Fifteen minutes after 1 o'clock Tuesday morning.

The ink is still fresh on the championship shirts and Dr. David Williams and J.C. Young are toasting North Carolina's fifth basketball national championship, 89-72 win over Michigan State.

But the two Thomasville residents and long-time Tar Heel supporters toasted with ice cream. Hagen Daas. Chocolate chocolate chip.

The pair were part of a quartet, three of them Thomasville residents, who had tickets to the title game at Detroit's Ford Field. Young hails from Oak Island.

"I thought the total package was pretty good," Young said of the trip. "I mean what could have made it better. Your team is playing for a national championship and you win it and on top of that you had great seats."

Ron Myers of Pinehurst won four tickets through a fund-raising raffle to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of the Sandhills. He couldn't go, so he gave the tickets to his mother, Frances, and her friends, Johnny Cutshaw, Young and Williams.

The four along with three others -- Don Lauderdale, Sean Furby and Tom Embrey, a reporter from The Pilot, ventured to the Motor City.

Snowy, cold, windy weather plagued much of the trip, but the Tar Heels sizzling 21-7 start against the Spartans warmed the hearts of all those clad in baby blue.

The start silenced the majority of the nearly 73,000 fans -- a record number to watch an NCAA tournament game.

The trip winners were treated to a private plane ride to Michigan, accommodations, meals and limo for the trip.

For more on this story, see Wednesday's print edition of The Pilot.