CHARLOTTE - Nothing will ever erase North Carolina's memories of last season's second-half meltdown against Georgetown in an NCAA Tournament regional final.

But Saturday night in Charlotte, the top-seeded Tar Heels did the next best thing: They made new memories.

Playing with poise down the stretch -- the key component last year's team lacked last March -- UNC survived No. 3 seed Louisville's 12-point comeback in the second half to grind out an 83-73 victory and advance to the Final Four in San Antonio.

The Tar Heels (36-2) will meet the winner of today's Kansas vs. Davidson Midwest Regional final next Saturday in the national semifinals. The game time will be announced later today.

"My feelings right now are great," said UNC forward Tyler Hansbrough, who was named the most outstanding player of the East Regional after hustling for 28 points and 13 rebounds. "It just kind of takes all those past experiences away, and also at the same time, we want to accomplish more."

"Marcus [Ginyard] said something to me as we were walking in here; he said 'It feels like we did something big, but we can also do something bigger.' "

Indeed, after last postseason's letdown against Georgetown -- when they led by 11 points in the second half but lost in overtime -- several UNC players have said they would feel like this season was a failure if they did not advance to the Final Four.

And they, particularly Hansbrough, played that way at crunch time.

Thanks to strong rebounding and accurate outside shooting, UNC led 44-32 at halftime.

But when Louisville forward David Padgett, who was 0-for-3 from the field in the first half, scored his first points of the game on a baby hook over Alex Stepheson to cut UNC's lead to 48-38 with 17:56 left, it started a 19-8 Louisville run. Guard Jerry Smith scored 10 points during the run that cut the Tar Heels' lead to 56-55 with about 12 minutes left to play.

Hansbrough made a three-point play to give his team a bigger cushion, Louisville's Andre McGee countered with a 3-pointer of his own and then UNC forward Deon Thompson's fourth foul sent Earl Clark to the line. The Louisville reserve hit one of two free throws to knot the score 59-59 with 10:21 left.

And all of a sudden, thoughts of Georgetown pushed to the forefront.

"It was in the back of, I'd say, a lot of our minds," Hansbrough said. "One thing about tonight, that point where they went on that run, the difference this year was that we handled that run better and stayed poised and came back, got some points and kept fighting back until eventually we had a run."

Indeed, thanks to Hansbrough -- whose offense stayed hot while Wayne Ellington and Danny Green turned cold -- the Cardinals never managed to take the lead. An inside move and jumper by the All-America gave the Heels a 63-59 lead with 8:27 remaining.

His 16-footer with 2:30 left extended UNC's advantage to 73-66.

He followed with a long fadeaway with 1:35 left that made it 75-66 and virtually sealed it.

And just like that, the Georgetown debacle became just another memory.

"This team has continued to show that when we need to dig deeper, when we need to play better, when we need to play harder, when we need to play smarter, we do," said Ginyard, who had six points and seven rebounds. "I think that just shows how good this team really is. Every time we get into those sticky situations, we always get ourselves out. And that's what you need -- you need a team that's going to be tough enough to not give in, and continue to push forward."

In the end, Hansbrough scored 20 of his 28 points in the second half. Ellington chipped in 13 (including 11 in the first half), and point guard Ty Lawson finished with 11 points and nine assists.

Smith led the Cardinals (27-9) with 17 points. Padgett, defended mostly by Hansbrough, made only 1 of 5 shots and finished with six points.

Next weekend will mark UNC's 17th trip to the Final Four.

"I'll tell you we are ecstatic,'' coach Roy Williams said.

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