UNC Arranges Date With Georgetown

Tar Heels Overcome USC, Will Meet the Hoyas in Round of 8 : North Carolina 74, USC 64

North Carolina's Brandan Wright, shooting over Taj Gibson (16 points), left, and RouSean Cromwell, scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds. (By John Mcdonnell -- The Washington Post)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., March 23 -- The NCAA East Region semifinals Friday night were overshadowed somewhat by the possibility of what could come on Sunday, in the region championship. Now, with top-seeded North Carolina's 74-64 victory over USC in front of a sellout crowd of 19,557, the eagerly anticipated final is set.

North Carolina (31-6) will face second-seeded Georgetown, a pairing that produced a classic national championship game in 1982.

Fifth-seeded USC had already ruined one highly anticipated matchup -- fourth-seeded Texas and it superstar freshman Kevin Durant against North Carolina -- by upsetting the Longhorns in the second round. And for the first 30 minutes Friday night, it appeared as if the Trojans were going to do it again.

USC dominated the game early, jumping out to an 18-7 lead, and the Trojans led 42-33 at halftime. North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough, who entered the game averaging 27 points in the NCAA tournament, had only two points on 1-of-4 shooting in the first half, and was limited to just 12 minutes because of two fouls.

"At halftime, I didn't throw any chairs," Tar Heels Coach Roy Williams said. "I did get a little heated by our intensity, our effort and about our concentration, but I personally never lost faith in our kids. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in our team. We didn't get off to a great start in the second half like I had hoped we would, but even at the 16-minute timeout, I said, 'Let's stop making silly mistakes and giving them easy ones; let's make them earn stuff.' "

The Trojans closed the first half and opened the second half by scoring 15 unanswered points. After guard Lodrick Stewart made a shot with his toe on the arc with 12 minutes 33 seconds left to play, USC was up, 57-45.

But then USC freshman forward Taj Gibson picked up his fourth foul and was forced to go to the bench. That's when the game turned for the Tar Heels. Without his presence inside, North Carolina attacked the boards. The Tar Heels went on an 11-2 run behind freshman Brandan Wright and sophomore Marcus Ginyard (O'Connell), and nine of those points came on second-chance opportunities.

"We really feel like they were effort plays," Ginyard said. "We really lacked that effort and passion in the first half. In the second half, that was definitely one of our emphasis, just to play with that passion and intensity."

When Gibson returned to the game with 8:23 remaining, the Trojans' advantage had been whittled to three, 59-56. But even that couldn't slow North Carolina. The Tar Heels reeled off 11 more points to cap an 18-0 run to take control of the game. Even when they missed shots -- such as a transition dunk following a steal -- someone was there to clean up the mistake.

USC Coach Tim Floyd was assessed a technical foul with 48 seconds left in the game. But by that point, the Tar Heels were well on their way to securing their 22nd regional final appearance -- and a memorable rematch of game that 25 years ago that included future Hall of Famers Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan.

"You know, 25 years ago, I had black hair and my golf game was a lot better than it is right now," Williams said. "But that would be a heck of a game right now. I think Patrick's knees would be worse than Michael's, so we'd have to see."