NORTH CAROLINA WEATHERS ARKANSAS’ UPSET BID

With 3 minutes and 47 seconds standing between No. 1 seed North Carolina and a rather inexplicable early exit from this NCAA tournament, Roy Williams gathered his team in the huddle.

He told his players they hadn’t been in a game like this — a gut-check game, down three, then five, with three minutes to play — all season. More significant, they hadn’t won a game like this.

“I told our guys ... that would be great,” Williams said. “We’ve got to be tough. It’s got to be with our brain and our heart both. We’ve got to get stops, and we’ve got to get shots.”

And so they did. North Carolina scored on six of its final seven possessions and stifled upset-minded Arkansas, finishing the game on a 12-0 run and knocking out the eighth-seeded Razorbacks 72-65 to advance to the Sweet 16. The Tar Heels will face No. 4 seed Butler next weekend in Memphis.

North Carolina players said it felt like the Razorbacks got every 50-50 ball and that every wild, shot-clock-winding-down shot over a good defender fell for them. That type of luck, as Williams termed it, disappeared for Arkansas in the final three minutes of the game.

A Joel Berry drive — a controversial play that included a lot of contact and perhaps a travel — led to a Kennedy Meeks tip-in with 44 seconds left that sealed the game for the Tar Heels, who won despite shooting 38.1% from the field and turning the ball over 17 times.

“I love the way they competed, and this feels awfully nice right now,” Williams said. “I don’t mind saying I feel a little lucky. Every now and then I knock in a long putt, too.”