CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When you're the North Carolina Tar Heels, you pack heavy in March. You bring a big trunk of clothes to the ACC tournament because you're going to need them. You win a game, you stay the night, you win another game, you stay another night. And then the following week, at the NCAA Tournament, you do it again. And again.

That's how it has been since 1967, when Dean Smith led the Tar Heels to their first ACC tournament championship in 10 years, and then to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in eight years. And then every year for more than three decades, the Tar Heels went back. Usually they went for extended stays, reaching the semifinals of the ACC tournament 28 times in that stretch and making it into the second week of the NCAA Tournament 22 times.

	Seniors Kris Lang and Jason Capel embrace Friday night, knowing their careers will not end in the NCAA Tournament.

But that's not how things are this season. When you're the 2002 Tar Heels, you talk bravely -- and carry a light suitcase. While UNC coach Matt Doherty gamely declared he would be bringing four suits to the four-day ACC tournament, others in the traveling party weren't so brazen.

"I didn't even bring clothes for Saturday," one UNC official said Friday, a few hours before tipoff of the Tar Heels' first-round ACC tournament game against Duke.

Good thinking. Despite a slow-down game plan that earned Doherty the respect of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, the Tar Heels saw their season end 60-48 Friday night at the Charlotte Coliseum. It was a final chapter anyone who'd seen the Tar Heels play this season could have written, and yet the ending came too soon for the somber UNC locker room. Senior Orlando Melendez sat on a huge metal equipment container and cried his eyes out. Teammates stuck their chins into their chests and waited for the media, like so many hyenas, to be done with the husk of the Tar Heels' 2001-02 season.

"I guess I've had some time to get used to this (idea), but still I don't think I'm ready to be finished playing," UNC junior forward Will Johnson was saying quietly. "This is nothing I anticipated when I came to Carolina. You expect to be playing deep into March here."

When you're the 2002 Tar Heels, though, you know better. You knew probably as early as Nov. 20, a 58-54 loss to Davidson that confirmed what was hinted at in a season-opening, 77-69 loss to Hampton -- this was going to be a long season. Long mentally, anyway. But short physically. Finished in early March, the time most seasons at Carolina have just turned interesting.

For the first time since1967, a 35-year span, the Tar Heels won't play in a postseason tournament. Since 1975, every one of those postseason appearances had come in the NCAA Tournament, the longest streak of its kind in college basketball.

This season, UNC freshman guard Melvin Scott will do what no UNC guard has done since freshmen became eligible almost 30 years ago -- watch on television any NCAA or NIT game he wants. And he wants to watch as many as he can.

"Definitely I'll be watching it, just to learn from it," Scott. "I'm a student of the game, and that's how you learn, by watching people do things you want to do yourself. I can't be mad and say, 'I'm not going to watch because I'm not in it.'"

Funny, because that's exactly what 6-foot-9 teammate Jawad Williams, the team's most promising freshman, had said just moments earlier.

"I could care less what happens in the (NCAA) Tournament," Williams said. "I'm not in it. For me, it's back to the drawing board. I want to get bigger, stronger, and help get this team back where it belongs next year."

When you're the 2002 Tar Heels, you don't know exactly where that will be. Was this a one-year blip, a brief interruption of the Tar Heels' annual NCAA Tournament destiny? Or was this something more, something that smacks of the Heels' mortality? Whatever happens next season, it will happen without the two best players from the worst team in school history. Senior forwards Kris Lang and Jason Capel, who became North Carolina's only pair of four-year starting teammates, ended their careers in the loss to Duke. Capel ended his a few minutes early, fouling out and then lingering at midcourt, where Lang grabbed him and spoke into his ear, "I love you, man."

	“	I guess I've had some time to get used to this (idea), but still I don't think I'm ready to be finished playing. This is nothing I anticipated when I came to Carolina. You expect to be playing deep into March here. ”
		— Will Johnson, UNC junior

Around the Charlotte Coliseum, almost 25,000 people applauded Capel out of respect for a career well played, if not up to the awesome expectations of his stature as a McDonald's All-American and top-10 national recruit. Even Duke fans clapped, led by Mickie Krzyzewski and her three daughters -- the wife and kids of the Duke coach. About 30 rows behind one of the baskets, Kirk and Donna Preiss of Raleigh applauded, too. The Preisses are North Carolina fans, and most years that would put them in thick company at the ACC tournament.

But when you're the 2002 Tar Heels, you arrive at the arena in Charlotte -- forever a Tar Heels stronghold -- as a decided outcast. Duke, which is almost as universally reviled as North Carolina by the rest of the ACC, seemed to have a 4-to-1 edge in fan support before tipoff Friday night. Apparently many UNC fans decided to sell their ACC tournament tickets without making the two-hour trip west, unwilling to digest another loss that saw the program set a record with 20 in all. And apparently fans of other ACC schools, whose teams had been bludgeoned by baby blue for so many years, were going to enjoy rooting against their hapless former tormentors.

"We brought six UNC fans with us," Donna Preiss said. "We did our share."

Kirk Preiss was nodding.

"We're here because we love the team, we love the history, and also because the ACC tournament is such an event," he said. "But there doesn't seem to be as many of us as usual."

No, until the Tar Heels began to look serious about knocking off the heavily favored Blue Devils, the Charlotte Coliseum crowd was all ABC -- Anyone But Carolina. As the game wore on and North Carolina stayed within single digits of Duke, the crowd turned, tilting toward the Tar Heels. Maryland fans, Wake Forest fans, even N.C. State fans began rooting for baby blue.

When the NCAA Tournament begins, Kirk Preiss expects to return the favor. He'll have time on his hands. He'll have NCAA Tournament love to give, and no one from Chapel Hill to give it to.

"I can support Maryland," he said. "I can support N.C. State."

Preiss hesitated, knowing he was about to say something laughable, then going ahead and saying it anyway.

"And you never know," he said, looking up at the scoreboard, which showed UNC trailing just 37-32 with less than 12 minutes left in the game. "There's a remote chance ..."

No, no there's not. The Tar Heels aren't going to win this tournament. They're not going to win this game. Their season? Over, a month ahead of schedule.

"Yeah," he said. "You're probably right. March is going to be really strange."

Gregg Doyel covers college basketball for The Charlotte Observer and is a regular contributor for ESPN.com. He can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.