CHARLOTTE – Make no mistake about it, the Tar Heels knew their game versus No. 7 Oklahoma on Wednesday night was about a lot more than just facing an unbeaten top-10 team.

That, in and of itself, gave the game a lot of juice, but so did the lasting significance of what a win could do for a North Carolina team that won 20 games last season but missed the NCAA Tournament because it didn’t win games like this.

So, UNC’s 81-69 victory was a landscape-shifting triumph that should make its nervous fan base rest a bit easier, while fueling the team with needed confidence that once one wall is scaled, the next one becomes more doable. That’s the importance of the win for Carolina.

“Going into this game, we knew it was a must win,” veteran forward Armando Bacot said after the game inside Spectrum Center. “Undefeated team, it’s one of those big wins we need to get into the tournament. So, we definitely came into the game with a sense of urgency.”

The victory gave the Heels two over teams ranked among the top 10, with them leading from start to finish in both. Of UNC’s eight victories, those are the only two games in which it never trailed.

The Heels scored 61 first-half points against the Volunteers last month, and forced the Sooners to play well out of character in the Jumpman Invitational. UNC forced 18 turnovers leading to 24 points, blocked six shots, and held Oklahoma to more than 10 percentage points below its averaging shooting performance.

This was an eye-opening win from an aesthetic standpoint, and an NCAA resume one.

“We’re proud that we got this win tonight,” graduate guard Cormac Ryan said. "This was a big win for us. This is a good team, a team that we had a lot of respect for. These are the games you’ve got to win, and hopefully that’ll help us come March.”

With the current, and no less flawed, system used by the NCAA being what it is, teams like North Carolina are wise to snatch a few Quad 1 victories to enhance their chances at reaching the big dance. UNC had just one a year ago, thus it was snubbed.

The win over Oklahoma gave Carolina its second Quad 1 victory this season. However, just because Tennessee and Oklahoma were Quad 1 wins when the Heels beat them doesn’t mean they will stay that way. The selection committee pays zero attention to where teams are ranked in any fashion when the games are played, it only matters where teams are on selection weekend.

So, as long as Tennessee remains in the top 30 of the NET, because it was a home game for the Heels, and the Sooners remain in the top 50, as it was a neutral site contest, Carolina will have two Q1 wins on its resume. At least.

That is why some observers believe Wednesday was a must-win game for the Heels.

“It’s no secret that this was a great opportunity for us,” Ryan said. “You can talk about resume, you can talk about the NCAA Tournament. But the reality is we had a good team in front of us that we wanted to beat, and we seized that opportunity.”

Carolina has now seized such an opportunity twice.