Saturday marked the pseudo-halfway point of the 2020-21 Carolina basketball season, and it's hard to know exactly how to view this particular team.
Carolina is 8-5 after 13 games, and has 13 games left on the ever-changing schedule, plus a home date with Clemson that can hopefully be rescheduled.
The Tar Heels are clearly better than last year's team. They've won three close games in the league, they have a youthful core that continues to get better, and they've made noticeable strides in key areas during the course of this season (better perimeter shooting, better care with the ball—with exceptions—in the last two games).