UNC must maintain focus in ACC tournament

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said Saturday night after his team was dismantled by North Carolina that everybody is zero and zero now, signaling that the postseason is a new start for every team in America.

There's no doubt the Hall of Fame coach is right, but that doesn't mean every team can take a deep breath and feel like it needs to start over. Rather the contrary when it comes to North Carolina.

The Tar Heels are rolling. They are in a zone only few teams a year can realistically dream about entering. It's taken Roy Williams nearly five months to get his team there and he'd be a fool to allow anything to derail the mental fortitude fueling his team.

"We can't let up now," UNC sophomore and leading scorer Harrison Barnes said. "We're in a good place, we have a good vibe and we need to keep that going."

A year ago, the Tar Heels closed strong and captured the ACC regular season title by beating Duke on the last day of the season and then waltzed into the ACC Tournament with an almost laissez-faire attitude. UNC won two close games before getting drubbed by the Blue Devils in the title game.

Carolina rolled into a regional final where it wasn't sharp enough late to beat Kentucky.

It's fair to suggest that after the Tar Heels turned down the spigots before the ACC Tournament they couldn't get them back up to the speed, power and authority that carried them to a first-place finish in the ACC.

For a team that is using previous shortcomings and embarrassments to fuel their continued ascent, this should find its way into the gas tank, too.

"Yeah, this is what we play for," said senior center Tyler Zeller, one of two Heels who were on the 2009 NCAA championship team. "A lot of teams play the whole season to be able to get in the NCAA Tournament and then try to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. So it's something we all look forward to and it's a fun time of the year. It's one of those times you actually get time to prepare, you get time to kind of get your legs back, and then you just have to play the best you can play."

UNC's best might surpass any other team in the country, including Kentucky and Syracuse, each of which has just a single defeat on their resumes. Kentucky, by the way, beat Carolina at home in early December by just one point when freshman Anthony Davis blocked a jumper by UNC's John Henson at the buzzer.

That is one of those moments driving the fourth-ranked Tar Heels (27-4), and no doubt they'd love to get a shot at the top-ranked Wildcats down the road. But first they must meet the tasks at hand.

There isn't any guarantee UNC and UK will meet up in the Big Dance, and that likelihood will be seriously decreased if the Tar Heels don't maintain their focus this weekend in Atlanta and take care of business. At stake isn't just keeping the train running, but a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, too.

This is vital to UNC because if Carolina is a two seed in the East it likely means having to beat Syracuse in Boston to get to the Final Four in New Orleans. If UNC is the two seed in the South it probably means facing Kentucky in Wildcat-friendly Atlanta. If UNC is sent to the Midwest as the two seed, it could mean Williams having to beat Kansas in a regional final in St. Louis. UNC fans have seen that play before, and they probably want none of it.

UNC may have to beat two of those teams to win it all anyway, but it's odds are better doing so in New Orleans. So a top seed, likely in the West, is what the Heels should be shooting for but that can't be achieved if Carolina treats the ACC Tournament like the cocktail party its coach has called it in the past.

Atlanta isn't a new start for North Carolina; it should be a continuum of how this team is currently playing. That is UNC's best approach to winning nine more games and cutting down the nets in the Big Easy.