CHAPEL HILL – Class was in session for North Carolina on Monday night.

Night school. And a lot was learned, so the Tar Heels say.

The season opener against Elon looked at times as if Carolina was primed to run away and hide from the Phoenix. Breathtaking in transition, crisp in the halfcourt, and once they kicked it up a bit, intense and irritating on defense.

Only the Tar Heels’ bouts of beauty were also regularly met with tours of ugliness. It led to a game in which UNC didn’t pull away for good for the 90-76 win until the last several minutes after finding itself trailing following a 14-0 Elon run that revealed every wart that Tar Heels could possibly have.

To be clear, this was a November 4 basketball game 52 weeks to the day after the Heels beat Radford by only 16 points in last season’s opener. That club went on to win the ACC regular season and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

So, swat away the overreactions. Dismiss them into a wastebasket. Get grounded in the reality that was actually good for the Heels. Not playing well for much of the night isn’t prescribed, but Hubert Davis’ team will have a field day combing over the film from this game.

They will see the good stuff, and there was plenty of that. But they will harp on the bad stuff, as there was plenty of that, too.

Defensively, the Heels weren’t nearly as dialed-in as was necessary. They only won the rebounding battle by three. They missed 12 of 21 attempted layups and three of seven attempted dunks, and there was an ebb and flow to their on-court passion that at times uninspiring.