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Tar Heels don't let huge deficit rock them

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - North Carolina has been playing kind of a dangerous game all season: We know you will score, we will just score more. It worked well enough to get them the ACC championship and a No. 1 seed in the East Regional.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - North Carolina has been playing kind of a dangerous game all season: We know you will score, we will just score more. It worked well enough to get them the ACC championship and a No. 1 seed in the East Regional.

There was going to come an important game when the number needed to win might just climb too high. For the longest time, Southern California was scoring at will in a regional semifinal at Continental Airlines Arena. The Trojans scored the last eight points of the first half and the first seven of the second to take a 16-point lead.

USC found the Tar Heels' defense about as inviting as the Germans found France's Maginot Line in World War II. Unlike the French, the Tar Heels still had an offense. Once they finally found their legs, they started scoring every time down the court. When they missed, they got the rebound and rammed that home.

Proving that the best defense migght very well be an all-out attack, UNC just kept coming and coming. USC was just trying to survive. That huge lead disappeared almost as it quickly as it appeared. What was a run became a tidal wave. USC, so good for so long, got engulfed.

And North Carolina came all the way back and then some to win, 74-64, and advance to tomorrow's regional final against Georgetown.

In the second half, UNC had 13 offensive rebounds and made 11 layups, tip-ins or dunks. Once they got started, it was complete domination.

"It's a fantastic opportunity for us," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "At halftime, I didn't throw any chairs. I did get a little heated about our intensity and our effort and our concentration. But I personally never lost faith in our kids.

"They came back bit by bit. I told them it wasn't going to happen in 2 minutes. It might take the entire half to get it done, but I thought we'd get it done if we just played."

USC (25-12) hit the wall and hit it hard. The Trojans, who shot 50 percent in the first half, missed 17 of their last 19 shots. UNC (31-6) got almost nothing from Tyler Hansbrough (five points on 1-for-6 shooting), but clearly wore out the Trojans.

"We couldn't seem to get in front of them in the second half," USC coach Tim Floyd said. "We never really got hurt out of their offense. We just got hurt on the boards. They kept coming at us."

If one stat summed up the deal, it was this: bench scoring, North Carolina 24, USC 0. Four USC starters scored double figures. Taj Gibson (16 points, 12 rebounds), Lodrick Stewart and Nick Young (each 15 points) and Gabe Pruitt would have done enough on most nights against most teams.

"When we got on a roll, it was hard for them," Williams said.

Indeed. There was simply no escape when the Tar Heels finally dug in on defense, got stops and started flying down the court, the ball moving so fast you could hear it whistle. Ty Lawson was like a supersonic jet. And Brandan Wright, whose arms seemed longer than the nearby George Washington Bridge, cleaned just about everything up on the glass.

"We can't just stand behind guys," said Wright, who finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds. "We've got to get around them. We've got to do whatever we need to do, push, scratch, claw to get the offensive rebound."

Carolina scored 33 points in the first 24 minutes and 34 in the next 13 to go from 49-33 down to 67-59 ahead. It was so fast and so awesome that it really should have been impossible. But it happened. And just that fast, the first really big upset of the tournament ended up like so many of the other potential upsets: no upset at all.

All of which left us with three 1-2 regional finals and a 1-3 final. This NCAA Tournament, which seemed wide open, had become strictly chalk, a step shy of next weekend's Final Four in Atlanta. *