Charlotte, N.C. ? North Carolina’s romping offense kept Roy Williams unbeaten in the first round of the NCAA tournament and ended the postseason run of perhaps the tournament’s most unlikely participant.
Freshman Marvin Williams scored 20 points and Sean May added 19 in the top-seeded Tar Heels’ 96-68 rout of Oakland in the Syracuse Regional on Friday.
Rashad McCants added 16 points for the Tar Heels (28-4), who shot 73 percent in the first half to take a 28-point lead and never looked back. North Carolina advanced to Sunday’s second round to face ninth-seeded Iowa State, which beat Minnesota 64-53.
Oakland (13-19) won only nine regular-season games all year. The Michigan school, which began playing Division I basketball in 1998, reached the NCAA tournament thanks to an improbable run through the Mid-Continent Conference tournament and then beat Alabama A&M in Tuesday’s play-in game to earn the date with the Tar Heels in their home state.
The win improved Williams to 16-0 in the first round of the tournament, with 14 of those coming during 15 seasons at Kansas.
Williams is in his second season with North Carolina, where he spent 10 seasons as an assistant to Dean Smith before returning to bring his struggling alma mater back in line with its storied tradition. After the Tar Heels missed the tournament for two straight years, Williams led his sixth-seeded team to the second round last year.
But if Friday’s performance was any indication, North Carolina _ a No. 1 seed for the first time in seven years _ looks as if it will be sticking around a little longer this time.
The Tar Heels overwhelmed the Golden Grizzlies from the start, methodically working the ball inside and getting any shot they wanted. The Tar Heels tallied assists on their first 14 baskets and shot 22-for-30 in the first half.
North Carolina led 59-33 at halftime, and increased the lead to as many as 36 points after the break.
The Tar Heels certainly looked more motivated than they did in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, where they barely beat Clemson before losing to Georgia Tech 78-75 in the semifinals.
After that game, Williams made the team watch film of the loss to highlight its mistakes. The players responded with two days of intense workouts _ which left May with a black eye _ and Williams said he thought his team was focused heading into the NCAAs.
One sequence seemed to illustrate that first-half dominance. Marvin Williams stole a pass to start a transition break, but had to tip it to Felton before falling out of bounds. Felton bobbled the pass, but ran it down and saved it behind his back to the trailing Jackie Manuel for a layup and a foul.
A few minutes later, Marvin Williams electrified the crowd with a thunderous dunk over Brandon Cassise on a fast break for a 42-19 lead with 7:39 left in the half.
Cortney Scott finished with 21 points to lead Oakland, which was making its first NCAA appearance and was the only team in the field with a losing record.
UNC team capsule
Get cell phone alerts for all tournament games