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CHAPEL HILL — So you want to beat North Carolina, eh?

Only four teams this year have struck the Tar Heels' Achilles' heel, and they've all followed the same Carolina Blueprint to victory.

It's a safe bet Villanova (30-7) will know the plan well after a week's worth of preparation heading into the NCAA semifinals against North Carolina (32-4) at Detroit's Ford Field this Saturday night.

The winning formula isn't a state secret. All four teams that beat North Carolina this season:

* Got contributions from everyone. Each opposing player brought his "A" game, particularly on defense.

* Caught the Tar Heels' high-octane offense on a subpar night. In the four losses, Carolina averaged 37.1 percent shooting and 80.5 points per game — well below season averages of 48.3 and 90.0.

* Exploited the Tar Heels' defense with great — not adequate, not good, but great — guard play. In each loss, an elite, All-ACC guard led his team in scoring and ran a drive-and-dish offense: Boston College's Tyrese Rice (25 points, 8 assists), Wake Forest's Jeff Teague (34 and 4), Maryland's Greivis Vasquez (35 and 10) and Florida State's Toney Douglas (27 and 4).

That brings us to Villanova, a team tailor-made for this sort of game.

The Wildcats focus on defense first. They play a three-guard starting lineup featuring Scottie Reynolds (15.2 ppg, 3.3 apg), Dwayne Anderson (9.1 ppg) and Reggie Redding (6.9 ppg, 3.1 apg), and their first two players off the bench are guards Corey Fisher (10.7 ppg, 2.8 apg) and Corey Stokes (9.5 ppg).

"Their guards are really good, but I don't think they have any one outstanding guard that we have to really focus on," North Carolina forward Danny Green said. "It's not one person with them. They have a lot of good guards. None of their guards are great scorers, but they're all good and they're all capable scorers.

"In the ACC we've had some tough matchups with guards that really score the ball — Tyrese Rice, Jeff Teague — but I don't think they have anyone like those. But they have a number of guards who can penetrate and score. We just have to keep them out of the lane. ... Our job is to stop the penetration and put hands up on their shots. We have to make them take tough shots and limit them to one shot."

Early in the season, Carolina's formula for beating guard-oriented elite teams was simple: Run, and run, and run some more.

Play fast. Score points fast. Don't give the other guy a chance to catch his breath, and use offense as defense.

"That's always been a knock on this team: 'Can we really guard?' " Tar Heels forward Deon Thompson said. "It's going to be tested on Saturday. But I feel comfortable being able to slide my feet and guard one of their smaller guys, who's going to probably try to pull our big guys away from the basket so they can drive (the lane) on us."

As the season wore on and the Heels coped with injuries, their defense got better.

"I think we are getting there. Definitely," Green said. "These last two games we played (against Gonzaga and Oklahoma), we did a really good job defensively of picking it up and rotating and helping each other out. Guys are in the right places, taking charges, getting steals."

It's been an across-the-board improvement.

"When you talk about defense, you can't say 'we're better at this one thing' because if you're stinking it up in other places it doesn't really help," Heels coach Roy Williams said. "I think we're better overall. I think we're better at seeing the big picture, not just staring at our man or staring at the ball. We're seeing what the other team is trying to do. We're better at reacting or acting because we see the big picture. ... I think we are better as a team, not just a one-on-one thing."

The next test — perhaps the biggest test — for the defense happens Saturday night.

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com