“I went out to watch them shoot,” said Snyder, “and I could see they were much bigger than anyone we had played. My eyes stayed at a certain level. I was looking up and myeyes never came down. You just don’t realize how big they are ‘til you see them in person.”

The game at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center was billed as a contest of Tar Heel size against Tiger quickness. Size mattered. The Tar Heels bludgeoned Missouri 55-30 on the backboards for a surprisingly easy 84-70 win. Missouri had not been manhandled on the boards in that manner all season. Kentucky had outrebounded the Tigers by 44-26 in a 70-53 rout on New Year’s Eve, but there had been nothing quite like this. Carolina had 26 offensive boards.

“We were playing hard, but it got discouraging after awhile,” said Missouri guard Keyon Dooling. “We just couldn’t get a rebound.”

The eighth-seeded Tar Heels will now take on top-seeded Stanford, a winner over South Carolina State, on Sunday.

Brendan Haywood led the onslaught by the Heels (19-13), who now have a chance to keep alive their three-decade streak of 20-win seasons. Haywood piled up a career-best 28 points and 15 rebounds.

Jason Capel added 14 points and 11 boards, while Kris Lang came alive inside for 11 points and seven rebounds. Freshman Joseph Forte scored 13 points and added eight rebounds. Julius Peppers came off the bench for nine points, and Ed Cota, who became the third collegian to reach 1,000 assists in his career with a second-half lob to Haywood for a jam, orchestrated the entire evening.

“It was our best game of the year,” said Carolina coach Bill Guthridge. “We needed to play our best game, because Quin does such a great job with his team.”

That may be, but the Tigers , who finished 18-13, looked outmanned almost from the get-go.

Missouri led 6-2 on a couple of quick 3-pointers by Clarence Gilbert, but spent the rest of the night watching the Tar Heels eat glass.

Haywood’s dunk at 16:36 gave the Heels their first lead at 7-6. After seven minutes, Carolina held a 19-9 lead with 13 of those points coming on offensive rebounds.

“Haywood was terrific, but so were Lang and Peppers,” said Snyder. “And it wasn’t just their size, it was their intensity. Every rebound didn’t just fall in their hands. They were going after them.”

“They attacked the glass like no one we had seen before,” said Missouri forward Jeff Hafer. “They just kept muscling us out of the way.”

Carolina needed its glass attack, because it did not enjoy a good night from the perimeter.

Capel hit double figures for the eighth straight game and 16th in his last 17, but shot only 4-for-12 from the field and 1-for-7 on 3s. Forte struggled to a 6-for-19 night, while Cota was 3-for-13.

The Heels shot an uncharacteristic 45 percent and hit just three 3s, but pulled away with a steady storm of second-chance points. The Tar Heels were credited with 25 points on second efforts and piled up an amazing 56-32 edge in paint scoring.

Missouri tried to fight back on a couple of occasions.

Gilbert, a 6-2 soph, who had talked like a 7-footer in the pregame banter, scored 13 points in the first half, three of them during a spree of three Tiger 3-pointers in a 1:52 span that gave Missouri a 20-19 lead at the 11:05 mark. Guthridge called time and out of the break, Cota got the ball in to Haywood. Haywood turned, shot and got the ball to dance in after three hops on the rim. It may have been the game’s biggest hoop. After that one, the Heels, who have gotten few breaks this season, had to know it was their night.

The Heels pushed the lead to 41-31 with 1:19 left in the half, but then turned the ball over a couple of times, allowing the Tigers to surge back to a 44-41 deficit at halftime. Ninth-seeded Missouri scored four points in the last four seconds of the half and appeared to have the momentum at the break.

But Haywood and Cota got the Heels going again in the second half.

Cota fed Lang for a dunk after a wild scramble for the ball at the 16:21 mark, and the lead was back to seven at 54-47.

“They fed off Cota at times,” said Snyder. “He’s been in the big games. He’s been in a Final Four. He played at a high level.”

The Carolina lead mushroomed to 63-49 with 10:48 remaining after Guthridge called a set play for reserve Max Owens, who responded with a 3-pointer.

The Heels who began the game playing man-to-man defense, got great mileage out of their point zone for most of the second half. After halftime, Gilbert always seemed to be trying shots over the elongated arms of Lang (6-10) or Capel (6-8). Gilbert finished 5-for-19 from the floor and the Tigers wound up making only 8 of 31 3-point tries.

The Tar Heels had a few moments of shaky ballhandling against the pressure of the quicker Tigers down the stretch , but freshman Forte twice took the ball the length of the floor to score with one-on-one moves to keep the Heels out of danger.

The lead reached its zenith at 82-65 with 1:17 left to play, on Cota’s underhand scoop to Haywood, who rammed home the punctuation mark on a satisfying victory in a game considered a toss-up by the experts and a sure loss by some Tar Heel fans, who wrote off this season after an early ACC Tournament loss to Wake Forest.

They may have been premature, according to Snyder.

“We ran into a very good Carolina basketball team tonight,” he said. “They look to be me like a team that can go a long way. They looked great. It will take a good team playing very well to beat them. I know they’ve had an up-and-down year, but it looks like they’ve gotten a fresh start psychologically. They showed everyone why they’ve got a program that people look up to.”

The Tar Heels agree with Snyder. They’re feeling loose, rather than feeling like losers, maybe for the first time all season.

“We’re ready to put all the bad things that happened this season behind us,” said Capel. “We’ve had troubles on the court, troubles off the court and there have been a lot of question marks in the minds of the media and fans. But this tournament is a second chance. We’re going to take advantage.”

“You know,” said Guthridge, “I’ve really liked this team all year. It’s worked hard. Maybe I just haven’t been able to push the right buttons. But tonight, I had a sense that we’d play well. That can happen when you’re an underdog and have nothing left to lose.”

Sunday’s matchup with heavily favored Stanford will be difficult. But no one’s saying it’s impossible in the wake of Friday’s Tar Heel dominance. Least of all Haywood.