The North Carolina Tar Heels will be ready for another long trip out West.
Last week, the Tar Heels traveled 1,770 miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico to play in the first and second-round games at the University of New Mexico.
This weekend, North Carolina will be making the longest commute out of all of the Sweet 16 teams. The Tar Heels will make the 2,613-mile trek to Spokane, Wash., to play last year's runner-up Stanford in the regional semfinals on Saturday at Spokane Arena.
Hopefully, all of those long trips will pay off for North Carolina, which is seeking for its first Final Four appearance since 2007. The Tar Heels won their only national championship in 1994.
The winner of Stanford-North Carolina will play the winner of Gonzaga-Louisville in the regional finals on Monday. After its stunning victory over Xavier in the second round on Tuesday, Louisville will make the second-longest commute out of the Sweet 16 teams. Spokane is 2,091 miles from the Louisville campus.
Gonzaga, Ohio State, Baylor and Texas A&M are the only teams that will play in regionals at their home state. Gonzaga, which beat UCLA in the second round on Monday, is just 1.3 miles from Spokane Arena. Ohio State will make the 72-mile trip on I-70 west to Dayton to play Tennessee in the regional semifinals on Saturday. Baylor and Texas A&M are playing in the Dallas Regional and will play Green Bay and Georgia, respectively, on Sunday.
North Carolina is playing in the NCAA tournament at Washington State for the second straight year. Last year's trip to Washington was something the Tar Heels would like to forget.
North Carolina shot 38.5 percent in its first-round game against Gonzaga and lost to the Bulldogs 82-76. The Tar Heels were the No. 10 seed, their lowest seed in school history.
Now, UNC will be playing in a game that will start late at night for those people who are living in the Triangle area. The Tar Heels' game with top-seeded Stanford is scheduled for 11:30 p.m. Eastern/8:30 Pacific. North Carolina will leave for Spokane at 4:45 p.m. Thursday en route to the Raleigh/Durham International Airport.
The New Mexico trip was a good one for the Tar Heels last week. North Carolina beat Fresno State 82-68 in the first round and knocked off Kentucky 86-74 in the second. Senior Italee Lucas scored 22 points in both games.
Lucas, senior Cetera DeGraffenreid and juniors Chay Shegog and Laura Broomfield are among the players who played in last year's game with Gonzaga. All of them scored in double figures. Senior Jessica Breland didn't play while sitting out the season due to Hodgkin's lymphoma.
On Saturday, Breland will get an opportunity to play in the state of Washington. This time, Breland and the Tar Heels want to leave Washington as regional champions and have a pleasant, 2,613-mile flight back to Chapel Hill.
"We worked so hard, and we're playing our best basketball right now," North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell said in the Daily Tar Heel on Wednesday. "We got it going in the ACC tournament, and they've all stepped it up, doing whatever they can to help out...It's a lot of fun to see them play like this and of course to be doing all of this at the right time."
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