South Regional | North Carolina romps Radford by 43

GREENSBORO, N.C. — After swishing the first of two free throws with 15:43 left in Thursday's first half — sending the baby-blue clad crowd to its feet for a raucous ovation — Tyler Hansbrough took an internal moment to appreciate breaking the ACC's all-time career scoring mark.

Then the focused-faced North Carolina forward returned to making sure he and the Tar Heels didn't make another sort of history.

In the end, UNC (29-4) easily avoided becoming the first top seed to ever fall to a No. 16 in the NCAA tournament — beating Radford 101-58 at Greensboro Coliseum without starting point guard Ty Lawson, who missed his third straight game because of a jammed right big toe.

Thanks to the sharpshooting of Wayne Ellington (25 points), a career high by Ed Davis (15 points) and the typical composure of Hansbrough (22 points) in the lane, Carolina will play eighth-seeded Louisiana State on Saturday in the second round.

And it was the way Hansbrough celebrated his feat — by calmly swishing his second free throw, with little show of emotion — that showed yet again how determined he is to have a bigger celebration after winning five more games and the national title.

"Once I got the standing ovation, I thought about waving — but no disrespect to anybody, I just wanted to stay focused on the game," he said.

An NCAA-record 953 of Hansbrough's career's 2,289 points have come from free throws. His scoring total surpassed former Duke guard J.J. Redick's 2,769 points.

Other games

LSU 75, Butler 71

Butler has put together quite a few NCAA upsets in recent years. Marcus Thornton scored 30 points to keep LSU off that list.

Tasmin Mitchell had 14 points for the eighth-seeded Tigers (27-7) in Greensboro. They shot 49 percent against one of the nation's toughest defenses.

Michigan 62, Clemson 59

Michigan stymied Clemson with its 1-3-1 defense in Kansas City, Mo., and survived a late scare in its first NCAA tournament game in 11 years. The Wolverines (21-13) showed little sign of nerves in their first NCAA game since a booster scandal rocked the program in the 1990s. Manny Harris scored 21 points and Stu Douglass added 12 for the Wolverines, who will face Oklahoma on Saturday.

Oklahoma 82, Morgan State 54

A dominant Blake Griffin had 28 points and 13 rebounds and survived an ugly fall that got another player ejected as Oklahoma (28-5) rolled in Kansas City.

The second-seeded Sooners lost four of their last six before stumbling into the NCAA tournament. Griffin, the favorite for player of the year, took another hard tumble when Morgan State's Ameer Ali flipped him over his back and on to the court in the second half after the two became entangled.