CHAPEL HILL – Brady Manek doesn’t just look like the oldest player on North Carolina’s basketball team, he is the oldest Tar Heel on the squad.

He has played in more college basketball games (127 with 112 starts) than any of his teammates, and he has logged considerably more minutes (3,412) on the court, too. Manek, who turned 23 in September, is UNC’s elder statesman, and Tuesday night, that role took a new twist, one that it appears the Heels needed.

At least this was the first public intro to Manek’s drop-dead brutal honesty, in which the conventional wisdom among those keenly tuned into UNC’s first six games must have found refreshing and needed.