CHARLOTTE – For a dozen minutes Saturday evening, Michigan State looked like the one seed in the West Region, and North Carolina came off more as the distant chasing nine seed.

Chasing punches, that is, as the Spartans brought a fight to the floor inside Spectrum Center. UNC? Not so much.

For a while, anyway.

The Tar Heels had energy in their second-round meeting in the NCAA Tournament. They were ready to go and weren’t flat at all. But they were not coming close to matching the volume of intensity MSU used to take a 12-point lead nearly 12 minutes into the ballgame.

Were they really going to run away and hide?