COLLEGE BASKETBALL / NCAA TOURNAMENT : Tar Heels Finally Back in the Four : East Regional: North Carolina holds off Temple, 75-72. Macon scores 31, but his shot in the closing moments comes up short.

Even as North Carolina raced to a 10-0 lead over Temple on Sunday and a crowd of 19,601 at the Meadowlands settled in for what it probably thought would be another rout, Tar Heel Coach Dean Smith believed otherwise.

“I knew this wasn’t going to be a blowout,” he said.

After 30 seasons at North Carolina, Smith should know.

His top-seeded Tar Heels escaped with a 75-72 victory and the East Regional championship after the last collegiate three-point shot by Mark Macon, Temple’s senior guard, glanced off the front of the rim as time ran out on the 10th-seeded Owls.

It was only then that North Carolina (29-5) was sure it had withstood Macon’s spectacular performance to earn its eighth trip to the Final Four under Smith and its first since 1982.

The Tar Heels’ depth and overall talent were too much for even Macon to overcome.

“They’ve got a lot of key weapons in a lot of key places,” Macon said of the streaking Tar Heels, who have won 14 of their last 15 games as they move on to play Kansas on Saturday at Indianapolis. “When one guy goes out, another guy with a gun and a bullet comes in.”

Macon fired the last shot. As has happened so often during four seasons as Temple’s leading scorer, he had to launch it in the face of a gang of defenders.

After two free throws by North Carolina’s King Rice provided the game’s final points with eight seconds to play, Macon took the inbounds pass and, as primary defender Rick Fox and two other Tar Heels confronted him, spun to his left and then back to his right after crossing mid-court.

He shot from the right wing, about 25 feet out.

“I thought, ‘Man, that’s a long shot,’ ” Fox said.

Too long.

Macon’s shot fell short, averting an overtime period. But it did little to diminish a performance that included game highs of 31 points and nine rebounds by the 6-foot-5 guard, who made 12 of 23 shots and won a media vote as the regional’s most outstanding player.

“What’s so amazing about Mark is, when he shot the ball, he would say, ‘Good,’ ” Rice said. “And every time he said that, it went in. And when he didn’t say it, it was close, but it didn’t go in.”

Fox heard nary a peep as Macon’s last shot went up.

Still, Macon said: “I thought it was good, but that’s my thinking, basically--that all my shots are going in.”

When the last one didn’t and the finality of the situation had set in, it was too much for Temple Coach John Chaney, who has enjoyed a uniquely close relationship with Macon.

Chaney openly wept when asked about Macon.

“Everybody wants to get to the Final Four,” he said. “It’s the dream of every coach. I wanted so much to give these kids an opportunity to get there--especially a very special young man like Mark. I guess I wanted it more for him than anybody else.

“He has been so much for so many people, and I’m a little bit selfish at this moment. I hate to see him leave.”

The Tar Heels didn’t seem to mind.

Macon had kept the game close, taking control of the Temple offense after the Owls’ first seven possessions resulted in four missed shots, three turnovers and a 10-0 deficit after 4 1/2 minutes.

He scored 15 points as Temple (24-10), attempting to become the lowest-seeded team to reach the Final Four since the NCAA started seeding teams in the 1979 tournament, roared back to open an 18-14 lead.

“I felt I had to do something because they had us out of our offense a little bit,” Macon said. “I saw some openings that I needed to go through and I did. They kind of broke down.”

North Carolina, which got 19 points each from all-tournament picks Fox and Hubert Davis, regained the lead, 26-25, with 6:15 to play in the half and never trailed again.

But Temple and Macon were never far behind.

A 12-3 run by the Owls midway through the second half cut North Carolina’s lead from 11 points to two.

Mik Kilgore, who scored 18 points for Temple, missed a layup that would have pulled the Owls even. A North Carolina player knocked the ball out of bounds, but after Macon missed a hook shot in the lane, Temple never again had the ball and a chance to tie until the end.

Three times in the last five minutes, Temple pulled to within three points, only to have North Carolina answer with a basket, including a follow shot with 3:35 left and a jump hook from the baseline with 2:11 left by sophomore forward George Lynch, who scored 10 points.

Temple finally cut its deficit to 71-69 on a three-point shot by Kilgore with 1:28 to play, but at the other end, Fox was fouled as he drove through the lane, giving North Carolina another 45 seconds in which to shoot.

After Rice made two free throws with 22 seconds left to increase North Carolina’s lead to 73-69, Macon responded with one last great play, rebounding his own missed shot and throwing in a three-pointer from the top of the key to make it 73-72 with 8.6 seconds remaining.

Rice sealed the victory with two more free throws, but the Tar Heels weren’t truly safe until Macon ran out of time.

East Regional Notes

Dean Smith equaled John Wooden’s record with his 47th NCAA tournament victory. . . . Said Temple Coach John Chaney of Mark Macon: “I can only wish that every coach, high school or otherwise, could have a young man like him.”