RALEIGH – Okay, we’ve already done the lunchpail thing. We’ve already done the hard hats deal, construction analogies, and all the Popeye spinach-chugging stuff, too.

In a way, North Carolina has been so good at the rugged, dig-deep-down stuff of late, we’re running out of clever ways to articulate and describe it. That’s a great thing for the Tar Heels and their fans, not such a positive for topic-starved sportswriters always clamoring for a new hook or angle on something.

But let’s be perfectly frank here: The only way to really outline another opponent-tangling, throat-stepping victory for the seventh-ranked Heels is to once again note how they stymied NC State to 27.3 percent shooting from the field, its worst such performance against the hated Heels since 1954.