CHAPEL HILL – Believe it or not, North Carolina is flying under the radar in a big way.

The Tar Heels are far from perfect and haven’t fared all that well in some of their highest profile games. But they’ve also won a few in impressive fashion, are ranked eighth in the nation and it still says “North Carolina” on their chests.

They’re a serious Final Four contender, and perhaps more.

What’s going on down the street, however, has generated national attention to a level not seen since perhaps Michigan’s Fab Five dominated headlines 27 years ago. That’s not an overstatement and it’s helped cast a massive shadow over anything the Tar Heels have done.

Duke has been the IT team in college basketball since Nov. 6 when the Blue Devils trounced then-No. 2 Kentucky and freshman Zion Williamson has been the IT player. He was so impressive exploding on the Wildcats that night his legend started growing and it hasn’t stopped.

At 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds, Williamson is a phenomenon, almost an anomaly, and the program he plays for has been fashioned as the New York Yankees of college basketball, a notion widely accepted within the sport for the last two decades, though perhaps not in Chapel Hill.

To many, though, the college game this season begins and ends in Durham, which is where the Tar Heels will be Wednesday night as the greatest rivalry in the sport stages its next edition. But as much respect as UNC has for Williamson and this Duke team, it’s just one of many outstanding clubs the program has fielded.

“They’ve been pretty good for a long time,” Carolina Coach Roy Williams said Monday during a press conference advancing this week’s game. “Wendell Carter, Marvin Bagley, those guys were all pretty good, too. Zion’s a different bird, there’s no question about that.

“We tried to recruit him very, very hard. He’s got a combination of skill set that I’ve never seen before and gets a lot of attention, but he deserves it. He’s backed it up.”

Sitting at 23-2 overall and 11-1 in the ACC, the Blue Devils have also backed it up. Williamson is averaging 22.4 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.3 steals, 1.9 blocks and could well end up as the ACC and National Player of the Year. Oh, and there’s fellow freshmen R.J. Barrett, who actually leads the Devils with 22.7 points per outing.

Another newbie, point guard Tre Jones, is considered by many the nation’s top defensive point guard and to whom Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski has described as the team’s most important player.

Every game the Blue Devils play garners front-page treatment on ESPN.com. Stories written about what rappers watched Duke in person and what the players thought about them being there are on national sites’ front pages for several days after those games are played.

Tune into a college game broadcast from anywhere in the nation and the announcers will eventually mention Duke and “Zion.” Carolina? Not so much.

“They deserve it,” UNC senior Luke Maye said. “They’ve got a lot of great players, they’ve gotten a lot of great recognition coming out of high school and I think they’ve done a really good job of playing well so far this season.”

Taking advantage of the fervor, Duke even staged a two-hour public autograph session for the players in late December. One in-state newspaper ran the following headline advancing the event for a piece that was just 95 words: Want an autograph from Duke's Zion Williamson? Here's how to get it.

“Everybody kind of likes the new things that come in and their guys are big-time players,” UNC senior Cameron Johnson said. “We know what we’re capable of, we think we’re a good team – great team at the end of the day – and it’s just on us to go out there and prove it.”

The Tar Heels are pretty good. They’re 20-5 overall, 10-2 in the ACC and they own a resounding victory over the only team (Gonzaga) to defeat Duke when the Blue Devils were at full strength.

They’ve scored 100-plus points in wins over the current No. 2 Gonzaga and No. 20 Virginia Tech (when it was No. 10) teams plus NCAA Tournament-bound N.C. State, among others.

The Heels say they don’t really pay attention to the hype showering their fiercest rivals on a daily basis, but it has to fuel them some, right?

“Yeah, definitely,” Johnson replied. “It’s hard to miss the hype they get because it’s all over the place, but we don’t pay attention to it and we go about our own business and are really confident in the group that we have.”

Maye agrees.

“At the end of the day, we’re not too worried about what other people are saying,” he said. “We’re just focused on our team and our guys and how we’re going to come out there and play.”

There’s a theory advanced in some circles that this UNC-Duke game doesn’t have the same cachet as it typically does because of the Devils’ perceived superiority. Yet, Williams has been around enough of these games to know that great players and teams have come and gone – five since his return to UNC ended up winning national titles and eight have reached a Final Four – but the constant is the rivalry itself.

So even with Duke soaked in national attention while the Tar Heels lurk in the corner, the rivalry is still the rivalry.

“It’s up there in the stratosphere,” he said about Duke’s notoriety. “But it’s still Duke and North Carolina, also. It’s pretty high all the time.”