14. North Carolina (14-2)
The Tar Heels seem to be in this weird in between space so far this season. Nobody is really looking at North Carolina as this big national contender despite a solid start to the year, perhaps thanks to last weekend’s tough loss at SMU. On the other hand, this team has the talent to win important games and proved that against Kansas and Kentucky and just might be built for the long haul of ACC play.
They were on the court just once this past week and you wouldn’t exactly call it a banner effort. Regardless, North Carolina found a way to pull out an 87-84 win at home against Wake Forest. Henri Veesaar continued his brilliant season with 25 points and 9 rebounds while Caleb Wilson also starred with 22 points and 12 rebounds against the Demon Deacons.
The work from Veesaar and Wilson has been impressive this season and those two are the principle reason why the Tar Heels are in this position with 14 wins. The defense hasn’t exactly been keying most of these victories recently but as long as those two are playing great ball then North Carolina has a chance in this thrilling ACC. They’ll head west to face Stanford and California and hope to return to Chapel Hill with two more wins.