1. North Carolina Is Not Good...
The No. 25 Tar Heels are 2-2, with victories over mighty Lipscomb (at home, by only 14) and Hofstra. To be fair, No. 15 Minnesota is now ranked and Vanderbilt is in the "Others receiving votes" category. That said, their defensive effort was pretty shoddy and they trailed for pretty much the entire second half in both games. Harrison Barnes went 4-for-24 in the two games combined, but it wasn't as if all the pieces were clicking around him—North Carolina had more turnovers than assists in each of those games. That's not the sign of a top-10 team.
2. ...And Neither Is the Rest of the ACC
The Tar Heels weren't the only ACC team to tumble this week. Virginia Tech dropped out of the poll after falling to No. 4 Kansas State. There's no shame in losing to the Wildcats in Manhattan because they're a good team—maybe even good enough to knock off the Blue Devils tomorrow in a "neutral" court showdown in Kansas City, Missouri (which might as well be Kansas for crowd-makeup purposes).
3. The Big Ten and Big 12 Are Big Time
Together, the two conferences account for three of the nation's top four teams with another at number six (No. 2 Michigan State and No. 3 Ohio State join Kansas State and No. 6 Kansas). But it doesn't stop at the top of those conferences—they combine to hold six of the next 14 spots as well, giving them literally half of the top-20. The Buckeyes' drubbing of Florida in Gainesville and No. 20 Texas's two-point loss to No. 5 Pittsburgh in Madison Square Garden both demonstrate that these conferences could be making noise in March as well as November.
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