Soft Heels must toughen up

WINSTON-SALEM -- One way or another, North Carolina's basketball season was defined Sunday night, and that's not to say Wake Forest isn't the best team in the college gym.

It's entirely possible, at this point, that the Deacons are just flat-out, plain better than the Tar Heels. Certainly, that conclusion is there to be drawn from Wake's emphatic 92-89 win in Joel Coliseum.

What is certain is the Tar Heels, listed as nine-point favorites entering the game but now 0-2 in the ACC, are a far cry from the monolithic power that almost everyone envisioned before the season.

The Heels, without Marcus Ginyard on the floor to set a competitive tempo, are soft. They're soft on defense, particularly in the middle of the court, and they're soft on the perimeter. Point guard Ty Lawson is playing like a ninth-grader, and wing guard Wayne Ellington is looking for his shot a lot more than he's looking for his man to defend.

The summation of Carolina's status was as evident as the final stats. Wake guard Jeff Teague, working mostly against Lawson, had 34 points, four assists and six rebounds. Lawson had a comfortable bus ride to Winston-Salem.

By night's end, the outcome was the ultimate guessing game. Do you throw rocks at the Heels or kisses at the Deacs?

Likely, it's a little of each.

The Tar Heels, with 14 games remaining in the regular season, aren't as good as the team that last season reached the NCAA Final Four.

In that regard, Roy Williams is facing the most difficult coaching challenge of his tenure in Chapel Hill. And make no mistake, it's up to Williams to get this mess solved. The guy is an excellent coach, but it's going to take excellent coaching to get his team back on line.

Until the Heels can defend in the middle of the court and greet perimeter quickness with equal quickness, nothing can be taken for granted, not even Thursday's trip to Virginia or Saturday's game against Miami in the Smith Center.

Here's the bottom line: Lawson and Ellington, combined, were outplayed by one man, Teague. That should never, ever happen at UNC.

But since it did -- and with relative ease -- there's no justice in blaming one side without crediting the other.

Wake, 1-0 in the conference and 14-0 overall, is a remarkable combination of spirit, speed, and mid-court splendor. Teague, a sophomore, is miles ahead of the more acclaimed duet of Lawson and Ellington.

It doesn't end there, either. At least on Sunday, Chas McFarland was a better low-post performer on both ends of the court than Tyler Hansbrough.

Wake is playing with direction and incentive at a stage of the season when Carolina is playing like a team that looks like it has been given a bye into the Final Four.

Collectively, the Heels are a team with a lot of problems that Williams will ultimately have to resolve.

But the ball is squarely in Roy's court. If his team can't learn and respond to these successive ACC losses to Boston College and Wake, it's going to a long painful trek to Atlanta and the onset of postseason. The Heels are either going to respond or retreat. The next couple of weeks will tell.

On the flip side, the Deacons are a team with a lot of answers. Based on Sunday and based on mid-January, they are the best team in the ACC. Duke could argue that point. Carolina, for now, can't.