Now the real season begins.
After Carolina's 72-64 victory over Boston College on Tuesday night, the Tar Heels are 13-6 and 5-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But those numbers mean very little, because the primary verdict about the Tar Heel season will be shaped in the upcoming weeks.
Of the eight ACC games so far, five have come against the bottom five teams in the league. Two of the losses have come without potential conference Player of the Year Armando Bacot. It's mid-January, and you could coherently either make an argument that the Tar Heels might win the league…or might finish anywhere in the top half.