ACC Tournament 2012: UNC Must Maintain Momentum With Tourney Championship

A lot of the buzz entering the various conference tournaments this year has been the run UConn went on last season, winning five conference tournament games and 11 in a row overall en route to a national championship.

The moral of the story?

Momentum can go a long way. It's a message the North Carolina Tar Heels should pay very close attention to as they approach the ACC Tournament.

You can make an argument that only Kentucky and Syracuse have been better than UNC since the team was absolutely crushed by Florida State on January 14th, 90-57.

They're 13-1 since that mark and the only loss came against Duke at the hands of an Austin Rivers' buzzer-beater. They manhandled Duke when the two teams met to finish the season, and the only other contest they were in danger of losing in that stretch was a 54-51 win over Virginia in late February.

They're hitting the ACC Tournament with a lot of momentum. They need to keep it.

As Robbi Pickeral of ESPN noted, the win over Duke was the culmination of North Carolina's growth this season:

"

In beating the Blue Devils (26-5, 13-3 ACC) by their largest margin at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 1989, the Tar Heels (27-4, 14-2) showed what they had learned from their previous four losses:

- How to dictate tempo and energy (via UNLV and FSU).

- How to keep a lead after building one (via Kentucky and Duke the first time).

"

North Carolina has figured it out, in other words. They've put everything together. They understand how to be one of the truly elite teams in this nation and proved why they are capable of beating anyone in the nation.

They don't want to undo that momentum in the ACC Tournament.

North Carolina might not need to win the conference tourney to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but maintaining their level of play would make them scary come tournament time.

Would you want to face a team with Carolina's talent on a 16-1 run in the tournament?

I didn't think so.

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