North Carolina Doing Just Fine Without Those Nba Youngsters

The window of opportunity is closing fast. Beat up on North Carolina? Not in this time warp.

All the speculation that the Tar Heels would take their lumps this season is proving to be nothing more than wishful thinking. They were 6-1 going into last night’s game against Dartmouth, and it has not been against a patsy schedule filled with, well, Dartmouths.

They have wins over Vanderbilt and Stanford and Georgia. Their only loss was a two-pointer to Villanova.

Carolina lost Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace to the NBA, and just like that found itself picked fourth in the preseason Atlantic Coast Conference media poll. Time warp? The last time the Heels finished worse than third was 1965.

They started the season ranked 20th in the AP poll. Four weeks later, they’re up to No. 10. What’s intriguing is the way they’re winning. Carolina has three freshmen and only one senior in its top seven. And it uses a lot of 1-3-1 zone defense.

But the bottom line looks very familiar. The Heels are tough on defense, holding the opposition to 39 percent shooting. They’re patient on offense, hitting 49.6 percent. They have strong veteran leadership in point guard Jeff McInnis (18 ppg, 6.7 assists) and small forward Dante Calabria (16.4 ppg, 22 for 44 from the arc). And they have 7-foot-2 Serge Zwikker as the last line of defense.

When Carolina barely held off Richmond, 83-76, last month, a distraught Calabria - the lone senior - said he considered it almost like a loss. Coincidence or not, Carolina won the next three games by 18, 24 and 11 points.

It’s obvious the Heels can hardly afford a major injury. At some point, Antawn Jamison (14.1 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 62 percent shooting), Ademola Okalaja (6.7 ppg) and Vince Carter (9.3 ppg) probably will look more like the freshmen they are.

But this is still Carolina and it’s still Dean Smith (he’s 40 wins behind Adolph Rupp’s all-time record of 876). Smith’s teams have won at least 21 games each of the past 25 seasons.

In a year when the Atlantic Coast Conference appears more balanced than ever, it would be rich irony if a “down” Carolina team turned out to be the winner.