CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Games come and go throughout the course of a basketball season, with some more memorable than others.
Fourth-ranked North Carolina's 83-60 victory over Boston College on Saturday likely will be one of the more forgotten battles of the campaign for UNC fans. After all, the Eagles came in with a 5-9 record and started five freshmen. There wasn't a compelling storyline leading up to this contest.
BC was hardly the kind of test that excites fans that have observed North Carolina's fabled past. At times it looked like the Tar Heels weren't all that enamored by being here, either. But this wasn't kin to the focus issues that plagued the Heels in November and that were a constant source of discussion in these parts last month. It was more a combination of the opponent, a dead crowd and that it always felt like the Tar Heels were much further ahead than they really were.
Plus, there was no way on earth BC was going to pull off the shocker. It just wasn't going to happen, and everyone in the building, aside from the small contingent from Chestnut Hill, knew it.
There was one segment, however, that some observers will try to link to Carolina's prior focus concerns when BC turned a 21-point second-half deficit into a 9-point margin. The Eagles got a few layups without much baby blue resistance, and they knocked down a couple of 3-pointers.
It was apparent that UNC (14-2, 1-0 ACC) had lost its concentration for several minutes.
"I would agree that's what it is, and I jumped on them pretty hard … ," said UNC coach Roy Williams, whose team drained 47 percent of their field goal attempts and grabbed only 12 offensive rebounds. "If I had to say, it was concentration, and in league play you have to be able to play the whole total game. You have to be able to do it for 40 minutes."
That's the thing, it didn't require 40 minutes to beat Patrick Heckmann, Dennis Clifford, Ryan Anderson and company, and the Tar Heels knew it. They also knew they had taken their collective feet off the pedal.
"I knew that we weren't playing very well and that was when we knew we had to get back to what we were doing and more focus," senior center Tyler Zeller said. "It's something that we had a few plays that went astray and they hit some shots. We have got to make sure that next game we don't let them go on that big of a run."
The next 15 ACC games will offer stiffer challenges than BC, though not every game will be more competitive. A rumble in the press room suggested that if UNC faced a better team, such as Tuesday's opponent, Miami, it could have been in trouble Saturday.
But that's not necessarily so. The Tar Heels probably would have been a tad sharper against a more highly regarded opponent. It's not that the Heels disrespected BC. They came out ready to play and did a lot of nice things, but they missed some shots that normally go in, and they may not have been as aggressive on the offensive glass as usual.
But the truth is, you can't expect a team to go full throttle every game, it's just not going to happen. In this case, the Tar Heels know they were the much better team, and in the backs of their minds it's not hard to imagine them fully believing they are the best team in the country, which they are.
Sometimes great teams know when they can collectively take a breath and when they need to push a bit harder. This club has figured that out over the last month, which is as important a development as Harrison Barnes finally displaying variation to his game. UNC won a conference opener by 23 points — that's not exactly a bad way to kick off ACC play.
"We were good at times during the day," Williams said. "We did some good things … For us, I thought there were moments when we really did some good things."
They did more than enough to win a game most of us will have to dig deep to recall when the calendars turn to March.
