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CHAPEL HILL — Wake Forest rolled past rudderless Carolina on a telling night in the ACC.The defending champions are no more. The team we saw here Wednesday night bore no resemblance to anything we've seen in recent Wednesday nights in the Dean Dome. The Deacs won 82-69, and it should've been worse.

Roy Williams sat down in the end, tired of waving his arms and asking his team for more than it's capable of. A team believed to be a work in progress in December is a work in progress in January. And nothing Wednesday night suggested anything will be different in the months to come. There will be no April for the Tar Heels.

Wake Forest blew away a team without form, a team of apparent phenoms, a roiling mass of freshmen, not one distinguished from the other, not a point guard to run them, not a leader to lead them.

Will Graves, the junior from Greensboro, led the team in scoring again and might've even taken the role as this team's leader. As hard as that might be for Williams to swallow, he now realizes somebody has to take this team to another level.

There have been moments like this in Carolina history, a history that includes great waves of talent coming through here and great players to lead them. The history is dotted with teams left leaderless by mass evacuations of talent and teams built around single players. Carolina fans remember Billy Cunningham trying to drag the 1965 team along with him, Charlie Scott trying to carry the team in 1970, David Noel after the 2005 national championship.

There was talk that this team would form around senior Marcus Ginyard. But that hasn't happened. And this team, as it turns out, is no comparison to those built around Noel and Scott. No one thought Graves would be the leader of the team, either.

"It's time to bring it out," he said after the loss. "I've always played the back seat, and now it's time, not just for me but for Marcus and Deon (Thompson). The young guys are looking for someone. That's what I'm trying to bring to the table, and I know the seniors are too."

Williams said practice today will be one of the toughest of the season. He hinted that if one of his players doesn't step up as a leader, he'll do it himself.

"People here expect me to do a good job and work really hard, and I'm going to make sure they get it," he said. "The players have to come along. There's only so much I can do, yes. But they have to come along. I'm going to ask them if they want to keep playing, and if they don't want to we'll figure out something for them to do."

Graves said he'd be in the gym late today. He is most every day and has been since high school when he led Dudley to two straight state titles.

"He's a great kid," Dudley coach David Price said earlier Wednesday. "Those teams were like a family. We all got a long fine together. They looked up to William. He's a well-liked kid. And his teammates knew he worked hard, too. They watched him stay after practice working on his game, always shooting, always working. That meant a lot."

Price has watched Graves this season, and he sees those same qualities in a player known for his shooting but getting better in all aspects of his game on a team lacking aspects.

"You can tell Roy's been working him hard just watching him play, watching him off the ball and playing better defense," Price said. "And his shot has started to come around. He's always been a great shooter. I've seen him in practice when he just didn't miss. I was watching him a few games ago, and it seemed like every shot went in and came out. But then the other night (against Georgia Tech), it was back wasn't it?"

That was the game people looked at Graves for the first time and saw the state high school player of the year the Heels recruited four years ago. That was back before the nagging injuries, the battles for playing time against upperclassmen, the suspension from the team last year. Graves scored 24 against Tech, 22 coming in the second half of a rally that looked to be a turning point for a young team looking for a spark.

Then came Wednesday. The reeling Heels needed more than a spark against Wake, and Graves admitted as much afterward. He was his usual self, singing with the sound system during the breaks in play, looking around the quiet Dean Dome at the people and smiling at them.

He's a fun player on a team that's not having a lot of fun right now. Williams said he believes the team will learn to have fun again, but only if he lives through the season. Carolina lost its third straight game Wednesday night and fell to 1-3 in the ACC.

It's going to be a long season in Chapel Hill, but it's going to end a lot sooner than most seasons here.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com