CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Roy Williams targeted Wayne Ellington because he knew that his team at North Carolina, and Williams, specifically, needed what Ellington brought.

Forget the four national championships, the record 18 Final Four appearances, the "Jordan" and "Worthy" and "Cunningham" banners raised above the Smith Center court.

Williams believed that he needed to prove to Ellington that he needed him.

So, in an effort to edge Villanova in the Ellington recruiting sweepstakes, Williams showed Ellington tapes of how future NBA guards Kirk Hinrich and Rashad McCants fit into Williams' systems at Kansas and UNC, respectively.

Williams might as well have shown Ellington tapes of James T. Kirk and Ahmad Rashad. He would have gotten the same result.

"It was the tradition," Ellington admitted. "[The tapes] were another thing that caught my interest. But I wanted a chance to be able to contend for a national championship."

He paused, and cracked his gleaming smile:

"Which sounds crazy, now, with Villanova in the Final Four."

Not only is Villanova in it, but the Wildcats are playing Ellington and the Tar Heels on Saturday in the national semifinals.

Ellington is a native of Birdsboro (near Reading) who starred at Episcopal Academy, which was 8 miles from Villanova's campus, after he moved to Wynnewood, which is 4 miles from Villanova's campus. He could have played at Villanova or virtually any other school in the country. Instead, he opted to join Williams at his favorite college program - no offense.

"I had a really good relationship with coach Wright," Ellington said.

In fact, before Ellington enrolled at Episcopal, Ellington's parents asked Villanova coach Jay Wright about Episcopal's programs, since Wright's three children attend Episcopal. Wright's son, Taylor, now plays basketball there.

Ellington's ties at Villanova are deeper than proximity and Jay Wright.

In 2004, Pat Chambers left Dan Dougherty's staff at Episcopal and joined Wright at Villanova. Dougherty, who played at Saint Joseph's, got his master's degree at Villanova and was an assistant coach there, too.

"We thought we had a chance," Chambers said.

Instead, Villanova also saw Tobacco Road make off with not just Ellington but another Episcopal star, Gerald Henderson, who stars for Duke.

"We were the local school," Chambers said. "But we came in second with both of them."

Having dispatched Duke in a Sweet 16 game Thursday, the goal now is for Villanova to not come in second to UNC. That means containing not only beefy forward Tyler Hansbrough, the reigning national player of the year, and super-ball point guard Ty Lawson, the team's glue, but also Ellington, whose silky shot has only gotten silkier in the 3 years since he helped Episcopal to consecutive Inter-Ac League titles.

Ellington, Carolina's best long-range threat, went from 43.3 percent shooting to 46.7 to 48.0 this season, averaging 11.7, 16.6 and 15.6 points, respectively.

There have been other improvements, too. He's tougher, stronger, a better finisher and, as always, unselfish.

"The way he's changed his body has really helped him," Chambers said of once-slim Ellington, now a sculpted 200 pounds on a 6-4 frame. "He looks like a man now. He's transformed himself into one of the best players in the country."

He might not be the highflier Henderson is, but Ellington's arsenal might make him the better offensive player now - especially since he rediscovered his love for aggressive play.

"He had the capacity to take the ball hard to the hoop in high school, but he seemed to get away from that in college," Dougherty said. "His defense has gotten better, too, and his medium-range shooting has gotten better."

All of those improvements likely will lead to Ellington again declaring for the NBA draft, which he did after last season's Final Four run. But first, Ellington and Co. must do what Henderson and his teammates failed to accomplish: Limit the team they spurned.

Any tips, rival to rival?

"I haven't spoken with him, no," Ellington said.

However, he has had plenty of contact with his buddies back home.

"My best friends, they're Carolina fans because I'm here," Ellington said. "Other people - there have been some messages. People saying they're going to shut me down, because they know me."

More accurately, said Chambers, they knew Ellington.

"There's no advantage for us. His game has matured, developed, changed," Chambers said. "Let me tell you: He plays a lot harder than he did in high school."

He will play a lot harder than he does in the offseason pickup games with Villanova's Reggie Redding and Shane Clark.

A win on Saturday means "When I go home to work out in the summer, I get serious bragging rights," Ellington said.

But only if the Tar Heels win. Carolina has done so three out of the four times the teams have met in the tournament.

As a high school junior in 2005, Ellington watched when Carolina beat Villanova by a point in the Sweet 16.

"I was neutral," he insisted.

Maybe . . . but that's only because the Wildcats were still in the running. Exactly 2 months later, Ellington announced he would attend North Carolina in 2006.

Carolina's win in 2005 had nothing to do with the decision. Neither did the fact that McCants and three other Tar Heels went in the first 14 picks of the 2005 NBA draft, leaving Chapel Hill open for a new generation of stars. Or the fact that, as Williams said, distance is distance: "It's [400] miles in June, but it's also [400] miles at Christmas."

Really, once Williams was smitten after he saw Ellington hit eight three-pointers in a summer-league game in Las Vegas in 2004, Ellington's place as a Tar Heel was set.

"I haven't regretted it once," Ellington said.

Villanova cannot say the same. *