I guess it’s not too early to ask the question: Will Carolina make the NCAA Tournament this season?

The Tar Heels have missed the Big Dance only once in Roy Williams’ 11 years back in Chapel Hill, and while the current team is much better than the 2010 squad that went to the NIT final, several early season losses have already raised the question.

A disappointing defeat to then-unranked Butler in Nassau and a damaging home loss to Iowa have led to a 6-3 record after nine games, with UNCG in Greensboro Tuesday night and perhaps the most important non-conference game of the season against 12th-ranked Ohio State Saturday at the United Center in Chicago.

The Tar Heels did bounce back from Butler by knocking ranked UCLA and Florida out of the Top 25 to finish fifth in the Battle4Atlantis. And following a blowout of ECTC at home came what might be termed a “good loss” at No. 1 Kentucky because Carolina hung around with the best team in the country for much of the game.

After Ohio State are winnable (and must-win) home games against UAB and William & Mary before the rugged 18-game ACC schedule begins on January 3 at Clemson. That’s why the overall record by then needs to be 10-3 rather than 9-4. It is only a one-game difference, but doesn’t 10-3 sound so much better than 9-4?

College teams always want to have double-digit Ws by the time conference play opens. And the ACC has three teams in the top 10 (Duke, Louisville and Virginia) with Miami and Notre Dame joining UNC at the back end of the polls.

UNC’s home-and-home partners this year are Georgia Tech, Louisville, Duke and N.C. State. The road “singles” are at Clemson, Wake Forest, Boston College, Pitt and Miami, which means the Tar Heels do not give a return game to home opponents FSU, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and Virginia.

Dean Smith used to laugh when the late Jim Valvano said his goal was to finish 8-6 in the old 14-game ACC schedule. Smith was amused that Jimmy V was conceding six losses for his Wolfpack. So you will never catch Roy Williams saying his goal is to go 9-9 in league play but, realistically, that’s about what the Tar Heels have to do to get into the 2015 Big Dance.

Beating Ohio State, which has already lost to Louisville, would help the old RPI and mean the Heels defeated three teams that were ranked at the time, albeit all on neutral courts. Those wins are offset by the loss to Butler and the awful performance against Iowa at home. So call Carolina on the bubble right now.

The days of putting on a powder blue uniform and being a shoo-in for the NCAA Tournament are long gone due to the balance around the country and a drop-off in Tar Heel talent since their 2009 national championship team. There are no seniors among the current top ten players, which bodes better for next season than this one. And certainly, things have to improve for Carolina to not only earn an NCAA bid but to get one of the top 16 seeds.

Where’s Paige?

Right now, the biggest concern is how discombobulated pre-season ACC Player of the Year Marcus Paige looks while splitting time at point guard and on the wing. He is still the team’s scoring leader, although his average is down three points from last year, and while his shooting stats are about the same, Paige’s assists are also down from his career average to this point.

Paige did light it up versus Kentucky in the second half, draining four three pointers. But he’s having trouble getting the ball in open spaces, and Carolina needs him to score in both halves against the better competition that’s coming.

While the starting bigs are averaging 25 points a game and 16.4 rebounds between them, Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson have to play even bigger. They are both around the basket, getting their hands on a lot of 50-50 balls, but they don’t snag enough of them and neither finishes particularly strong. If they did, their shooting accuracy would be even higher than Meeks’ 62 percent and Johnson’s 51.

The two players who have to keep elevating their games are junior J.P. Tokoto and freshman Justin Jackson, who log the most minutes on the court behind Paige. The sky-walking Tokoto leads the team with 21 blocks, and Jackson possesses the all-around game to make him a star in the ACC someday.

On paper, that’s a pretty damn good starting five – Paige, Jackson, Tokoto, Johnson and Meeks – with solid minutes coming from Isaiah Hicks, Nate Britt, Theo Pinson and Joel James. It has the makings of a top 10 team, if the Tar Heels can keep their motors running for every minute they are on the court and cut down on turnovers and carelessly committing too many fouls.

State is 8-2 against a typically soft early season schedule and suffered a killer home loss to Wofford. Time is running out for the Wolfpack. The Tar Heels have more time left to prove their worth, but they had better make the most of it.