SYRACUSE, N.Y. - When the whistle blew with nine seconds to play, the Villanova fans erupted. Wildcats guard Allan Ray had driven the lane, made the basket to cut North Carolina's lead to one and been fouled. He was going to the line with a chance to tie the game. Or so they thought. When the official made the call, it was traveling on Ray.

When the game was over — a heartbreaking 67-66 loss for Villanova to the Tar Heels — Ray took the high road. "I feel we should never have put ourselves in that position," Ray said. "I can't say that's the reason we lost, because of that one play."

The 'Nova fans, including some who threw bottles and balled up pieces of paper at the officials, would disagree. And despite that call and there being only nine seconds remaining, the Wildcats still made a run at the No. 1 seed. Tar Heels forward Rashad McCants made one of two foul shots to give the Tar Heels a 67-63 lead with eight seconds to play. Then Nova guard Kyle Lowry hit a three with three seconds to go to pull the Wildcats within one. Despite a Ray deflection of the first inbounds pass attempt, Carolina got the ball in and the clock ran out. The Tar Heels survived their first test of the tournament. Barely.

Slide show   March 27 See images from the wins by Michigan State and North Carolina on Day 8 of the NCAA Tournament.

But it doesn't matter how many you win by. In the brackets, the No. 1-seed Carolina moves on to the Elite Eight to play Wisconsin on Sunday in Syracuse with a trip to the Final Four in St. Louis hanging in the balance. The Badgers beat N.C. State in the first game of these regional semifinals.

"It's all about finding a way to win," Carolina's Sean May said. "We did that and we move on."

Sure, the Tar Heels move on, but the real story coming out of the game had to be the fight of Villanova, which played without injured forward Curtis Sumpter. The Wildcats gave up size to the Tar Heels and still won the battles under the basket. They slowed down a Carolina team that coach Jay Wright had compared to UNLV's old Running Rebels teams before the game. At the half, Carolina had zero points off the fast break. The Tar Heels finished the game with three. Carolina coach Roy Williams credited the Wildcats' slow offensive play with slowing down his team and getting them out of the running rhythm they like so much.

Without a senior in the core, Villanova is a team that people should pay attention to next season. Wright said his team would take this experience and learn from it, the assumption being it'll make it that much tougher to face next year. The coach wouldn't bite when asked about the Ray traveling call. He hadn't seen it on a replay yet and he figures all of the calls even out in the end. And in the end, this game went as expected but in a way that many didn't expect.

There was a lot of talk in Syracuse about this being the 20th anniversary of Villanova's shocking championship in 1985. Villanova players were asked about it. Their coach was asked about it. The '85 players were asked about it. For a while — as Randy Foye hit shot after shot en route to his game-high 28 points and Lowry threw himself all over the floor and Jason Fraser blocked a couple of shots — it seemed like the magical memories might make past and present meet. But even with Ed Pinckney of the '85 team on the bench as an assistant coach, even having watched that championship game against Georgetown on the bus ride up to Syracuse, even with College Sports TV running a retrospective of the tournament run seemingly on a loop, there was nothing for Villanova to celebrate on this anniversary.

North Carolina, a favorite to play for the championship, moves on to the Elite Eight as expected and the Wildcats will board the bus back to Pennsylvania. They leave knowing they took a No. 1 seed and one of the top teams in the country to the brink. They leave knowing they could have bitterly blamed an official for a gut-wrenching one-point loss but didn't. They leave knowing they left an impression on the people watching this game across the country and it won't be another 20 years before people are talking about Villanova at the tournament again.

Said Ray, "The nation got to see that Villanova is back on the map."