Photo by Todd Melet

Keeping pace week for Carolina basketball starts tonight.

Like a championship horse race, the Tar Heels are in the back stretch hoping to keep pace with the other contenders as they head for the finish line in February and early March. And they have every chance to keep the co-favorites in sight and slip by them at the end.

Right now, it is a four-team race for one of those top four spots in the ACC tourney that almost automatically comes with a high seed in the NCAA brackets. Duke, Virginia, Louisville and UNC all have a single loss in ACC play, and Roy Williams’ team faces a critical week that could keep it in position or drop it back in the race.

The Tar Heels are at Georgia Tech tonight, which looks more daunting after the Yellow Jackets frustrated Duke with a zone most of their game Saturday before the Blue Devils broke it open. And that Tech scored so effortlessly in the paint at times indicates other teams with better inside games have a real chance against the Dukies.

But Carolina must win tonight in Atlanta and also Saturday in the rematch with Louisville at the Yum Center. The Heels should beat the unsung Jackets and be highly motivated to avenge that comatose loss to the Cardinals, Williams’ worst at home as a head coach. Should they win both and return to Chapel Hill with a 7-1 conference record, they will reach the top of the stretch against State, Miami and Virginia over a six-day span that could turn this town crazy.

Duke, meanwhile, faces a return game with Virginia in Charlottesville after the Cavaliers will be tested by N.C. State in Raleigh. The Wahoos could show up in Chapel Hill on February 11 with two L’s, at least.

Louisville surely has losses in its future, with Carolina, Virginia Tech, FSU and Duke on the Cardinals schedule over the next two weeks, when the Tar Heels really have the best chance to be in first place in the ACC before they visit Duke on February 20.

After their two-game trip, they host State and Miami teams they have already beaten on the road. And their home game against Virginia has no return match in the regular season. So by continuing the kind of defense and shooting they showed against Virginia Tech and at Miami, it could be . . . down the stretch they come.

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