North Carolina Is Back

#3 North Carolina 101, #5 Duke 87
I've called North Carolina the best team in the nation all season long, and I'm sticking with it. They may be thin without Graves, Ginyard and Zeller, but how can you argue that they don't have the best starting lineup in the country? And Ed Davis is a spectacular talent off the bench, as he has some of the best inside moves I've seen out of a freshman in a very long time. Duke actually led for much of the first half, but only because of unconscious three-point shooting. It was clear that they were going to be in trouble if they ever went cold, and they certainly went cold in the second half. They just are not as athletic or talented as North Carolina. The Tar Heels have grabbed sole possession of first place in the ACC for the first time all season, and are clearly in the driver's seat for a 1 seed. Duke, on the other hand, needs to find more offensive consistency, and they've got to find some defense from somebody. They aren't going to face a guard with the pace of Ty Lawson every night, but it was like his defenders were standing still as he tore through Duke's defense all night. Duke now has three losses in their last five games, and they're heading into a really tough game against a desperate Boston College team. Things could get worse before they get better for Duke.

North Carolina State 82, #6 Wake Forest 76
Speaking of slumping ACC teams, this now marks four losses for Wake Forest in their last six games. I just sense no urgency from this team, as they continue to come out very slow and expect to just make deficits up in the second half. They fought back from 20 points down in the second half all the way to only three in the final minute, but they gave themselves too much ground to make up. They've now fallen to 5-4 in the ACC with a really tough schedule to end the season. At some point this team will wake up to the fact that they're not playing with the fire that they were a few weeks ago, and that nobody can win a game in the ACC in February without great intensity from the opening tip, and at that point they'll start playing like the team that had that amazing four-game stretch to start 2009. But they're going to keep losing until they wake up to that reality.

LSU 97, Mississippi State 94, 2OT
A great game between two teams that really needed this win. Tasmin Mitchell led the way with 41 points as LSU moved to an SEC-best 8-1 record. The RPI is still only 43rd, and they're only 6-3 against the RPI Top 100, but they will likely earn their Tournament bid on conference record alone. As bad as the SEC is, it's impossible to see the Selection Committee turning away a 12-4 team. Mississippi State was another team hoping to earn a Tournament bid on SEC record alone, but that's going to get more difficult with this loss. They are now only 6-3, and the RPI has fallen to 79th as they have zero good wins and a number of bad losses (Charlotte and San Diego, among others). As there are no marquee wins to be had in the SEC, the only way that Mississippi State fights back into the Tournament will be if they can just grind out a whole lot of wins in a row. They're going to need a gaudy SEC record.