The ACC fun begins tonight and is set up just right for Carolina.

The Tar Heels’ first six conference games are against unranked teams, some with good records and some not so good against a range of opponents. With the ACC schedule trimmed to 18 games from 20, the true test of who is good and not so good starts now.

Florida State is one of three teams with 7-6 records heading into conference play, along with BC and Pitt. The Seminoles’ seven wins were all at home over mid majors under new coach and former player Luke Loucks, who succeeded Hall of Fame nominee Leonard Hamilton.

Their six losses were not close except for a two-pointer at 10th-ranked Florida in the ACC-SEC Challenge. Others were double-digit defeats to Texas A&M, No. 8 Houston, unranked Dayton and Georgia and by eight points to UMass.

The Heels are 14.5-point favorites over FSU, which has only two returnees, sophomores A.J. Swinton, Jalen Crawford and Alier Maluk, who averaged less than three points last season. Of their nine new players, only senior Chauncey Wiggins from Clemson is a Power 4 transfer. He started 26 games for the Tigers and averaged 8.3 points last season and is averaging 12 points so far in Tallahassee.

Carolina’s toughest ACC road tests of the first six games are at SMU (11-2) this Saturday and a two-game swing to Northern California next week at Stanford (11-2) and Cal (12-1). Who knows how good (or bad) any of those three conference newbies are this season?

UNC’s first three ACC home games against FSU and Wake Forest (9-4) next week and Notre Dame (9-4) on January 21 are likely to play into surpassing the program’s 500th win in the Smith Center. If the Tar Heels take care of the Noles for No. 499, the milestone victory could come against the Deacons on January 10 or the Fighting Irish on January 21.

Sweeping these next six games would put Hubert Davis’ fifth team at 18-1 before it goes to Virginia (currently 11-1 and ranked No. 21) on Saturday, January 24. The Cavaliers also have a new coach, Ryan Odom, son of former East Carolina, Wake Forest and South Carolina head coach Dave Odom.

Having such a strong start would give even more confidence to the 12th-ranked Tar Heels, who are getting rave reviews across the sport for having pieced together a lineup that has size, skill, enough speed and more depth than Hubert’s teams have had as a head coach.

The other two ranked ACC teams are No. 5 Duke (also 11-1) and No. 13 Louisville (10-2), leaving what was once the best college league with the fewest top 25s of the Power 4 conferences. The Tar Heels have home and home games against Duke and Syracuse, plus seven home and seven away against the rest of the league. It’s not the good old days, but this season it’s good for Carolina.

Featured image via Todd Melet

Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.

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