When the Tar Heels left Chapel Hill in 1994 for their first Final Four, they didn't get much of a sendoff. (Charlotte Smith, now Smith-Taylor, would lead her team to the win.)

This time? Big sendoff. A few hundred people in Tar Heel blue cheered Hatchell, Smith-Taylor (now an assistant coach), Latta and the rest as they boarded their buses.

Smith-Taylor calls the experience "Wonderful. Totally different." UNC guard Jessica Sell: "When I... saw the TV trucks and media I thought, 'Wow, all this is for us?'"

Down the highway in Durham, Duke frosh Abby Waner-- whose treys helped her team beat UConn Tuesday-- says she's finally having fun.

Coach G on Waner: "Every time she was in a big game before, it was her first time. It was the first time before a sold-out crowd, or the first TV game, or the first 1 versus 2... And now, she's playing the way we knew she could play -- with great confidence and an air about her that gives her teammates confidence."