Is UNC better or worse than we thought?

UNC is coming off the heels of a massive win over Duke and are getting set to face off against Miami tonight. The Heels were able to accomplish a rare trifecta that they haven’t accomplished since the 80’s: they were able to beat Kansas Kentucky, and Duke in the same season. The jury is out on how good or bad Kentucky is — which, in my opinion, they’re not bad, they’re just not great either — but Kansas just beat No. 1 Arizona, and Duke has been in the top five for quite some time.

Having success over some of the tougher programs in the country has definitely created an interesting situation when evaluating this team. If someone asked a Carolina fan how they felt about this team after the SMU game for instance, they would say that things are really bad and that these guys couldn’t stop a nosebleed. Now? Well, they just stopped the eighth-best adjusted offense per KenPom from beating them in the Dean Dome. Even more notable is that the Blue Devils have the third-best adjusted defense.

With all of that said, our question for the day is a pretty simple one: is UNC better or worse than we thought they were? We would love to know your thoughts on this. There are solid arguments that can be made one way or another. It’s fair to believe that beating Duke doesn’t necessarily mean there was a huge jump, but also the counter to that would be that the Heels have tightened up a lot on defense over the last five games, though nobody would dare say that they are playing elite defense either.

Sound off in the comments below: do you think UNC is better or worse than we thought?