PHILADELPHIA -- There's a reason that North Carolina was the No. 1 team in all the preseason polls.

Six regular-season losses--by a grand total of 22 points--had many doubting Roy Williams' Tar Heels entering the postseason, but those doubters are quieted now.

Once again, they look like a team very much capable of taking home the program's sixth national championship.

"Probably the last two to three weeks I think things have changed," Williams said. "I felt like we were pretty doggone good before that. But I knew that we could get a heck of a lot better."

North Carolina used a significant size and experience advantage inside to roll to a 101-86 win over Indiana in an East regional semifinal on Friday night, an impressive performance from one of the nation's blue-blood programs.

The Tar Heels (31-6), the top seed in the East region, face No. 6 Notre Dame on Sunday with a Final Four berth in Houston next weekend on the line.

After taking an 11-point lead into the half, North Carolina came out of the locker room determined to look for senior Brice Johnson and junior Kennedy Meeks inside. And when the two forwards weren't able to get buckets, they were at the very least drawing fouls.

Indiana (27-8) committed seven team fouls in the first 3:56 of the second half, allowing UNC to get to the charity stripe 23 times after the break. The Tar Heels set a season high in makes (26) and were one shy in attempts (33).

"I don't think we've ever had it where we're in the bonus that early," Johnson said. "But it does help us because we want to be able to attack from the inside and then go out. First half we really didn't get the ball inside (...) second half we got -- they got a lot of fouls on post-ups, getting inside, the way we really want to play the game. That really helps us in the long run.

With UNC headed to the line seemingly on every other possession, Indiana couldn't find any momentum to make a comeback. The Hoosiers cut it to 10 several times early in the second half, the last of which came with 14:24 remaining.

North Carolina responded with an 8-2 run to push the lead back to 16, and never let it get closer than 14 from that point onward.

Johnson (20 points, 10 rebounds) and Meeks (15 points, nine boards) were two of five North Carolina players in double figures, the 16th time this season the Tar Heels have had a quintet get 10 or more. Senior guard Marcus Paige (21), sophomore forward Justin Jackson and sophomore guard Nate Berry II (14 apiece) all had their moments.

Paige, who tied a UNC tournament record with six made 3-pointers in the win, also passed Michael Jordan for 12th on the school's all-time scoring list with 1,797 points.

North Carolina shot 51.6 percent, hitting more than half its shots for the third time in the last four games. And it wasn't just the inside game that was working--despite coming into the game a 32 percent 3-point shooting team, the Tar Heels were 11-of-20 from beyond the arc against the Hoosiers.

"The 3s hurt us, no question about that," Indiana head coach Tom Crean said, "but the post-ups, they destroyed us. We couldn't overcome that."

Senior guard Yogi Ferrell led Indiana with 25 points in his final collegiate performance. Junior forward Troy Williams chipped in 21 for the Hoosiers, who shot 41 percent from the floor.

It's the third time in the last five years that Indiana lost in the Sweet 16, the furthest the program's gotten in Crean's eight years.

"I can't even begin to describe how proud I am of this group," Crean said afterwards. "These guys battled to the very end. And that's exactly what you want. And I feel awful for them, because they gave everything."

Paige was on fire early, helping North Carolina out to a 52-41 halftime lead.

He hit his first five shots from the floor, including four triples, while also dishing out four assists as he had in all but two of the Tar Heels' first 11 buckets.

Two early fouls limited the star guard to 13 minutes in the first half, but even with him sidelined the Tar Heels were a force to be reckoned with. North Carolina shot 62.1 percent from the floor in the first half to hit the half-century mark in one half for the ninth time this season.

"They were consistently making shots inside, outside, to start the game," Ferrell said. "And our shots weren't falling. Going up against such a great team as North Carolina, can't come out to a slow start."

Indiana trailed by as many as 16 on multiple occasions over the opening 20 minutes before closing out the half on a five-point spurt to trail by 11 going into the locker rooms.

NOTES: This is the second time Indiana and North Carolina have met in the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia. The first time, IU downed UNC 63-50 in 1981 to win the national championship; they also met in the title game in 1984 in Atlanta, another win for the Hoosiers. ...The game was Indiana's 100th in the NCAA Tournament in program history, making it the seventh such school to do so. They are 66-34. ... North Carolina has a record of 19-7 in regional semifinal games since 1975, when the tournament expanded to 32 teams. Its 27 appearances in the Sweet 16 are the most of any program.