Sweet Caroline! Tar Heels Top Razorbacks To Advance

Using an up-tempo pace more to Roy Williams’ liking, the fourth-seeded North Carolina men’s basketball team fought past fifth-seeded Arkansas Saturday night, 87-78, to advance to the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen.

With the victory, the Tar Heels improved to 26-11 overall while the Razorbacks finished their season with a 27-9 tally.

Coach Williams certainly had plenty to smile about after the game. The Hall of Famer tied his mentor, the late Dean Smith, with 65 NCAA Tournament wins – second-most all-time.

It was party time for Carolina! (UNC Athletics)

Things apparently got a little wild in the postgame locker room.

“It would be the most embarrassing thing of my life probably, so I’ll just leave it like that,” Coach Williams says. “But I do enjoy acting silly and having fun. I am emotional and wear my feelings on my sleeve a lot in both directions, very happily or very mad, too. … I hope the cameras weren’t all over the locker room, let’s put it that way.”

UNC junior guard Marcus Paige went off in Jacksonville, scoring 20 of his eventual 22 points in the second half to lead the Carolina scoring charge.

“Well, if I could play just as well in the first half as I do in the second half, I would prefer to do that, but sometimes it happens that way,” says Paige, who has been nicknamed “Second-half Marcus.” “Sometimes, if you have a poor first half, you want to do whatever you can to erase that and make up for it the second, and that’s what I’ve been able to do a couple times.”

Paige’s renewed health was put on full display and with a zero turnover performance turned in by teammate J.P. Tokoto, the Tar Heels proved to be a formidable force.

J.P. Tokoto cleaned up his act Saturday night (UNC Athletics)

Arkansas junior Michael Qualls led his squad with 27 points and 10 rebounds, but Razorback head coach Mike Anderson says he was disappointed in the officiating, especially down the stretch.

“I thought the thing that really disrupted the game was a lot of free throws, a lot of whistles,” Coach Anderson says. “It was almost opposite of the first half. The first half they let them play, and I guess in the second half they said, `Let’s slow this down. We can’t keep up with them. Let’s slow it down.”

Despite UNC big man Kennedy Meeks picking up his fourth foul a mere three minutes into the second half, the Tar Heels managed to maintain a somewhat comfortable lead in the waning moments.

The Tar Heels will now face the winner of Sunday’s contest between top-seeded Wisconsin and No. 8 seed Oregon Thursday in Los Angeles.

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