David Glenn

In the modern history of the Carolina-Duke men’s basketball rivalry, going back to the 1980-81 season, there have been 27 games where the teams entered the matchup with truly lopsided reputations.

This year, with the ACC an 18-school monstrosity for the first time, only four bids to the Big Dance would be a truly unprecedented disaster.

Just two days after Duke’s 87-70 annihilation of UNC in Durham last Saturday, embattled Carolina coach Hubert Davis took the extraordinary step of admitting publicly that the Tar Heels’ current approach to men’s basketball is obsolete.

For decades, North Carolina basketball fans rarely had to contemplate the patterns and peculiarities of the NCAA Tournament bubble. Now, for the third time in the four-year tenure of UNC head coach Hubert Davis, such things matter a lot.

For the second time in four seasons, North Carolina basketball is in crisis mode. The Tar Heels, just 12-8 after falling 67-66 at Wake Forest on Tuesday, are in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the last three years.

RJ Davis, the most prolific 3-point shooter in North Carolina basketball history, needs to start making more 3-pointers. That may sound a bit strange, but it’s really that simple.

Just eight years ago, the Atlantic Coast Conference had perhaps the greatest collection of coaches in the history of a legendary basketball league that is now playing its 72nd season. Those days are over.