Missouri coach Quin Snyder knows it, Tar Heel coach Bill Guthridge knows it, and you get the feeling that Cota, who will become the third player in college basketball history to accumulate 1,000 assists if he can produce seven tonight, knows it, too.

“The NCAA Tournament is new life for me — for all of us,” says Cota. “I mean, this is what you really play for. We win four games now, and no one remembers the 13 we lost.”

At least Cota hopes so. Thursday wasn’t an easy day for him.

Cota was first grilled by the media at the team’s press conference in Birmingham, then drilled by talkative Missouri guard Clarence Gilbert.

The press asked pretty bluntly how Cota could have allowed the Tar Heels to semi-collapse this season.

“I am the leader of this team,” Cota acknowledged. “Yeah, maybe I should have had a better year. I didn’t always control games, and that’s my job.”

Gilbert, a terrific 3-point shooter who averaged 23.5 points per game in the recent Big 12 Tournament, piled on, saying he had something for Cota and the rest of the overrated Heels. He said ninth-seeded Tigers were way too quick for the eighth-seeded Heels to handle and would show them the door early.

“Sometimes, the things Clarence says make me gasp,” shrugged Snyder. “But that’s Clarence. His confidence is what makes him a special player.”

“Clarence,” chimed in Missouri’s other guard, Keyon Dooling, “is gonna challenge Carolina. And if they don’t meet his challenge, it’s going to be a long night for them.”

If Carolina (18-13) is to meet Gilbert’s challenge, Cota will have to show the way.

He’ll have to get the Tar Heels into their offense, will have to control the action to minimize his team’s turnovers and will have to aggressively drive the ball into the lane to break down Missouri’s defense.

Toward the end of the regular season, Cota was passive and appeared to be having little fun on the floor. As a result, the Heels didn’t have any energy and seemed listless — or worse — as a team.

Yesterday, though, Cota was on the attack — in the way he answered a barrage of questions that were more like cross-examinations — and in the way he sat stiff-backed in his chair and looked people in the eye.

The fellow sitting on stage with Cota and Guthridge was center Brendan Haywood, the Heels’ sometimes missing-in-action 7-footer. Haywood has often been reluctant to make his presence felt. It will fall on Cota tonight to make sure that Haywood doesn’t disappear on the Heels once more.

Missouri, as Gilbert said, is much swifter than Carolina, but Carolina will enjoy an overwhelming tradeoff in height. Haywood will tower over Missouri’s biggest regular — 6-9, 236-pound Nigerian Tajudeen Soyoye — and can do some damage.

“Are we supposed to kick Haywood in the knees?” asked Snyder. “He shoots 70 percent. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to stop him.”

The answer is obvious. Missouri can’t stop the big guy.Not if Cota can get him the ball and demand that he goes to work.

Haywood threw a scare into Tar Heel fans yesterday when he didn’t work out in Carolina’s evening session at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center. But Guthridge said Haywood just had a touch of tendinitis and had participated fully in the team’s morning workout. Tar Heel trainers didn’t want Haywood running up and down the court a second time that day in the mandated evening practices set up by the NCAA.

“Far as I know I’m starting tomorrow,” said Haywood, staring at Guthridge. Guthridge nodded.

Haywood is a threat. Still, it’s Cota’s head and vision that pose the biggest problems for the Tigers.

“Ed’s the one that worries you,” said Snyder. “He’s a big-game player and the ultimate playmaker. There’s nothing nervous about him. I expect him to have a great game, because every time we played him when I was an assistant at Duke, he stepped it up. I think he’ll come out determined to show everyone what a great player he is.”

When Missouri has its first run tonight — when Gilbert bombs his first 3-pointer or Dooling bangs in two straight jumpers — the Heels will take their cue from Cota on how to respond.

This is Cota’s opportunity for redemption for all the negative things that happened this season. Expect him to deliver the leadership tonight that has so often been missing from the Heels’ equation.