A couple of Radford University's laid-low Highlanders were mad. More than a few were sad. Yet nobody said he was just glad to have been there.

"Heck no," Joey Lynch-Flohr said. "We wanted to win."

The No. 16 Highlanders met their predicted NCAA basketball tournament fate Thursday in cavernous Greensboro Coliseum. North Carolina was all that. The challenger wasn't.

Final: No. 1 Carolina beat Radford 101-58.

As Mrs. DuPont used to say, good night Irénée.

It's never been done before, the 16 taking the 1, at least not in this basketball tournament. Carolina was playing its 136th NCAA tournament game, of which it had just won 97, one in back of all-time leader Kentucky. Radford is 0-2 in this affair, its previous appearance in 1998.

The 6-foot-8 Lynch-Flohr, whose emotion and enthusiasm are a crucial component of his substantial game, was so angry 20 minutes after the final horn that you could've boiled a pot of sassafras tea on his bristle-cut head.

"I wish we could have played better," said Kenny Thomas, one of the team's three seniors, speaking for all.

Everybody knew that something near perfection, most especially defensive, would be required if the mighty Tar Heels could be coaxed to stumble.

Carolina remained upright.

That didn't diminish Radford's accomplishments in just the second season under Brad Greenberg. On the way to a 21-11 record, the Highlanders earned 12 victories in their last 14 starts and won both the Big South Conference regular-season and tournament championships.

"We're champions," Thomas said. "No matter what. I love my squad, man. I'm proud of my squad."

Radford was proud of them, too. In a gym nearly full to the second-deck rafters with rooters in shades of Carolina blue or Duke royal and white, Texas burnt orange, and LSU purple, a knot of red-clad Highlanders fans kept up the racket long past time when the Heels' scoring margin topped 30.

"We heard them, man," Thomas said. "That's what I'm going to remember, how my school had my back, how my teammates were with me when we went to war tonight."

Big South player of the year Art Parakhouski , the 6-foot-11 junior center from Minsk, was overmatched against the Carolina tag team of Tyler Hansbrough (22 points, 12-for-12 from the foul line, all-time leading ACC scorer), 6-foot-10 Ed Davis (15 points, five rebounds, four blocked shots), and 7-foot Tyler Zeller (33.1 ppg, 11 rpg as a high school senior, Indiana's 2008 Mr. Basketball).

Parakhouski and Lynch-Flohr both will get better the more they play against quality big men, of which the Big South is usually barren. Next year's out-of-conference schedule should be similar if not more challenging than this year's Wake Forest, West Virginia, Duquesne sprinkled slate.

A better than 4-8 showing against the Division I portion of the out-of-conference schedule, this year's result, would be helpful in avoiding another 16th-seed gallows.

Parakhouski and Lynch-Flohr were both all conference and the envy of every opposing coach in the league.

"He shouldn't be in this conference," VMI coach Duggar Baucom said of Parakhouski.

As dominant as the big men were, two others were Radford's indispensable players. Point guard Amir Johnson and wing Thomas played almost every big minute for Radford all season. Johnson averaged 36.3 minutes per game, first on the team, and Thomas 33.3, second. Johnson led the conference in assists. Both he and Thomas had multiple 40-minute games.

Chris McEachin started coming on during the second half of the season and he'll figure prominently in next year's perimeter plans. He'll assume some of the many roles Thomas performed: outside shooting, going to the hoop, perimeter defense on a top scorer.

Among the departing seniors are Eric Hall, a reliably productive low-post reserve , and Jamar Jenkins, who didn't play much.

Replacing Thomas' charisma, effort, and heart will be a challenge. He was as strong a team leader as Radford has had in recent years. Now that job belongs to Johnson, the top returning point guard in the league.

Roanoke Catholic product Phillip Martin is the four starter to return, all of whom will be seniors.

Adding to the mix is 6-8, 225-pound Serb Lazar Trifunovic, who had to sit out a year after transferring from Binghamton. Time and again Greenberg has said, "We don't have anybody who can guard him in practice."

Radford will be next year's preseason Big South favorite.

Greenberg, reigning Big South coach of the year, and staff Rick Hall, Ali Ton, Cedric Smith and Ross Condon have done a marvelous job, said Eric Hall, like most of this year's squad a Byron Samuels recruit.

"From Day 1 when C oach Greenberg came in, he told us there was a line between what's right and what's wrong," Hall said. "He told us if we worked hard, we could be part of something special. We did that."

Thomas talked about the influence Greenberg has had on him and the rest of the team.

"Coach works with us and he is one of the most positive people that you're ever going to meet," Thomas said. "He helps you to believe in yourself even when you're down and out, like today [against UNC]. I'll greatly miss him."