Heels cruising through conference

The Tar Heels overcome personnel losses, a shallow bench and poor shooting to get back to the top of the ACC after a 0-2 start in the league. Now, UNC may get Tyler Zeller back Wednesday

CORAL GABLES, FLA. — Was it really only a month ago that North Carolina was wondering how to dig its way out of an 0-2 ACC hole?

After a 69-65 victory at Miami on Sunday night, the third-ranked Tar Heels now are shoveling dirt over the rest of the league.

With five games left in the regular season, UNC (23-2, 9-2 ACC) now holds a two-game stranglehold over second-place Duke (7-4 ACC), which lost at Boston College on Sunday — and at least a 2 1/2-game lead over everyone else.

In addition, coach Roy Williams said during his Monday night radio show he “would not be surprised if Tyler [Zeller] did play Wednesday night against North Carolina State,” according to Insidecarolina.com. The return of the freshman 7-footer, who was expected to redshirt after a wrist injury, would add depth to a bench that could use it.

How much he would be able to contribute remains in question. But after a stunning home loss to Boston College and a stumble at Wake Forest in January, the Tar Heels find themselves back to where everyone anticipated they would be — on the inside track to the top seed in the ACC Tournament and an NCAA Tournament berth in nearby Greensboro as a No. 1 seed.

“We just refocused ourselves, took a different approach to every game,” shooting guard Wayne Ellington said. “When we started out 0-2, we knew that it was a marathon, and if we took care of ourselves, we’d be fine.

Ellington insisted there haven’t been huge changes within the team, but subtle ones have made an impact:

* Point guard Ty Lawson, after being totally outplayed by BC’s Tyrese Rice and Wake’s Jeff Teague in the two losses, has played more aggressively. With his winning 3-pointer at Florida State, his 21-point second half at Duke and a key 21-point performance at Miami, he has played himself into league player-of-the-year consideration. When he’s driving to the basket and connecting from the outside, Lawson and UNC are hard to beat.

* With the notable exception of its win over Virginia, UNC has shot better. That point holds especially true for Ellington, who made only four of his 14 3-pointers in the two losses. In his past eight games, he buried 27 shots from behind the arc.

* The 0-2 start in league play became a wake-up call that opponents were going to bring their best every game. As Williams would say, the Tar Heels could not afford to “tiptoe through the tulips” and learned the hard way to take every opponent seriously.

“I think we let up a little bit [in the two losses],” Lawson said. “Everybody was talking about how we were the best team and stuff like that … We were thinking we were playing real well and let teams sneak up on us.”

The players insist they won’t let that happen again, especially after hearing about the weekend upsets of Duke and Clemson. To that end, the Tar Heels still need to work on two particular areas:

* PERIMETER DEFENSE: Miami senior Jack McClinton (35 points) became the third guard this year to light up Carolina for 30 points or more, showing again how much UNC misses stopper Marcus Ginyard, who is out for the season with a foot injury.

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