It wasn't supposed to be like this for the Tar Heels.
North Carolina entered the season with a new coach, a healthy center, the ACC preseason player of the year and a new attitude.
Endowed with a lofty No. 10 preseason ranking, the Heels had a huge bandwagon of believers expecting them to win it all. Even bracketology demi-god Joe Lunardi jumped on, pegging North Carolina as his preseason championship pick.
Things started to fall apart in North Carolina's ACC opener, however, when a visiting Wake Forest team knocked off the Tar Heels in a triple-overtime thriller. As late as three weeks ago, the Tar Heels were below .500 in ACC play. When the smoke cleared, North Carolina had ten losses and people began to figure that head coach Roy Williams was right when he said "Ol' Roy ain't that good."
Yet a closer look shows that the Tar Heels have not disappointed this year. Of their ten losses, eight of them were nailbiters. One of the other losses, an 81-72 decision to Clemson, came courtesy of one of the season's best three-point shooting displays by one of the teams least expected to deliver it. The other loss, an 88-77 decision to Georgia Tech, came when the Tar Heels shot better from the field (48 percent) than from the charity stripe (47 percent).
Outside of that, all the Tar Heels have done is knock off then-No. 1 Connecticut, beat the Big Ten runner-up on a neutral court, and hand the ACC regular season runner-up N.C. State Wolfpack its first homecourt loss of the season.
Speaking of the Wolfpack, ESPN.com's Page 2 got into the spirit of March Madness this week by paying tribute to the sixth-seeded national championship 1983 N.C. State Wolfpack team as part of an article honoring the tournament's greatest Cinderella stories.
Isn't that where the Tar Heels are seeded this year?
North Carolina has proven that it can play David as well as Goliath, reaching the 2000 Final Four as an eight seed. This Tar Heels team arguably has more talent, boasting the ACC's best scorer, rebounder and assist man. After all, there's a reason Dick Vitale harped on the Heels as having the "best starting five in America" for half the season.
North Carolina certainly has the talent to make the run, and its case only gets stronger with the fact that its first-round opponent, Air Force, is one of the weakest at-large bids in tournament history.
Combine that with a favorable road to San Antonio out of the South, and the natural motivation that will come from playing in the same bracket as a hated rival, and you have all the makings of a possible Final Four run.
"We are awfully close to having a magical year," Williams said at a recent press conference.
If Ol' Roy turns out to be as good as expected, the year may yet have a few tricks left for the Tar Heels.
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