GREENSBORO, NC – If you look at the ACC standings, it says North Carolina’s record is 13-18 overall with a final conference mark of 6-14. But if you ask the Tar Heels, they’re record is 0-0.
The slate has been wiped clean, they say, and their minds are free from that anchors that dragged their season to the ground over the last four months.
The ACC Tournament has arrived, and everybody starts even. Sort of.
“It’s kind of nice to say we’re 0-0, everybody’s on an even playing field because I do think, despite (Saturday’s) result, we’re playing our best basketball right now,” Justin Pierce said. “I don’t think, if you asked any other team in the ACC tournament, they would want to face us right now, especially if you consider us the bottom team in the league.”
The sort of part is because the only way the Tar Heels can extend their season beyond this week is to win five games in five days, which would mean winning the ACC title and automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Otherwise, the Heels’ season will end.
Carolina opens play Tuesday night versus Virginia Tech while the top four teams don’t until Thursday and the next group of six don’t play until Wednesday. But, as the bottom seed for the first time in program history, that’s the hand the Tar Heels have been dealt, but they aren’t discouraged.
“It makes us hungry,” Cole Anthony said. “We’re hungry, we want to get some wins. We want to do what we can. We’re going to stay calm, we’re going to take it one game at a time.”
Carolina had won three consecutive games before falling at Duke this past Saturday. For the first time all season, UNC looked a lot like UNC in wins over N.C. State and Wake Forest at home and Syracuse on the road.
The Tar Heels are about as healthy as they will be given the ravaged nature of their injury-riddled season, and that along with not having to tug around their record with them every step they take does present them a bit of relief.
“Definitely, yes,” senior Brandon Robinson said, agreeing with the notion. “We’ve got to put that stuff behind us and focus on moving forward. We’ve got to handle business on day one and it’s going to be difficult because we’ve got a difficult task at hand, but I think we can go out there and do it and make it happen.”
Carolina’s coach also sees it that way: New renewed enthusiasm but a huge challenge before them.
“It’s been a tough year, there’s no question about that,” Roy Williams said, following UNC’s practice Monday at the Greensboro Coliseum. “Our play and our record has made it a tough year. But we’ve tried to go to practice every day and tried to have a good attitude and tried to work. Yeah, it’s a new lease on life but it’s a very, very steep hill, but we’re still going to try to climb it.”
It begins Tuesday and requires a singular focus. Teams can’t win on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday without first getting a victory Tuesday.
UNC doesn’t generally appear at the ACC Tournament for pre-event practices or media availability, but that changed this time around and why not? The Heels got out of Chapel Hill at the outset of the week, got in a workout at the Coliseum on Monday and have already entered into postseason mode.
This week is their last lifeline, but that they still have won is all they care about, as second-team All-ACC forward Garrison Brooks said.
“Zero and zero,” he said. “We’ve got a chance to win it.”
