news-record.com

Take a hard look at No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Wake Forest.

Did you find a weakness? A tiny crack, a small flaw, a slight imperfection -- anything that could tip the scales one way or the other come Sunday night.

Truth is, neither team holds a huge advantage over the other.

"You look at the stats and it's eerie how close these teams look," Carolina coach Roy Williams says.

And so two teams with similar records and similar talent playing similar styles will meet Sunday at Joel Coliseum. Three keys could make a difference amid all that similarity:

Defending North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough

Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio has a brief description of North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough (22.9 ppg, 7.2 rpg).

"Tyler is the best post player in the country," Gaudio says, pausing for effect. "There's nobody better."

So how do you stop him? The short answer is you don't. But you can gang up on him and try to make him shoot from farther away.

Look for Wake's Chas McFarland, Tony Woods and David Weaver to take turns defending the 6-foot-9 consensus All-American.

"We'll have an initial plan and a backup plan," Gaudio says. "He's really a handful. You'd better try to not allow him to establish depth on his post-ups. When he gets deep in the lane, you can't stop him."

Slowing Wake Forest's Jeff Teague

Williams calls Joel Coliseum "a great environment" for college basketball. But he says he's never understood the significance of the motorcycle that roars onto the floor during pregame.

"I'll tell you one thing," Williams says, "I don't think that guy could ride that motorcycle any faster than (Jeff) Teague and Ish (Smith) can run the floor. And I know it couldn't stop as fast as those guys."

A 6-foot-2 sophomore point guard, Teague (19.6 ppg, 4.1 apg) has emerged as Wake's leading scorer. Williams says slowing him is crucial.

"Teague might be playing as well as anyone in our conference right now," the UNC coach says.

Tar Heels bench vs. Demon Deacons bench

Of the 10 players likely to start Sunday night, only one -- Wake's L.D. Williams -- averages fewer than 10 points per game. And he averages 9.2.

So the game could come down to two of college basketball's deepest benches.

"Our sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth guys are going to have to step up and be better than their sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth guys," North Carolina shooting guard Wayne Ellington says.

Carolina's Ed Davis (7.5 ppg) leads the reserves in scoring, but Wake's bench includes two former starters -- senior guard Harvey Hale and junior guard Ish Smith.

"You've got a point guard (Smith) who set the ACC tournament record for assists with 15 two years ago," Gaudio says, "and now he's coming off the bench. That's pretty luxurious."