than a season-ticket holder."

College basketball drives a lot of passion. SO much so that businesses lose an estimated $13.8 BILLION due to unproductive workers during the NCAA Tournament. People also wager almost $10 BILLION on the NCAA Tournament. That's roughly 30 percent more than bets made on the Super Bowl.

One more thing before we get into the rankings: It's important to note that most of these cities are on here because of their proximity to college basketball. That's why you won't find Fayetteville mentioned.

But here we go: The top North Carolina and United States cities for college basketball fans. We'll do the national Top 10 first, followed by all the North Carolina cities on the list.

Was there much doubt that the home of the Duke Blue Devils would be the top spot in the country? No, not really. Unless you're a UNC fan, in which case you might not like how far down you're gonna have to go here to find Chapel Hill.

The UConn women's team have been a power for so long, it's hard to ever imagine a time where they weren't the class of the sport.

The University of Kentucky Wildcats are about the only thing Lexington is known for.

(So if you saw this list earlier...we may have forgotten to put the Jayhawks on here. Oops.)

With both UCLA and USC in the mix, it's hard to argue that L.A. wouldn't be this high on the rankings. Even with some less than stellar years from them in recent times.

Michigan State fans are loud and proud of ol' Sparty.

This one kind of sneaks up on you. But when you look at the combined college basketball power of Temple, Drexel, La Salle, Saint Joseph's and Penn, there's a lot to be said here.

Maybe this is a product of a couple down years for the Tar Heels. But that win over Duke last weekend certainly makes up for the loss in these rankings.

We are struggling to understand this one. We've reached out to WalletHub for an explanation. Because uhhhhh....

UPDATE: Our friends at WalletHub gave us a little more info on this decision. Fayette, Mississippi is right down the road from Alcorn State University. The Braves are the proud champions of the SWAC and are well noted for their basketball passion.

We're stumped on this one too. Rhode Island isn't exactly a power.

Surprise! The Camels coming in with a surprise Top 25 ranking. We love us some Roll Humps. The Camels get a huge boost in the ratings thanks to their large arena size, and some strong fan engagement.

The home of Gardner-Webb, a solid hoops community all around.

Western Carolina has long been a successful program with great fans.

Wonder what made those little guys from Davidson so successful...hmmm...

UNCG is forever making lives miserable for opponents on the court.

Never underestimate the fan base of those crazy kids from up in the mountains.

Where you at NC State fans? Hopefully, you're doing better than the Pack is on the court.

Raleigh can't be feeling too great about nearly being beat out by Elon.

The Panthers of High Point haven't been great recently, but their fans are always vocal.

Well, at least East Carolina has football going for it. Oh...wait.

We're actually surprised the home of Wake Forest isn't MUCH higher on this.

You'd think as the largest city in our state the basketball would be more important. Apparently not.

There's apparently other things going on in this mountain town.

UNCW is better than this ranking is giving it credit for. Maybe the kids are more focused on the beach.

As previously mentioned.

There are way more important things going on in Daytona.